Very Silly question , but cant find in manual

Hi

When I turn on the EOS 10D I get "PA-A".

Any ideas what it means

Sorry stupid question

From memory I believe it means you're running a non-standard set of image parameters... Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation etc...

You have selected Adobe RGB as the colour space for your captured images.

That is correct.

Sorry to hijack this thead but what exactly is the Adobe RGB setting on my 300D.... I dun quiet get the manuals' explaination

There are several (many?) different ways of interpreting RGB (red, green, blue) color data, which can result in the same picture looking slightly different depending on the interpretation.

sRGB is, if I recall correctly, the standard interpretation that many applications use, and thus is the most versatile for using between different applications.

AdobeRGB is a proprietary interpretation which has more varying shades of color and thus can give a better interpretation of the picture's colors but it only works with programs which have been designed to handle it, and that most likely involves purchasing an expensive SDK from Adobe.

So only take pictures with the camera set to AdobeRGB if you know you have an application that can handle it.

Otherwise leave it set to sRGB.

If I have misunderstood this matter, then I am sure lots of ridicule will be heaped on my poor head but I will learn.

Your first line is correct. The RGB values in an image don't mean anything by themselves. For example, what shade of green is (0, 255, 0)? Is it grass green, or more yellow green, or ...? To be able to tell exactly what colour it is, you have to specify the colour space in which the numbers are measured. Just like you measure distances in miles or kilometers - the number without the unit doesn't mean much.

Your last line is incorrect. Colour spaces are specified using ICC (International Colour Consortium) profiles. On your computer, an ICC profile is stored in a small file with the extension *.icc or *.icm. There are lots of different standard colour spaces, and sRGB and Adobe RGB are the two which are used most. For an application to support Adobe RGB the software developers do not need any special SDK from Adobe. They just need to make their application colour management aware.

That's good advice. If you want to learn more, you'll have to find more information about colour management, which is a complicated subject for many people. If you don't want to be bothered with all the technical details, leave the camera on sRGB, which will give you good results without having to know how all the details work.