Do you shoot AdobeRGB?

I have used the standard color setting for three years with canons and I always do a custom white balance. The color have been great. Then about a month ago I switched to abobe RGB and the skin tones on my subjects became very dull and almost mud colored. I have switched back to standard RGB AKA srgb and my color quality is back. I found this strange because supposedly the adobe color space is much larger so I thought the images would become that much more vibrant. For me that was not the case unfortunately.

This is my point. Testing takes you to a place where you know for sure. Asking is great. Testing is better. Simply call your printer to ask. Most likely they will tell you sRGB! Again, if you shoot specialized work that requires AdobeRGB, of course you should go with it. However, on a normal daily shoot for most of us sRGB is a better method to avoid the dull muddy colors that result from conversion. There is nothing gained and you end up tweaking the image again.

mwinog2777 wrote:
Check this out for best advice how to set up camera:

http://www.cps.canon-europe.com …ducts/eos10D/se​ttings.jsp

I wouldn't necessarily call it the "best advice" on how to set up a camera. I would call it a good guideline for starting out with if you don't know what the different options do.

Case in point, if I want to shoot RAW, why would I want to set the camera to Large/Jpeg?

Case in point, if I live in Europe, why would I want to set the video to NTSC?

You must have been sending Adobe RGB color data to a printer, monitor and/or image editing application that was expecting sRGB. When you change from an sRGB to Adobe RGB, you have to adjust your workflow.

For example, if you're working with JPEGs, the images will come out of the camera as untagged and have to be assigned the Adobe RGB profile. In Photoshop, you have to change your RGB color working space to Adobe RGB. When you print, you may have to embed the Adobe RGB ICC profile in the image. And so on...

"Dull skin tones" is a classic tip off that there may be a color profile mismatch somewhere in the workflow.

Did you see the note at the bottom of p. 58 (10D) or p. 55 (DRebel) regarding the AdobeRGB, ICC profile, the image you get using it, etc.?

Cordell,

Is your point that working in Adobe RGB requires more knowledge on your part about color management?

If you are working in Photoshop using the sRGB color space, you only have to configure a few color management options differently to change to Adobe RGB. Once done, your Adobe RGB colors will look the same or better compared to sRGB.

If you have to convert an image from Adobe RGB to sRGB to send to your local printer or to your favorite web hosting site, make a copy and then do the conversion in PS. The colors will NOT be dull.

If you are not working with color managed image editing applications, you may be better off avoiding Adobe RGB.

My limited experience with printshops and online printing services is that they are very rigid. They aim for predictability and are more likely to ask you to conform to their constrained working conditions then adapt to yours. I've always felt that I should try to understand their constraints and not impose the same on myself.

Yes Woody, I've always worked in a color managed environment (PS CS and C1 Pro) including monitors, printers, etc. Not that AdobeRGB requires any additional work on the part of the photographer in terms of process, but the image ends up converted on the end of the printer back to sRGB. Now depending on the type of image and the colors within it you can have color shifts. If it is something extremely critical and judged by an eagle eye you may have slight issues on your hand.

All I am saying is talk to a knowledgable experienced print master. Both AdobeRGB and sRGB can give you great results, BUT in most cases there is nothing gained by using AdobeRGB over sRGB. Considering that many print shops ask for the image in sRGB is a bit obvious to me. I actually don't know of any that ask or accept AdobeRGB without charging a fee. My guess is they charge you a fee because they will end up converting.

Here is a contact who can assist. Of course if you see what you want in one image over another that is the best one for you.

steve@pechmanimaging.c​om 317-271-3480 800-777-0221

Steve has worked both ends of the spectrum from capturing the shot to printing the images in their print facility. Now I've only talk to Steve about this issue. I then talked with two other print shops (White House Custom Colors and a small local shop who prints digital images) and confirmed what Steve said. Before all of this though I did try AdobeRGB and did not see any gain in it. But that was my findings. Your could very well be better.

Cordell

WOW thanks. I actually asked this cause I haven't used my 70-200 too much lately, but on the last occasions it did see action, my images came out with a very gray cast. Like fog. Usually it was easily corrected with auto-levels, or one some occasions, manually setting the levels for best results. it happens on my 50mm prime too, but not nearly to the same extent. The results still get very good after I correct levels, but sure, I loose information and gain some grain on the process, and that's unwanted stuff..

