sRGB or Adobe RGB?

[Rae]

I would like to know which color space is best. Which do you use and why. What is the difference between the two.

TIA for your always helpful information.

[Merlyn]

If you are posting images on the web, sRGB is clearly better since Adobe RGB images will likely not display correctly, this relates to the color settings on different monitors. But if you are sending your images to a commercial printer they will prefer Adobe RGB or even CMYK. If you are printing at home, you can generally benefit from the wider gamut of Adobe RGB as well since current desktop printers with expanded ink sets can print colors beyond sRGB.

If you shoot in jpeg, your choice of color space in-camera can be important. If you use sRGB, you will be limited to colors that can be represented in sRGB. Even if you later convert to Adobe RGB, you won't end up with colors that were never captured. If you shoot in Adobe RGB, you'll need to contend with converting to sRGB at least for posting images to the web but you'll still have a master file that has the expanded gamut for other uses. If you shoot in raw, you can defer the choice of color space until you get your images onto your computer, but you generally can't ignore it completely. Many online photo printers deal exclusively in sRGB since that is the lowest common denominator. I'm guessing they have judged that keeping things simple minimizes the customer service and support issues they have to deal with, lowering their costs. But that doesn't mean you have to let them dictate how you shoot. Just be sure to follow their rules and convert things accordingly before you send them images to print.

Working in Adobe RGB can be at least marginally more complicated since so many programs default to sRGB. If you do work in sRGB, you can often ignore at least some aspects of color management and still have images that look acceptable. Working in Adobe RGB requires you to understand more how you are interpreting color throughout your workflow.
Some people will say that Adobe RGB has more colors but what it does do is
it simply spreads them further apart. The total number of colors remains unchanged between sRGB and RGB.

Some points:

Adobe RGB is irrelevant for real photography. sRGB gives better (more consistent) results and the same, or brighter, colors.

Using Adobe RGB is one of the leading causes of colors not matching between monitor and print.

sRGB is the world's default color space. Use it and everything looks great everywhere, all the time.

Adobe RGB should never be used unless you really know what you're doing and do all your printing yourself. If you really know what you're doing and working in publishing, go right ahead and use it.

[Rae]

Merlyn: Thanks so much for your response in understandable terms. Just the information I was seeking.