I've shot mostly sRGB, now what start over..!!

I was reading a book written by a pro. He says he wouldn't even recommend sRGB for the web these days. I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible.

He says the Adobe colorspace has a much better gamut of colors and when using Photoshop for color corrections, all the settings he uses, and the illustrations are based on that. Every time I open a file that was shot in sRGB, Photoshop reminds me that the embedded colorspace is sRGB.

I know I could shoot in RAW, but what color space do you end up with after you convert to JPG? Probably Adobe if you use Photoshop.. right?

If this has been discussed, I'm sorry. I have never seen much discussion about it. I'm not willing to scrap everything I've done, but from this time on, it looks like I need to use a different colorspace, and the world has moved beyond sRGB.

There really is much more to this than I have said here, and I hope some of you understand or can relate to what I'm talking about.

Also, I was glad to see another post with some freebie RAW converters listed today. I going to try them.

--
JD

Geez.. freedom is a beautiful thing... although it isn't always convenient for some people.

E500 - FL36 - Kits - OM Zuiko 300mm - OM 2x teleconverter

JD,

Here's what Ken Rockwell has to say on his website about sRGB and aRGB.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm

Hope this helps.

and how you work with them is the key factor. There is nothing wrong with sRGB so long you find it working. For many PRO especially those who areinto print, sRGB is a limiting factor indeed. But for most who only print via normal photoprinting service via lab or using the image for web .. sRGB is quite good enough.

IF you intend to go further into the Hobby and wanting to start to print yourself ( either Dye sub or Glicee ) then you got to know that Adobe RGB do offer an advantage though and you might want to start considering shooting in RAW always

--

• Franka -

of new ink-jet printers that are capable of printing in aRGB it is making much less sense to either shoot or develop your files in sRGB... I have virtually always used aRGB and only convert to sRGB for either printing at a lab ( rarely ) or posting to my web galleries ( for this alone - it is most important )...

The nice thing is that now that I own an Epson that prints in aRGB it is easy to go back to my old files and reprint the odd one to see the difference - and there is somewhat of a noticeable difference in gamuts when printed...

If you print at home with a aRGB Gamut aware printer then go ahead - if you print at a lab or are just posting to web then you might always convert and save one copy as sRGB... But, I would always develop and post-process in aRGB and keep a copy as a Tiff or PSD file ( especially if there are layers you wish to preserve )... Once you convert the file to sRGB and save it -there is NO converting it back to recuperate the colour lost later...

Cheers...

I could be wrong, but web browsers don't seem to know or care about color management

so, at least for the web version of the pic, it doesn't matter if it's adobergb or srgb. It's important to have a calibrated display (or use adobe gamma at least) in order for your browser to display results as close as possible to a color managed software (like photoshop). You could also try this experiment: shoot adobe rgb raw, convert to 16 bit tiff, open with photoshop, go to "edit-> convert to profile" (not "assign profile"), choose srgb, hit ok. Try the other way also, shoot srgb raw ... convert to adobergb. I can't see any difference, to be honest, but I also have a

Good luck
--
Adrian
There is no spoon
http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r79/_valera/

sorry, i doubt that this "pro" is right. The problem of sRGB is: It cannot display some extreme green greens and some other extreme saturated colors. But how often is this green used and important. I doubt it. But maybe you get some satusfaction and superiority-feeling if you think you "work like a pro". Maybe there is some usefule use of adobe-RGB for some kind of landscape pictures, but I think for 99% its not useful. Is just my opinion
--
cheers
Martin F

--------------------------------------------
My equipment is in my profile.
Sorry if there are typing errors in my texts.
I usually do not check that before sending.

After reading from the link on Ken Rockwell's site, and also what Higuma wrote, I'm convinced it would be a headache to switch the camera to shooting aRGB. The pro that wrote the book teaches Photoshop usage and techniques, and so I guess he is mainly just biased and extremely nit picky, and I also assume then that he does all of his own printing.

I'll stay where the consistency is and what Ken Rockwell says makes perfect sense to me.

--
JD

Geez.. freedom is a beautiful thing... although it isn't always convenient for some people.

E500 - FL36 - Kits - OM Zuiko 300mm - OM 2x teleconverter

marf said:

sorry, i doubt that this "pro" is right. The problem of sRGB is: It
cannot display some extreme green greens and some other extreme
saturated colors. But how often is this green used and important. I
doubt it. But maybe you get some satusfaction and
superiority-feeling if you think you "work like a pro". Maybe there
is some usefule use of adobe-RGB for some kind of landscape
pictures, but I think for 99% its not useful. Is just my opinion
--

Click to expand...

No not mainly landscapes and I don't think that really matters. It mainly has to do with color correction and portrait work. I sort of understand where he's coming from, and he teaches Photoshop and seems to represent the standards of "ALL" Adobe.

Still, there is a lot of excellent info in the book. I don't think he's an idiot by any means. He knows how to use Photoshop and teaches it well. Ha! - if I can understand it, just about anybody should be able to... right..

marf said:

--------------------------------------------
My equipment is in my profile.
Sorry if there are typing errors in my texts.
I usually do not check that before sending.

Click to expand...

--
JD

Geez.. freedom is a beautiful thing... although it isn't always convenient for some people.

E500 - FL36 - Kits - OM Zuiko 300mm - OM 2x teleconverter

I thought RAW files contain 16.8mm colors and when converted you can chose any color space you want. Color space is not important shooting RAW, correct me if I am wrong.

However the web is SRGB and some browsers, like Explorer, will clip the out of gamut colors and substitute them incorrectly.

