Color Space?

Candid Arts

My camera has:
sRGB
Adobe RGB

LR2 has:
sRGB
Adobe RGB (1998)
ProPhoto RGB

What is best to have my camera on? And what is best to export out of LR2?

I did some reading on this awhile ago at dpreview and since have my camera on Adobe RGB and LR2 on ProPhoto RGB because I thought that the Adobe offered a wider array of colors, tones, hues, etc... And when I saw ProPhoto in LR2, I figured..."pro"...must be better...?

Anyways, some help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Tee Why

If you shoot in RAW, then selecting a color gamut won't matter.
It's once you convert from RAW to JPEG or Tiff, then the color space you pick will matter.

sRGB has the smallest color gamut but it's kind of the standard on most monitors, web sites, and printing services from what I hear.

aRGB has a bigger color gamut and I hear that most home photo printers can print in this gamut, but it may make the colors a bit different if you upload an aRGB onlne and it's viewed online by others.

ProPhoto has the widest gamut by far and I'm not even sure if all the monitors and printers can reproduce all the range of colors and gradations and what not.

I guess if you are a color freak, then ProPhoto may be the way to go. aRGB may be an option if you want a wider gamut than sRGB. sRGB offers the convienence of wide compatibility at the expense of a smaller gamut and this may be the way to go if you are shooting in JPG and display/share your images online and/or print from commercial printers.

I personally haven't seen any direct comparisons of RAW shots process and printed via sRGB, aRGB, and Pro Photo color gamut. It would be nice to see how much difference there is.

Here is a very techno laden article about color spaces.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml

Candid Arts

I shoot in RAW 100% of the time (unless I'm documenting drawing or 2D homework for school). So I guess the settings I'm on are good. My uses for my pictures are...smugmug, and if someone wants to buy from smugmug. Or for my own personal use hanging on walls, Christmas Presents, etc...

I am kind of a color freak, but at the same time I think I'm having trouble with, hopefully editing, my photos. In comparison to other photos I've been seeing by some other photographers, my color is pale in comparison and I don't know why, other than the fact that I only have about 2 months experience with PS and LR, and haven't taken my Digital Tools class yet in school to learn the terminology and effects.

Well I guess that answered my question. Thanks!

Tee Why

I think if you shoot in RAW and post on smugmug and print via smugmug, then sRGB may be the most convenient.

As for the colors being pale in comparison, that may have more to do with WB, contrast, and saturation than color space.

In your situation, I'd probably shoot in sRGB in RAW (won't matter if you shoot in RAW) and would convert to JPG in sRGB format.

Good luck.

Candid Arts

Tee Why wrote:

I think if you shoot in RAW and post on smugmug and print via smugmug, then sRGB may be the most convenient.

As for the colors being pale in comparison, that may have more to do with WB, contrast, and saturation than color space.

In your situation, I'd probably shoot in sRGB in RAW (won't matter if you shoot in RAW) and would convert to JPG in sRGB format.

Good luck.

I usually adjust my WB accordingly, but never really know how much contrast, saturation, and hue adjustments I can make with out really degrading the photo. Will Adobe RGB work with smugmug? I'd prefer to keep the color gamut as wide as possible, while still being able to print with accuracy.

How much can you crank these adjustments and still have a super high quality rendering of the photo w/o adding any noise (or anything else that makes the photo look like crap)?

pyry

Choosing your colour space depends on your target media.

Web and most prints: sRGB all the way - most people don't have monitors that can display your work correctly in any wider gamut. Monitors that do go to AdobeRGB are in the professional range. Most photo printers work in sRGB as well I think - including Smugmug.

Print press stuff: AdobeRGB, this is what it was made for - to match the gamut of a typical CMYK printing press. Some inkjets can apparently do this as well. Requires that pricey top-of-line monitor to proof.

I don't see much use for working in Prophoto RGB, the thing is too wide even for your own eyes. Nothing can reproduce the colours in it, let alone proof it so you'll have to convert down anyway at some point.

pathfinder

For images that you display on the web and have printed by smugmug's EZPrints, use sRGB.

I shoot in RAW also, import my files into LR2 where the working space is 16bit Pro Photo, and change my images to 8bit jpgs in sRGB for uploading to Smugmug.

