Adobe RGB or sRGB III / IIIa

[darb]

im reading the D70 ebook , and other onlnie resources, im really confused about which color space to use

typically, i take photos and i put them on my website http://darb.net/

I usually shoot JPEG unless its for something special ... and i usually boost levels and saturation in photoshop CS after the fact.

Mainly theyre for my site, but i do quite often print, at fairly large sizes for framing etc.

I cant see *much* visible difference in looking at the images, and im confused as ive had both sides of the color space argument telling me theyre both great for printing, and both great for web-work.


what are your thoughts?

Cheers

[Greg B]

Thom Hogan reckons that it is preferable to use the Adobe colour space, particulalrly if you are using photoshop for PP.

There is a certain sense in this because Photoshop will then recognise the colour space.

[sirhc55]

Adobe also has a bigger gamut (colour space) so is preferable

C

[Onyx]

I'd say stick to mode IIIa, in sRGB. If you output to print, that's sRGB. If you output to web, that's also sRGB. Why not make the whole image capture process in the one colour space?! Don't bother with colour space conversions and fret over the rounding losses when the need to convert arises.

[darb]

well, i ask beacuse theres a lot of literature around the place saying that you SHOULD use adobe RGB if youre printing, that printing operates under adobeRGB, and that it has a bigger gamut and that this is benefitial?

[Matt. K]

Gee Darb...you've opened a can of worms here! Everybody is gonna tell you something different and at the end of it all you'll be none the wiser. Here's my confused, pathetic understanding of colour space. A lot of sources recommend you use Adobe RGB because it has the biggest colour space. That is true. But when you send your image to the monitor or a printer then it has to be reduced to sRGB, because these things can't handle the wider colour space. So save yourself some hassels and shoot in sRGB. That's (1a sRGB). I shoot in this mode most of the time. But that's because I don't know any better. If you shoot lots of landscapes...or shoot on cloudy, dull days, then colourspace Adobe 111A sRGB will produce more vivid colours...more "pop".

To be quite frank I am still learning about colour space but I believe that you shouln't get too hung up on it. Try one and if it works for what you are doing then stick to it. Adobe RGB is used when you are expecting to do lots of Photoshop work on your images...it allows you to reduce or change the colours and have some left over for the final image. Kind of like RAW for colours. But you may not be able to see these colours because of the limitations of the monitor.

Now I'm putting my head down and running for cover.
Hope this helps.

[darb]

That's (1a sRGB). I shoot in this mode most of the time. But that's because I don't know any better. If you shoot lots of landscapes...or shoot on cloudy, dull days, then colourspace Adobe 111A sRGB will produce more vivid colours...more "pop".


you said "then colour space Adobe IIIa sRGB will produce more vivid colours"

II ADOBE RGB & IIIa sRGB are two different ... in your above sentence, which did you refer to when you mentioned vivid colours etc.

I have been using IIIa sRGB or Ia sRGB to date ... then thought id look at the middle setting, II Adobe RGB.

[sirhc55]

Gee Darb...you've opened a can of worms here! Everybody is gonna tell you something different and at the end of it all you'll be none the wiser. Here's my confused, pathetic understanding of colour space. A lot of sources recommend you use Adobe RGB because it has the biggest colour space. That is true. But when you send your image to the monitor or a printer then it has to be reduced to sRGB, because these things can't handle the wider colour space. So save yourself some hassels and shoot in sRGB. That's (1a sRGB). I shoot in this mode most of the time. But that's because I don't know any better. If you shoot lots of landscapes...or shoot on cloudy, dull days, then colourspace Adobe 111A sRGB will produce more vivid colours...more "pop".

To be quite frank I am still learning about colour space but I believe that you shouln't get too hung up on it. Try one and if it works for what you are doing then stick to it. Adobe RGB is used when you are expecting to do lots of Photoshop work on your images...it allows you to reduce or change the colours and have some left over for the final image. Kind of like RAW for colours. But you may not be able to see these colours because of the limitations of the monitor.

Now I'm putting my head down and running for cover.
Hope this helps.

Absolutely wrong Darb - it all depends on monitor calibration - the s format was developed for the consumer market who prefer saturation to reality. It is very similar to when colour TVs hit the market - most consumers turned up the colour because that’s what they thought colour should look like - luckily today we know better.

