Set Camera to sRGB or Adobe RGB, WHY?

[billib]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I've read many pro's and con's about setting

your M to sRGB or Adobe RGB.

 

I'm now throughly confused, I confuse easy!!!

 

What do you recommend and why???

 

BTW, I bought Lightroom 3.

Its doubtful I will buy Photoshop.

I don't plan on manipulating anything

at the pixel level.

 

Also, I'm ready to modernize the Mac.

Will the new higher end 2011 Mac mini

suffice or must I buy a Mac Pro? What

do you use? What do you wished you

were using?

 

Thank you so much!!!

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[pgk]

Depends on what you are doing. Adobe RGB apparently has a greater spread of colour available however sRGB is more popular and I've had very good results using sRGB (even for publication where Adbobe RGB is usually recommended - my last book utilised sRGB throughout). If you are unsure then I'd go for sRGB as there is obviously no over-riding need to use Adobe RGB.

 

Your choice of Mac will also depend on your needs but do ensure that you fit enough RAM if using it for photos. Personally I use a MacBookPro for everything with an Apple monitor attached - its quite adequate - but no doubt others will disagree.

[jaapv]

If you set the camera to DNG it will not even give you a choice. In raw conversion choose Adobe RGB or even Prophoto RGB. If you set it to JPG set it to Adobe RGB - and STAY in that largest possible color space until you are ready to convert to a smaller space right at the end of your postprocessing. Once you convert to a smaller space all color nuances that fall outside are lost forever. Most printers nowadays can handle Adobe RGB so sRGB is rapidly becoming a web-only color space.

[billib]

Wow, great answers. Thank you so much.

Adobe RGB it is.

 

As far as a Mac I dislike the built in batteries

in their MacBook line and don't need portability

YET and the Mac Pro doesn't have lightPeak yet

so I'll wait a little while longer to buy. Do/will I

need the Mac Pro since the new 2011 mini

supports 16 Gig's of RAM? The mini also has

LightPeak now.

[pgk]

sRGB is rapidly becoming a web-only color space.

Sadly NOT my experience I'm afraid jaapv:(.

[jaapv]

Basically any modern computer can handle our postprocessing needs, be it PC or MAC. I won't get into the fundamentalistic MAC-PC fight here

An abundance of RAM is good to speed up proceedings - aim for 8 Mb minimum.

Having said that MAC is designed for graphic work - and it shows in the easy workflows. It also obviates the needs for all security stuff that slows up PCs so much.

And you can run Windows on a MAC without fear for malware and virusses - as soon as your Windows gets infected it toss it in the trash and move to a backup copy.

 

As for which MAC - you cannot go wrong.

The main concern is the monitor, and the advantage of a MacPro or Mini is that you get to choose your monitor right away. I personally am a great fan of Eizo CG monitors.

If you get a Macbook or iMac you can of course use an Eizo as your primary screen, working with double screens is very practical.

[jaapv]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Sadly NOT my experience I'm afraid jaapv:(.

What else do you need it for then, except web display, Paul ? I clearly see a difference on my screen when I drop down to sRGB.

[k-hawinkler]

I've read many pro's and con's about setting

your M to sRGB or Adobe RGB.

 

I'm now throughly confused, I confuse easy!!!

 

What do you recommend and why???

 

BTW, I bought Lightroom 3.

Its doubtful I will buy Photoshop.

I don't plan on manipulating anything

at the pixel level.

 

Also, I'm ready to modernize the Mac.

Will the new higher end 2011 Mac mini

suffice or must I buy a Mac Pro? What

do you use? What do you wished you

were using?

 

Thank you so much!!!

 

 

Mac mini seems fine.

Please, see post #20 here http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/digital-post-processing-forum/198386-best-apple-hardware-processing-images.html

 

K-H.

[pgk]

What else do you need it for then, except web display? I clearly see a difference on my screen when I drop down to sRGB.

Generally you don't or shouldn't. The problems that I actually see are firstly, that using an Adobe RGB profiled image on a system set up for sRGB can result in a very flat image which looks poor, and secondly, that so many printers (people not machines) are using a mix of images that it can be safer to use sRGB as to do otherwise can result in a better profiled image reproducing poorly.

 

Of course this depends on just how much control you have over who is involved in utilising your images, but my experience is that many 'professionals' out there who deal with images, graphic design and printing, simply don't either know sufficiently well about colour handling, or are too pressed for time to deal with such matters. In theory Adobe RGB has a greater colour gamut. In practice, ensuring a consistent colour gamut (lowest common denominator is sRGB) can be more effective in overall colour management terms.