I've always used AdobeRGB in the camera, but can never remember my zoom giving so bad results as I've seen lately (as said, quite a time since I used it now). But when thinking back, I've ditched Photoshop in favor of Gimp since the last time I did any serious action with the 70-200 zoom. And Gimp doesn't complain, when opening AdobeRGB, but neither does it have an option for changing colour-modes (only between rgb, grayscale, index). I think I fire up photoshop and see if the images turn out the same, or there are a difference. Cause either my camera or zoom-lens have run into some serious trouble now (hopefully not), or I have to revert it back to sRGB, even though I loose some info, I definetly don't loose as much as this "gray-haze" problem is causing me..

Nope, Photoshop displays my AdobeRGB files the same way, so it's not a problem with Gimp not coping with AdobeRGB. Then I believe my recent shots with this lens have had some serious whitebalance-problems... I always use AWB.. Well aware that's not the best thing, but at least it's seldom "way off", ass I will risk by setting a Kelvin-value manual. What's your experience with forcing whitebalance-stuff like "daylight"? Does this really work great in daylight, or do you manually set it either from a image on the card, or in the kelvin-scale?

My main interest in this thread was not on debating the merits of sRGB vs. Adobe RGB. I simply pointed out earlier in the thread that "dull" and "washed out" colors arise when you feed Adobe RGB image data (say from your camera) to an sRGB device (say your monitor) without making the proper conversion.

sRGB is fundamentally designed as a standardized working color space for average RGB monitors. sRGB omits saturated colors printable by desktop inkjets and by printing presses whereas Adobe RGB does not. I agree with you that if you don't plan to try and take advantage of the expanded color gamut - or you can't see the difference - then don't bother with Adobe RGB.

As you note, editing images in Adobe RGB is not inherently more difficult (some argue that it is easier). The only issue is that you have may have to convert the image to other color spaces for web viewing, photography reproduction services, or industry printshops.

When Sports Illustrated calls you to put YOUR pic on the front cover, they'll want your Adobe RGB version - http://www.siphoto.com​/?canon10D.inc

Here's a link to a straightforward presentation on working in different color spaces when preparing work for printing: http://www.promarketin​c.com …l/mr_colorspace​s_pt1.html

I'm signing off on this thread. Thanks for your thoughts.

vvizard,

I've been using 5200K as my white balance setting for a little while know to see whether this would help. My shooting is mostly outdoors often with fill flash. My feeling (without being real systematic) is that using this fixed WB has actually reduced the amount of WB adjustments I make in C1.

I'd so give it a try - there's nothing really to lose by it anyway.

Regards,

Since I do all my own print I cannot speak with any direct experience of commercial printers. My printers are capable of printing colours outside sRGB and even outside Adobe RGB. So I prefer to work with Prophoto RGB as my working space and use a mixture of custom and generic print profiles.

Andrew Rodney and Ethan Hansen are recognised colour management and print experts. Their opinions of print shops who insist on sRGB are scathing and their advice is simple: go to another printer.

Ethan Hansen provides free custom profiles for Costco customer. Costco uses printers like the Frontier and Noritsu that are often said to work only with sRGB. I've plotted several of Ethan's profiles here (choose sRGB as the first profile). The plots clearly show that colours outside sRGB can be produced by these printers. You can see from the image gamut plots at the bottom of the page that it's not unusual for these colours to be appear.

Regards,

I guess this can go on forever like the RAW vs JPEG discussions. I have two digital photography books which were published only one year apart and one says AdobeRGB and the other says sRGB. Goes to show you everyone "see" things different.

Ahhhhh the beauty of options.

Peace

Roger,

The gamut comparisons on your site are great. The gamut of the Epson 2200 is huge, as is the S9000 w/ Pictorico Glossy. Interestingly, the S9000 with Canon Glossy Pro is much worse, only slightly bigger than sRGB. Is the Pictorico paper really that much better or were different inks used?

Steven,

I can't say for certain because I just plotted the Pictorico profiles that they made available on their site, I assume they used Canon inks. I don't have any other info'.

Regards,