In the professional side, to which I have been involved (talking computers + images) since the middle 80’s we all work initially in RGB converting after all corrections to CYMK - mention sRGB to a printer he would probably laugh due to the lower gamut.

No need to run for cover Darb we are all grown ups - but if I don’t get my way I will stamp the floor with my feet. . . .

Cheers

Chris

[Matt. K]

Mode 11 RGB is basically Adobe RGB1998 and has the wide colour space. For more pop I think you use mode 111 sRGB.

I've still got my head down.

[darb]

Gee Darb...you've opened a can of worms here! Everybody is gonna tell you something different and at the end of it all you'll be none the wiser. Here's my confused, pathetic understanding of colour space. A lot of sources recommend you use Adobe RGB because it has the biggest colour space. That is true. But when you send your image to the monitor or a printer then it has to be reduced to sRGB, because these things can't handle the wider colour space. So save yourself some hassels and shoot in sRGB. That's (1a sRGB). I shoot in this mode most of the time. But that's because I don't know any better. If you shoot lots of landscapes...or shoot on cloudy, dull days, then colourspace Adobe 111A sRGB will produce more vivid colours...more "pop".

To be quite frank I am still learning about colour space but I believe that you shouln't get too hung up on it. Try one and if it works for what you are doing then stick to it. Adobe RGB is used when you are expecting to do lots of Photoshop work on your images...it allows you to reduce or change the colours and have some left over for the final image. Kind of like RAW for colours. But you may not be able to see these colours because of the limitations of the monitor.

Now I'm putting my head down and running for cover.
Hope this helps.

Absolutely wrong Darb - it all depends on monitor calibration - the s format was developed for the consumer market who prefer saturation to reality. It is very similar to when colour TVs hit the market - most consumers turned up the colour because that’s what they thought colour should look like - luckily today we know better.

In the professional side, to which I have been involved (talking computers + images) since the middle 80’s we all work initially in RGB converting after all corrections to CYMK - mention sRGB to a printer he would probably laugh due to the lower gamut.

No need to run for cover Darb we are all grown ups - but if I don’t get my way I will stamp the floor with my feet. . . .

Cheers

Chris

I think youre replying to the wrong person. I didnt write what youre quoting.

[Matt. K]

sirhc55

I have no doubt you know exactly what you are talking about. And I look foreword to all the info on this subject I can get. But at this stage of my digital photography development I find I shoot in Mode 1 Adobe sRGB and it works fine. I have tried working in Adobe RGB and my prints came out looking wrong...so I switched back. I intend to look more closely at colour space and learn more. I need to go to a professional workshop and see the images go through pp and then see the prints before I change my workflow. If you can throw more light on the subject then please, please, do it on this forum and we will all love you for it.

[sirhc55]

Hi Matt

Actually I should back-pedal a bit.

For professionals its all about profiling and calibration and I think that what we should concentrate on here on the forum is the general usage and for that I apologise to both Darb and yourself because the sRGB will give a result that is more harmonious to non-calibrated or profiled systems and more generally acceptable under the conditions that 99% of us endure in our hobby.

Cheers

Chris

[Matt. K]

sirhc55
Are you saying that if we profile our monitors and printers then Adobe RGB would be the colourspace to work in? That's kind of making sense.
Thanks for the input.

[sirhc55]

Basically yes - turning back to the professional side for a moment I can remember back in 1994 when I would prepare a page of digital photos and send the page to a printer to do me a proof. The proof when I got it back, would be held up to the monitor and I would manually adjust (in Photoshop) until I have visually profiled the monitor, which in turn had everything profiled to print specs. Today we can buy fantastic profiling units for our monitors and scanners etc (ICC profiles) which enable a much faster and accurate workflow.

This certainly helps with getting the correct colours from consumer printers.

Cheers

Chris

[sirhc55]

Sorry Darb - got mixed up on who was posting what

Chris

[sirhc55]

Just a last thought on this matter.