 

These comments are based on my experience of having images used in a multitude of different ways. If you have a closed or controlled output colour workflow this won't apply.

[jaapv]

Yes- I can see that if one loses control over the image sRGB can be the safest option, but normally the workflow will include the printing process or sending out to a selected printer/publisher. I normally use Profoto or Whitewall - both accept aRGB - and the print is better for it. Blurb supplies its own ICC profile which is best converted into from Adobe RGB It seems they go to CMYK. They even provide a color management guide on their website.

As for the visibility - it would be strange if my monitor would not show a difference, as it is one that renders aRGB. Most monitors do not - there the difference will probably not be visible.

[Jeff S]

BTW, I bought Lightroom 3.

 

Suggest you also buy the Scott Kelby book on LR3 and ignore the lame jokes; the rest is extremely worthwhile.

 

Jeff

[01af]

Of course this depends on just how much control you have over who is involved in utilising your images, but my experience is that many 'professionals' out there who deal with images, graphic design, and printing simply don't either know sufficiently well about colour handling, or are too pressed for time to deal with such matters. In theory Adobe RGB has a greater colour gamut. In practice, ensuring a consistent colour gamut (lowest common denominator is sRGB) can be more effective in overall colour management terms.

This is my experience exactly. You would think that professionals working in the graphics, publishing, or printing businesses should know about colour management and ICC profiles and such, but alas—more often than not they simply don't.

 

 

I normally use Profoto or Whitewall [...]. Blurb supplies its own ICC profile which is best converted into from Adobe RGB It seems they go to CMYK. They even provide a color management guide on their website.

Those are the big players in digital printing; they are the glorious exceptions. But try any small local print shop to have some bills, flyers, or brochures printed. And usually, you're just the poor photographer—it's your client who decides where the stuff will get laid out and printed ... but he will complain to you when the colours and contrasts are all over the place. It's just exasperating. I learnt my lesson the hard way, more than once: if you hand out a digital file to someone else to have it printed, make sure it's in sRGB.

 

By the way, a revealing test question to ask the graphic designer or print operator is, "What resolution do you want the images to be?"—If the answer is, "300 dpi," then you're dealing with clueless amateurs. If the answer is something like, "no less than 2,000 pixels along the short side, not sharpened, and please include the ICC profile," then you know you're dealing with a pro. Unfortunately, pros are rare out there.

 

 

Wow, great answers. Thank you so much. Adobe RGB it is.

That was the simple answer. The full answer is not so easy.

 

 

If you set it to JPG then set it to Adobe RGB—and STAY in that largest possible color space until you are ready to convert to a smaller space right at the end of your postprocessing. Once you convert to a smaller space all color nuances that fall outside are lost forever.

What people persistently refuse to understand is that upon converting a JPEG file from Adobe RGB to sRGB, you also will lose colour nuances that would not have been lost when the shot would have been taken in sRGB from the start.

 

If in doubt then follow this basic rule of thumb: When shooting JPEG then set your camera to sRGB. When sRGB is too small a colour space for your requirements then don't shoot JPEG.

 

Find more reading on this subject here.

[jaapv]

Of course you lose color when dropping down to sRGB. Nobody said otherwise. But for some applications one NEEDS sRGB or even CMYK. My post was about the point at which one drops down and my advice is to finish your edit in the largest possible space, save the edit and then set the color space to the final application

And if one works in16 bits as one should there is no need to dumb down the colors throughout the workflow.

It is a bit foolish to do the whole edit in sRGB for one appliction and then do it again in Adobe RGB for the next use. I for one do not have that much spare time.

And who said anything aabout shooting JPG? This whole discussion is about workflow in general, and applies mainly to raw converted images, although one will set the camera to adobe RGB as well if one is smart.

The point to make is that setting an sRGB image to Adobe RGB will NOT restore the lost part of the colors.

[250swb]

It seems ridiculous to set the camera, and then do your post processing, in anything other than the largest colour space available, in this case RGB. Only change the colour profile to sRGB if you are creating a version of the image for the web.

 

Steve

[stunsworth]

Blurb supplies its own ICC profile which is best converted into from Adobe RGB It seems they go to CMYK. They even provide a color management guide on their website

 

Isn't that profile just for softproofing? I thought they advised submitted images to be in sRGB. Their link is here...