With the E-300 I only shoot RAW in aRGB (which isn't as often anymore). With the E-1 I have moved back to SRGB and capture both JPEG & RAW. Since I often play with the JPEG first, it is less confusing to remember to convert color space if I decide to upload a pic to my website. I also have my color space alarm on in CS2 to warn if the color space is anything but SRGB. I use aRGB for prints only and know not to convert color space when the alarm goes off.

The thing that really stumps me about color management is unless you have a aRGB gamut monitor - how would you know your prints match your monitor ? I know that when I select different color spaces in Studio, I certainly see a shift on the monitor.

A lot of 'pros' insist that we should all use Adobe RGB because it has a wider colour gamut. This basically means that it can display a wider range of colours than sRGB. What many fail to mention is that sRGB has a narrower gamut and therefore finer graduations between colours - both colour spaces therefore have advantages and disadvantages. Adobe RGB is not inherently superior.

I've switched from sRGB to Adobe RGB and back to sRGB because I seem to get more consitent colours across prints, web, and various software with this colourspace. sRGB is often considered the default, especially by more basic software. aRGB can be a real headache because of this.

If you shoot RAW it should make any dif just output what ever.

If you use a dif colour space to sRGB in PS controlY gives a soft proof

If you print your own & have a modern printer try Bruce or Kodak ProColor, for skin tones it makes a big dif....needless to say you need col profiles for the printer & paper combo

If you do it opens a whole now word of head aches

ad
--
...capture some images...&...have some fun...
http://dsp.bigblog.com.au/blog.do

Nick_Pearson said:

A lot of 'pros' insist that we should all use Adobe RGB because it
has a wider colour gamut. This basically means that it can display
a wider range of colours than sRGB. What many fail to mention is
that sRGB has a narrower gamut and therefore finer graduations
between colours - both colour spaces therefore have advantages and
disadvantages. Adobe RGB is not inherently superior.

Click to expand...

Right, see the Ken Rockwell link posted above (or here):
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm

Nick_Pearson said:

I've switched from sRGB to Adobe RGB and back to sRGB because I
seem to get more consitent colours across prints, web, and various
software with this colourspace.

Click to expand...

I'm much happier using sRGB with the Kodak sensor on my E-300...the colours are just BETTER. Each person should experiment what works best for them.

JD Davis said:

He says the Adobe colorspace has a much better gamut of colors and
when using Photoshop for color corrections, all the settings he
uses, and the illustrations are based on that. Every time I open a
file that was shot in sRGB, Photoshop reminds me that the embedded
colorspace is sRGB.

Click to expand...

Adobe RGB has a larger color space than sRGB, but whether it's better depends on the application. If you're targeting web or consumer inkjet output, switching to Adobe RGB will only complicate your life. I wouldn't recommend using something other than sRGB unless you have a good reason to do so. You'll need to set up a fully color managed workflow to avoid getting output that looks worse than sRGB.

JD Davis said:

I know I could shoot in RAW, but what color space do you end up
with after you convert to JPG? Probably Adobe if you use
Photoshop.. right?

Click to expand...

The RAW converter maps the CCD data to a color space of your choice: sRBG, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, etc.

JD Davis said:

If this has been discussed, I'm sorry. I have never seen much
discussion about it. I'm not willing to scrap everything I've done,
but from this time on, it looks like I need to use a different
colorspace, and the world has moved beyond sRGB.

Click to expand...

I'd recommend reading "Real World Color Management, 2nd edition".

Sean McHugh also has some good tutorials on color management:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

Cheers,

Andreas

Adrian,

_valera said:

I could be wrong, but web browsers don't seem to know or care about
color management

Click to expand...

Safari is the only color-managed web browser that I'm aware of. It will display Adobe RGB images correctly. The colors loose saturation on other browsers since they interpret the Adobe RGB values as sRBG. I just tried bringing up a ProPhoto RGB file in Firefox, and it calls QuickTime to display the image. QuickTime does the right thing.

Cheers,

Andreas

Stubb said:

Adobe RGB has a larger color space than sRGB, but whether it's
better depends on the application. If you're targeting web or
consumer ink-jet output, switching to Adobe RGB will only complicate
your life.

Click to expand...

As stated above - with the advent of aRGB consumer ink-jet printers at reasonable prices this is changing quickly... Soon many standard printers will be able to perform this "once thought" miracle of printing in aRGB as well...

I am a believer now, as I have printed many aRGB developed images side by side to the same images developed as sRGB and the difference is not a myth - there is a better reproduction of greens and some of the deepest reds... & I have not been witness to the stepping some elude to because of more "space" between the colors... The arguments presented for sRGB are valid - unless you can print aRGB...

Certainly - without a aRGB printer it is a bit of a moot point but I think you will see them become more mainstream sooner than later...

Cheers...

As others have already said, the new generation of ink jet printers offer stunning results, so it pays to learn something about color management. In this regard, shooting and archiving raw allows you to process images to whatever colorspace makes sense for the final images. So that's usually sRGB for the web, for prints sent out for printing (unless its a pro lab that you know understands color management), or for emailing to family.

For printing on the inkjet, or at a high end lab, then process to aRGB or whatever makes sense. The point is to preserve color information in the archive and working files, only trimming the color space, etc., when finalizing the image for a particular final use.

By the way, I've really come to dispise RAW+JPEG. All it does is add confusion by having multiple versions of the same images around. They're ok if you need some quick proofs to send out, but otherwise the extra copy is a nuisance. So I stick with RAW, use tools like ACR and Bridge for nondistructive edits, and process to jpeg only for specific end uses, like emailing or sending out to a print lab.

--
Jeff