For all of us that have Thom Hogans D70 book check out page 191 when he says “Moreover, you really want to be in color mode 2 (AdobeRGB) for the best image quality”

Cheers

Chris

[Glen]

Geez Darb, I don't know if I have the guts to enter in here after two guys who have forgetten more about photography than I will ever learn. I'll just repeat what I read and see if that helps. From what I have read the three profiles on the D70 are :

Ia sRGB - supposedly lowest common denominator designed so every (including the very early colour ones) computer monitor can display it

II AdobeRGB - much wider range of colours, optimized for Adobe products, etc

IIIa sRGB - similar to I but with more pop for landscapes etc or people who prefer there images that way

so to sum up if you are shooting for the net, any mode will do but Ia will allow any monitor at all to display it, if printing use II, and use III if you want for the web with added pop from the camera.

I generally shoot on II in case I fluke a good shot and want to print it out. Hope this helps and as I said at the start I defer to the posters above who know far more about this than me

Good luck


(now I will duck for cover)

[Killakoala]

I use the Adobe format simply because i don't like the PS warning that i'm using the wrong colour space coming up when i load the image in PS.

Simple really.

[Raydar]

I use the Adobe format simply because i don't like the PS warning that i'm using the wrong colour space coming up when i load the image in PS.

Simple really.

Me too!!!!!!

Cheers
Ray

[Greg B]

Me three!!

It's the simplist things sometimes.....

[MattC]

I shoot RAW so it does not really matter which mode I shoot. I choose mode by how I want my images rendered. The RAW files are the same whichever mode you shoot except for the information that gets tagged to the file (WB, mode, curves ...). NEF files are assigned a profile but not converted to a profile. It is possible to shoot mode I, II or III, then open the file in aRGB. Best of both worlds. D2X offers this ability in camera, D70 does it in PP with NC or ACR.
How? Tick the box "Use this instead of embedded profile" in the colour management options. I am certain this would be no good for jpegs, and might even screw things up, but who uses NC for jpegs anyway?
It is possible to have your cake and eat it too.

Cheers

Matt

[Matt. K]

Just to confuse the issue a little more. Yes, you can assign different colour space profiles to JPGs. I have a whole list of these available to me and find them useful. I downloaded them sometime ago and they are assigned from Photoshop/image/mode/assign profile menu. You can see the eefct they have on the image as you change them. I am sure I placed the link for these on the forum some time ago. I'll check it out tonight when I get home.

[MattC]

Matt, I get what you are saying but I have a but. When shooting jpeg the conversion is done in camera. The colour space is applied to the jpeg as opposed to being tagged to a NEF file. If shooting sRGB jpegs and later converting to aRGB, the extra information is already lost. The file has already been "down sampled" and converting it to aRGB is not going to make that extra information miraculously reappear. Shooting aRGB and converting the file to sRGB is no big deal, but is normally done last, when all other editing is done. There is a caveat, aRGB to sRGB conversion may produce a colour shift with uncalibrated monitor.

The sRGB colour space has a wide enough gamut to cover what most printers are capable of reproducing, so it is generally appropriate for printing photographs. It is only with high end printers that you "may" notice the difference. I think that jpeg artifacts would be more noticeable than colours that are out of gamut. It would certainly take a trained eye.

For most people, I think that they are best off shooting sRGB and working with those images in sRGB. There are much fewer headaches in getting reasonable results from camera to monitor to printer. Windows works natively with sRGB. This would also mean setting Photoshop to default to sRGB, to avoid all of those warning messages that were mentioned earlier in this thread. sRGB is the lowest common denominator in the average Windows system and will generally give reasonable results without the expense of profiling and calibration equipment. Having said that, I have not looked back since purchasing profiling and calibration hardware. No more colour shifts with aRGB to sRGB conversions which indicate a monitor in desperate need of calibration.
For those of us who are serious about maximum control in PP, detail and faithful colour reproduction should not be shooting jpeg. There are too many disadvantages in using the jpeg format. If shooting jpeg I think that the file should at the very least be saved as a tiff for editing. This will reduce the number of extra artifacts that would be intoduced during editing. From what I have read the D70 does not have the greatest rendering engine for jpegs anyway. I have not shot a single jpeg with my d70 so this info is second hand. IMO, jpeg is fine for point and shoot work and for the web, but little else.

I am no expert on this subject, so guys, please correct me if I am way off base. All of the above is based on my own experience, and solutions to my own problems. This is one very complex subject.

Cheers

[gstark]

sRGB is the lowest common denominator in the average Windows system

No, that's Windows.

Closely followed by that well known LCD, the end user.

