Swapping color spaces/profiles dangerous?

NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
edited October 16, 2009 in Finishing School
Could someone help me with this notion? Say I have worked on a photo in PS in sRGB, and then I take it to PSPXII which wants to convert it to its "workingRGB" before displaying it. I click OK. After viewing the picture, but not having done any edits in PSPXII, I close the picture, and a dialog box appears to ask me whether to save the changes before exiting PSPXII (the color space/profile conversion being the change), and I click "No" ... Say all of that, then is the picture I then have in all respects the same as the one that I originally took to PSPXII, or has it suffered the degradation said to affect photos converted, especially multiple times, in and out of different color spaces/profiles?

Many thanks for any info.

Neil
"Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

http://www.behance.net/brosepix

Comments

  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited October 15, 2009
    Bumping in the hope some knowledgeable and kind soul with a free minute or two will notice.

    I neglected to mention that the sRGB file being moved around was a tiff.

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • BinaryFxBinaryFx Registered Users Posts: 707 Major grins
    edited October 15, 2009
    Neil, I don't use PSP, however from your descripton it sounds like you are NOT saving any PSP changes, so the file would be unchanged so no "damage".

    Why don't you sync up the working spaces so that they both use sRGB and thus no conversion and then no worries if you mistakenly save over the file in PSP?

    I think that no one has replied as it is hard to understand why you are so concerned, if the file is not saved then how could any change be an issue?

    Is this a case of Schrödinger's Photoshop file?


    Regards,

    Stephen Marsh

    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
    http://prepression.blogspot.com/
    http://binaryfx.customer.netspace.net.au/
    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
    http://prepression.blogspot.com/
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited October 15, 2009
    BinaryFx wrote:
    Neil, I don't use PSP, however from your descripton it sounds like you are NOT saving any PSP changes, so the file would be unchanged so no "damage".

    Why don't you sync up the working spaces so that they both use sRGB and thus no conversion and then no worries if you mistakenly save over the file in PSP?

    I think that no one has replied as it is hard to understand why you are so concerned, if the file is not saved then how could any change be an issue?

    Is this a case of Schrödinger's Photoshop file?


    Regards,

    Stephen Marsh

    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
    http://prepression.blogspot.com/

    I think it's a case of software paranoia - who hasn't got a horror story to tell??!!mwink.gif

    My twisted thinking was, well, maybe changing color space is like saving jpegs - the more you do it, the worse things get. I think that's true, but yes, I was not saving. However, I didn't know if converting color space was inherently destructive, that is once it's done there's no getting back to what was before, whether you later saved or not. Some things remain a bit esoteric, there's a big uncertainty principle!!

    Thanks for your kind help, Stephen. It's much appreciated.

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • jamesljamesl Registered Users Posts: 642 Major grins
    edited October 15, 2009
    NeilL wrote:
    Could someone help me with this notion? Say I have worked on a photo in PS in sRGB, and then I take it to PSPXII which wants to convert it to its "workingRGB" before displaying it. I click OK. After viewing the picture, but not having done any edits in PSPXII, I close the picture, and a dialog box appears to ask me whether to save the changes before exiting PSPXII (the color space/profile conversion being the change), and I click "No" ... Say all of that, then is the picture I then have in all respects the same as the one that I originally took to PSPXII, or has it suffered the degradation said to affect photos converted, especially multiple times, in and out of different color spaces/profiles?

    Many thanks for any info.

    Neil

    As long as you are not actually saving the file, no color space changes will have been applied. You could get around this problem by setting both Photoshop and PSP to use the same profile (probably sRGB).

    James
    James Langford
    Langford Photography
    http://www.langfordphotography.com
    james@langfordphotography.com
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited October 16, 2009
    Thanks, James. Good to get confirmation!

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • chrisjohnsonchrisjohnson Registered Users Posts: 772 Major grins
    edited October 16, 2009
    It is a good question - I confess I don't understand color profiles either. My current way of working is to store versions of anything I consider worth keeping long term in Raw until I have figured it out - then I can always go back to the negative when I realize that I got it wrong.

    For JPEGs I am sticking to sRGB. Their are other possibilities which may give better colors, but seeing as 99% of my "work" is destined to be viewed on a computer monitor this seems the safest being the lowest common denominator.
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