sRGB vs. Adobe RGB

[kgreen]

Hi, Can you please give me some insight about sRGB & Adobe RGB. I shoot with a nikon d7000 jpegs mostly. I work mainly with prints & computer, a little bit of web. I have photoshop, & view most of my photo's through photoshop. However, I have pulled photo's up in the windows viewer & the photo's are significantly diffrent. So I wondered by setting my camera to Adobe RGB if the photo's look good in photoshop but not the same in windows, most likely when I post those photo's to the internet are other people seeing it that way as well. I'm not sure which I should use. Thanks in advance!

 

[GrumpyGoat]

The general rule of thumb regarding sRGB vs. Adobe RGB is if the image is to be printed, use Adobe RGB and if it is to be viewed on the web, use sRGB. By using sRGB for web images, you can fairly confident others are seeing the same image as you, not withstanding uncalibrated monitors...

 

[photo_chick]

This is a debate I've heard people rage on both ways. And the truth is that there is no right answer. People will swear you need Adobe RGB, others will swear sRGB. They both have the same number of colors. The difference is what color those numerical values are assigned to. Basically, the real difference is that Adobe RGB has more space between the colors. sRGB puts those values closer together.

You can go back and forth all day, and people will, but neither is better. They both have advantages and disadvantages. And what you post online will look totally different on someone else's monitor anyway.

THe biggest factor when you view images on the web to me isn't the original color space, it's how whatever site you upload to optimizes them. Some sites, like photobucket and facebook, will mangle your colors no matter what you do.

 

[boBQuincy]

Here is a good article that explains and muddies the topic, all at once!
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml
The bottom line is (like RAW vs jpg) why throw away data you have paid for?

Some convertors, such as Photoshop's "save for web" convert the image to sRGB in the final step so we can see what it will look like.

 

[kgreen]

Hey, Thanks for explaining it all. Interesting article! I'll continue shooting in Adobe RGB, unless I will be doing any web posting, & then I can switch to sRGB.

 

[disneyboy2003]

I've heard it is better to shoot in Adobe RGB because it is a larger color space then sRGB (Adobe RGB has lots more colors than sRGB). So if you're doing a lot of postprocessing work, Adobe RGB gives you a lot more colors to work with.

However, photos in Adobe RGB don't look right on computer monitors, such as when posting Adobe RGB images on websites. The colors apparently look duller. Computer monitors are set to display sRGB images. So if you try to display an Adobe RGB image on a computer monitor, the monitor has to reassign colors from Adobe RGB to approximate colors in sRGB, causing duller colors (especially red colors).

However as mentioned before, in Photoshop you can convert your Adobe RGB images to sRGB when you save for Web.

Actually, what I've got different answers for is: if I'm shooting RAW, does it matter which color space I select? I thought the color space isn't "baked in" until the image is converted to JPEG (whether the JPEG is created directly from the camera or is converted from RAW on the computer).

 

[Experiment_626]

as mentioned before, in Photoshop you can convert your Adobe RGB images to sRGB when you save for Web.

There's also a handy "Convert to Profile ..." command in the edit menu if, as I do, you generally prefer not to use the "Save for Web" command.

Scott

 

[wbeem]

As mentioned, Adobe is a larger color space than sRGB, and ProPhoto is larger than Adobe.

Think of it like a box of crayons. Do you want to work with 8 crayons or 64 crayons? What about 128 crayons? The reason people recommend using the larger color space is so that you have the flexibility to use your images where you want, online, print, CMYK press, etc. You can always export to a lower color space, but you can't add colors that don't exist if you worked with sRGB in the first place.

 

[photo_chick]

Keep in mind here that we're talking about the colors that a digital camera can capture. It uses the same number of colors for Adobe RGB as it does for sRGB. The difference is that the values are assigned differently. But they both start at 0 and end at 255 for each channel. Adobe puts more space between the values, so you get a wider variety of hues. sRGB clumps them together, so you'll end up with more detailed color values in certain hue areas, especially reds, but not really as many distinct hues as you do with Adobe RGB. And even if we weren't limited by what our camera can capture, it's all limited by the output method, the monitor or printing method you choose to render your image on has it's own limitations.

And when it comes to printing, it's a CMYK subtractive color space, not an RGB additive color space so it's all kind of a moot point in a way... when you're talking about printing.

 

[wbeem]

It's not moot if you're talking about inkjet printing, which can use the additional colors in the larger color spaces.

My point is that it's better to capture as much data as you can to keep your options open. It's not like you have to worry about space these days because of your color profile. You can always convert down to sRGB.

 

[boBQuincy]

The difference between sRGB and Adobe RGB is more moot if we are planning to have our prints done at a big-box store "lab" since most of those printers have a small color space anyway. It is much less moot if we are using a high-end (consumer high-end) inkjet printer that can easily print colors our monitors can't even display.

Although both RGBs can have the same bit depth with which to generate their colors this becomes a small issue when working in 16 bit processing, which we should be doing if we really care about the image. This raises our number of gradations from 256 to 65,000+. While many (most) cameras do not capture 16 bits many cameras save RAW files as 14 bits which still gives a large advantage over 8 bits of JPG.

It really comes down to whether we think we need those extra colors in the final output or not. If the final output is a fine print then I would say yes in most cases. If we all worked in B&W this would not be an issue!

 

[wbeem]

Hey, it's OK with me if you throw away your color information. I'm just befuddled as to why anyone would when it doesn't cost you a thing to keep more information. As I mentioned before, you can always go down, but you can't reclaim data that you didn't keep.

To each his (or her) own.