As for colors, check out the images in my gallery and see if you think they lack adequate color and saturation http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/ All those images are in sRGB, and I have prints from them as well, and they match perfectly.

aRGB is a larger gamut ( slightly) but unless you are completely clear in your own mind why you need aRGB , have a monitor that displays it and a printer that can render it, you are asking for problems if you introduce it into your workflow unnecessarily. My own opinion.

As better monitors that allow viewing wider gamuts get more common, and printers can fully render wider gamuts, we still have to live with the fact that ink on paper is never going to have the contrast range of life, or a LCD monitor. Artists have lived with this issue for centuries and managed to create a few worthwhile paintings in spite of it.

Candid Arts

Well I haven't had any issues with printing or viewing as of yet. But then again I wouldn't notice issues with viewing if the monitor can't even display that amount of colors from Pro. Smugmug has had no issues printing up my stuff, nor have the other places I've used before Smugmug. Will it hurt anything to keep as I'm going now, for later in the future when printers/monitors are able to render all that color? That way my photos will all be set for then?

I checked out your gallery, you have a lot of very vivid colors. *On a side note, the photo you have of the deer head with it's antlers poking up just above some bushes I FREAKING LOVE!

Here is an example of some photos that are extremely vivid, along with some with ridiculous detail:http://www.natureindepth.com/gallery/2021713_54LKu. Are these just super super saturated or am I just missing something? Also, I'd have to go back through my stuff and look, but I don't think I've ever gotten that insane amount of detail and sharpness in my photos. Am I doing something wrong or just seeing my own work through different, more judge mental eyes?

Here is a link to my gallery for a reference on my work: http://candidartsphotography.smugmug.com/galleries

Thanks for all your help!

Tee Why

Candid Arts wrote:

I usually adjust my WB accordingly, but never really know how much contrast, saturation, and hue adjustments I can make with out really degrading the photo. Will Adobe RGB work with smugmug? I'd prefer to keep the color gamut as wide as possible, while still being able to print with accuracy.

How much can you crank these adjustments and still have a super high quality rendering of the photo w/o adding any noise (or anything else that makes the photo look like crap)?

First of all, make sure your monitor is calibrated otherwise you are making adjustment in the dark (figuratively speaking of course). How much adjustment you can make depends on many things but you can view the histogram as you adjust and see if you are overexposing the channels. Even if you do how much saturation you can add is very subjective and more a matter of taste/style. Adobe RGB will work with smugmug but IIRC, it may not accurately reproduce the colors if you upload and print in aRGB as if you have uploaded in sRGB.

IMO, anything that you do in post processing contrast/saturation/sharpening/dodge/burn will add noise. It's just a matter of asking if the noise distracts from the image/print or not. Very subjective as noise in some shots can be very nice IMO (mostly b/w prints).

Hyperiate

pathfinder wrote:

I shoot in RAW also, import my files into LR2 where the working space is 16bit Pro Photo, and change my images to 8bit jpgs in sRGB for uploading to Smugmug.

As for colors, check out the images in my gallery and see if you think they lack adequate color and saturation http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/ All those images are in sRGB, and I have prints from them as well, and they match perfectly.

This is pretty apropos as I've just gone through about 300 photos from an event I shot last week in LR2 (which I just got). I have adjusted each picture individually and then when done exported into sRGB JPEG for upload to SmugMug.

I noticed that the resulting JPEGs are noticeably duller or dimmer than the images in LR2. This is on the same screen for each (Macbook Pro 15" LED) so it isn't a calibration issue...

Are there steps I can take to counteract this effect?

Thanks!
Tom

jogle

Lightroom does all it's colour correction maths in proPhotoRGB space, so there's a conversion going on when you import, no matter what colour space you shoot in.

So it makes sense to shoot in adobeRGB and then output from lightroom to smugmug in sRGB (I use the handy uploader plugin) and if you are printing at home, print directly from lightroom using the profiles for your printer.

You can upload adobeRGB jpegs to smugmug and they will convert them to sRGB to match 99% of peoples browsers. The problem with this is that you then have all the drawbacks of both colour spaces and none of the benefits of either.

If you go from lightroom to photoshop, use the 16bit proPhotoRGB colour space option and take it back to lightroom for exporting for the web etc.

If you're shooting straight to jpegs for someone else for any reason, switch back to sRGB in camera to minimise hassles.