[MattC]

Thanks for clearing that up

Cheers

Matt

[MattC]

I was just over at the dpreview d70 forum. This was posted about 15 minutes ago describing a very quick and dirty wysiwig monitor calibration that may help some people. Cost is zero.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=11185699

Matt

[Matt. K]

mattco6974

Thanks for the info. I am sure you are right. Your experience is validated by your own results and I have a gut sense that I will end going down the same road eventually. My own experience at this stage of my development is that I am getting very good results shooting in JPG, but eventually I want to get into the fine print market using an Epson 4000 and therefore I will need to go down that road profiling, shooting NEF's and probably shooting in Adobe RGB.....if I can see a discernable increase in quality. I am finding this thread very fruitful.
Thanks for your input

[Matt. K]

mattco6974

Just as an aside...I notice you live in Tenet Creek. A friend of mine has son who works there as a school teacher. His name is Liam and he is a big boy. Any chance you know him?

[Glen]

Mattco, that is a good idea and it is not hard to like something where the cost is zero. Thanks

[sirhc55]

I was just over at the dpreview d70 forum. This was posted about 15 minutes ago describing a very quick and dirty wysiwig monitor calibration that may help some people. Cost is zero.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=11185699

Matt

I actually mentioned this process earlier in this thread - but there is another factor of concern.

The majority of professional printers of offset use Macintoshs and have done since the word go - this in itself poses the problem of gamma. A macs gamma is 1.8 and the typical PC system is 2.2.

When I produce shots for a client that is going to a web site I have to make the images look a lot lighter on my monitor to take into account the gamma difference. Something I don’t have to do for offset printing.

The quick and dirty is actually not that dirty so long as you don’t change printers as there are other factors that come into play, one example being the amount of under cover black being used on a particular printer e.g. Heidelberg

The matter of colour calibration is vast and complicated but on at consumer level its just a matter of tweaking your output to your printer until you get what you like.

Cheers

Chris

[MattC]

Matt, when you get to the point of shooting RAW you will find that there is not much of a need to shoot aRGB. As I mentioned earlier the image data in a NEF file is the same either way. Life is much simpler. Choose your mode based on how you want your image rendered, reassign colour space in NC..... You will love playing god over your images.
I do not know Liam, with a non aboriginal population of around 1500 here in Tennant, it is quite possible that I have come across him. On Saturday I was shooting a pub show. It was a bunch of local guys having some fun supporting a comedy act. Three or four of these guys are teachers and probably know Liam quite well.

Chris, I obviously missed your post, or did not pay proper attention to it. I apologise. Printing services are a bit thin on the ground in my part of the world, so I need to rely on my own equipment. As such, I write based on my experience. I do know where you are coming from on this, but that is another story.


Cheers

Matt

[sirhc55]

Although I know Matt is I would rather be up there in the NTs enjoying a beer and shooting the Breeze on the D70 than cold and windy Sydney and intricacies of colour.

Cheers

Chris

[MattC]

It is one of the reasons I live in this part of the world. The climate is fantastic. The colours are great - definitely more red than green, but we are getting back into the wet season so things are starting to green up. Unfortunately I do not get out enough for landscapes. I am trying to change this situation.

Cheers

Matt

[sirhc55]

It is one of the reasons I live in this part of the world. The climate is fantastic. The colours are great - definitely more red than green, but we are getting back into the wet season so things are starting to green up. Unfortunately I do not get out enough for landscapes. I am trying to change this situation.

Cheers

Matt

I was up there in 1979 looking for Lasseters Reef and shooting for Shell and it was in October and had rained a lot so the desert was covered in Sturt Peas - absolutely stunning. Then from Ayers Rock along the Gun Barrel into the Gibsons desert - one of the highlights of my life and so peaceful. Mind you the beer at Ayers Rock was $1.50 a can!!!!

I will return - now who said that originally???

Cheers

Chris PS in those days it was a Nikon F

[MattC]

That is how I remember my visit to the centre in 1986, it took me 14 years to finally return. The desert gives new meaning to "watching the grass grow". When it rains the desert blooms and it is incredible how quickly it happens. The desert can go from red to a sea of colour in what seems to be a few hours. Now that I have some time, I hope to get some great shots of the desert as it does it thing.

Matt