Color space, which one should I use?

[jeffreyw]

Hey everyone

My camera has the option to use either sRGB and Adobe RGB. I know the difference between the two and to me it seems that Adobe RGB has some advantages over sRGB.

Correct me if I'm wrong:
Adobe RGB has more evened out colors then sRGB (sRGB has too much Cyan!?)
Most colors available in Adobe RGB are available within the CMYK color space (Which will result in a more what-you-see-on-your-camera-display-is-what-you-actually-get, when printing of course).

Now to me it seems the obvious choice to use Adobe RGB. What do you think? Please do tell me if I'm wrong too!

sRGB color space: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...931xy_sRGB.svg
Adobe RGB color space: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...1_AdobeRGB.png

P.S. Sorry if I put this in the wrong forum section, I didn't know where to put it elsewhere.

EDIT: Does this effect RAW at all?

[sybren]

What you're missing in your analysis is that both colour spaces use the same number of bits. By representing a larger colours space AdobeRGB has a larger difference between consecutive colours. I've heard that sRGB is better for skin tones, because in that area AdobeRGB adds no colours so sRGB's denser colour distribution give better quality.

AFAIK the colour space is only used after the RAW conversion, so it won't affect your RAW data but it will affect the embedded thumbnail. Also your RAW importer may read the EXIF and default to outputting data in the same colourspace your camera was in. You should be able to override that, though.

[jeffreyw]

Okay right, I suppose it merely depends on the type of photography you do. I guess it's quite logical it doesn't affect RAW data at all. RAW is just metering how much of X light is falling on the chip and makes a representation of the image using whatever color space you're currently using? I guess that makes sense.

[sybren]

Yep, that's the way RAW works.

I always use sRGB. Most simple photo shops use sRGB, most webbrowers only support sRGB, and I have yet to get a print back and think "hmmm that would have looked much better in AdobeRGB". I will experiment more in the future, but for now I'm content with sRGB.

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by jeffreyw

Correct me if I'm wrong:
Adobe RGB has more evened out colors then sRGB (sRGB has too much Cyan!?)

No, the point of a color space is to provide an agreed-upon way to represent colors numerically. Properly done, a color will look the same in all color spaces… provided that the color is "in gamut" for those spaces and that colorimetric rendering is used.

Most colors available in Adobe RGB are available within the CMYK color space

This mainly applies if your photos are being printed in a magazine. Many of the better quality home printers also are able to use the full Adobe RGB gamut. Otherwise, most printers (including commercial photo printing) aren't even able to reproduce the full sRGB gamut, so Adobe RGB gains nothing.

(Which will result in a more what-you-see-on-your-camera-display-is-what-you-actually-get, when printing of course).

Your camera display is probably not able to show Adobe RGB. It's probably not even accurately calibrated. It's intended to be a framing tool, not a reference for color accuracy.

What do you think?

I think that if you care that much about color gamut, you should be shooting Raw. Adobe RGB JPEGs are only of interest for small niches such as the sports photographer who needs the speed of shooting JPEG and whose photos will appear in a magazine.

Dealing with Adobe RGB JPEGs is generally a pain with little to show for it. It depends on your subject matter, of course, but for my photos about 1 in a thousand has some areas of color that are in the extended gamut of Adobe RGB. My monitor can't show it—Adobe RGB monitors are expensive—and my printer can't print it, and the difference just isn't all that noticeable when printed on an Adobe RGB-capable printer.

Does this effect RAW at all?

It doesn't affect the Raw data at all. On some cameras, such as Canon DSLRs, it will affect the filename.

[OsmosisStudios]

Im jsut gonna link to a post I wrote about colour spaces for another user. They had trouble getting rich browns.

http://digital-photography-school.co...219-post2.html

If you were to get an overlay similar to that one for AdobeRGB, SRGB and so on, youd see subtle variations.

A great reference for colour issues: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...obeRGB1998.htm

[jeffreyw]

I always shoot in RAW and figured out color space is used in the process of conversion from RAW => X format.

No, the point of a color space is to provide an agreed-upon way to represent colors numerically. Properly done, a color will look the same in all color spaces… provided that the color is "in gamut" for those spaces and that colorimetric rendering is used.

I didn't mean that colors would look different in each color space. What I meant was that it seemed that sRGB has lots more Cyan then Adobe has. And where Adobe "lacks" Cyan it makes up for in other areas, but with more then just one color .. if that makes sense

Anywho, thanks a lot for the articles about color spaces!