 

http://www.blurb.com/guides/color_management/workflow

 

Which contains the text "BookSmart images MUST be RGB (sRGB for best results)"

 

More details - including softproofing here...

 

http://www.blurb.com/guides/color_management/image_prep_booksmart

[jaapv]

Ok - I was not quite 100% on Blurb I confess - I am looking into afuture book but only dealt with them in submitting to other books.

[t024484]

Jaap, you are correct that Profoto accepts aRGB, but the first thing they do is to convert this to sRGB.

So they are a bit smarter than Blurb to recognize aRGB, but the rest of the process is identical , including the 300DPI standard that both companies are using.

They confirmed this in writing.

 

To conclude this, I had ProFoto make two books for me, one supplied in aRGB and the other in sRGB converted from aRGB.

The books were absolutely identical.

 

I have a calibrated aRGB monitor which can show the differences to sRGB when working with Photoshop.

Ilford supplies ICC profiles for aRGB images for their printing paper, so when I do the printing myself conversion from DNG is always to aRGB.

 

When converting aRGB to sRGB you will loose a few million of the 16,77 Mio possible colors, but I have never been able to see the difference between a picture converted in one go from DNG to sRBG compared to two steps DNG, aRGB, sRGB.

I have read about possible banding problems but I have never actually seen this effect. So when I am correct, you shouldn't worry too much about this conversion.

 

You probably loose more when the resolution of the printer does not match the image, as was discussed in the sticky of this section.

For my Eson printer 288DPI is far superior to 300DPI, and 360DPI is the best possible setting. The difference can be very visible.

 

If you do not have a specific reason to convert to aRGB, because you do not have a monitor or printer that supports this, the safest option is to stay away from it.

 

The drawback of having a aRGB monitor in Windows, is that Windows does not manage the colors correcly.

So when looking in Explorer at sRGB JPGs on your aRGB monitor, colors are oversaturated, especially the reds.

Photoshop of course, displays all colors as they should be, so does Windows Photo Viewer and many other color managed programs.

 

Hans

[jaapv]

Quite true, Hans, but I have my whole workflow colormanaged in ProPhoto RGB, and convert in the end. Both my Mac and Eizos have no problem in this workflow. I can output to whatever colorspace I want.

 

I am quite happy with the prints too.

 

My real worry about editing in sRGB is pushing colors outside the colorspace, especially if I use LAB.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Steve_F]

I use sRGB for my files because all of my colour work goes to labs for 'wet-printing' (real photos) on Fuji Crystal archive paper. It's what the labs ask for and remember it's ppi (Pixels Per Inch). All this can be done during Export in Lightroom, plus you can set the number of pixels for longest side. Useful if you've a handful of say 10x8 in portrait or landscape. Just set mine to 3000 pixels on longest side @ 300ppi. Job done.

 

Good luck,

 

Steve.

[01af]

Of course you lose color when dropping down to sRGB. Nobody said otherwise.

Uh oh. I am afraid you didn't get the finer point of my statement. I didn't say, "Upon converting a JPEG file from Adobe RGB to sRGB, you will lose colour nuances." Instead I said, "... upon converting a JPEG file from Adobe RGB to sRGB, you also will lose colour nuances that would not have been lost when the shot would have been taken in sRGB from the start". See the difference? Understand the difference?

 

 

And if one works in 16 bits as one should there is no need to dumb down the colors throughout the workflow.

Sure. Nobody said otherwise. But JPEG is 8 bits per channel, not 16, so repeating your mantra over and over is not helpful in the context of this specific discussion.

 

 

It is a bit foolish to do the whole edit in sRGB for one application and then do it again in Adobe RGB for the next use.

Don't worry; this scenario does not even exist in the first place ... well, except when "do it again" included the actual shooting.

 

 

And who said anything about shooting JPEG? This whole discussion is about workflow in general ...

If you want to know what this discussion is about then may I suggest to have a look at the thread's caption line?

 

 

It seems ridiculous to set the camera, and then do your post processing, in anything other than the largest colour space available ...

It seems ridiculous only to those who don't see the whole picture (pun intended).

 

 

... in this case RGB.

"RGB" is not a colour space but a colour model.

 

 

... I have my whole workflow colour-managed in ProPhoto RGB, and convert in the end.

That makes sense. Now—please explain to the original poster how to select "ProPhoto RGB" from a menu that provides two options, "sRGB" and "Adobe RGB". No wait—don't bother. I was just kidding ... in a desperate attempt to make you aware what this discussion really is about, and what the correct answer is, and why.