I need to be schooled on colorspace!

scolainsola

I just cannot grasp this basic principles behind all the colorspaces.

I am going to attempt to work it out here, please feel free to blast holes in this and/or point me in the right direction.

My Nikon D200 has 2 colorspaces: Adobe RGB and sRGB. I chose Adobe RGB because it has a "wider" color gamut (whatever that means). So I import my NEF files into Lightroom. When externally editing (PS), I have 3 choices: sRGB, Adobe RGB and ProPhoto. Anything less than using ProPhoto, and Lightroom throws up a message claiming "it cannot encompass the full range of colors available within Lightroom." Since I imported the NEF as an Adobe RGB file, would it not be throwing things out of wack by using ProPhoto (16 bit wider gamut)? This is where things get confusing for me.

Finally we have printing, and monitor colorspaces. My monitor is calibrated by Huey, so that is the colorspace it is set as. My printer has another 20+ colorspaces I could use - so which one do I choose? Adobe RGB? Epson bla bla colorspace? Huey?

Bottom line is that I want to make sure I am not mucking up the colors by switching to all these different color spaces. I found in Aperture that what I print photos, they did not even come close do what my calibrated monitor showed me. I have not tried printing yet in LR, but before I start importing and editing, I want to make sure I am doing things right from the start.

:scratch

Thanks in advance!

Scott

gregneil

Hi Scott

The smugmug help tutorial is easy to understand and helpful. The easiest thing to consider is what will your final output be? Most printing services and home printers can't produce a wider gamut than sRGB - and printing services usually expect your files to have an sRGB profile. So unless you know that you're having your photos printed with something that expects Adobe RGB, might as well stick with sRGB the whole way.

And then make sure all your software is clued into that fact. (there are setting for both aperture and photoshop for working with sRGB as your profile.)

SloYerRoll

Lol , you are gonna get slammed w/ opinions on this. I'll give you my quick and dirty color space management opinion.

What a color space does is ensure the file that's on your monitor looks the same (or close to) the same on different versions of browsers and printers and whatever other output means you choose.

sRGB is by far the most commonly used color space. You hear allot about gammut and how bigger is better. But as far as I've seen it's not mission critical unless your a color geek. In that case it's mission critical since it pays your bills. sRGB has plenty of gammut for your photos. All this gammut ppl talk about is barely visible and is almost never utilized unless your using a high def monitor or a printer that costs more then all my camera gear put together.

I used to have a prophoto color space and agonized over CS management. For me at least it's not worth the hassle. If you want consistant reliab;e results, use sRGB.

Good luck in finding what works best for you.

Cheers,
-Jon

arodney

scolainsola wrote:

I just cannot grasp this basic principles behind all the colorspaces.
Scott

Here you go:

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf

http://www.ppmag.com/reviews/200509_rodneycm.pdf

http://www.ppmag.com/reviews/200510_rodneycm.pdf

Read up, ask questions after.

Duffy Pratt

Isn't an .NEF from Nikon a Raw file? If so, you didn't import it as an Adobe RGB file. Setting your camera to Adobe or s RGB determines how the camera renders its .jpgs. The raw file is still always raw, and will continue to be until you convert to another format with an assigned color space.

Duffy

KED

arodney wrote:

Here you go:

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf

http://www.ppmag.com/reviews/200509_rodneycm.pdf

http://www.ppmag.com/reviews/200510_rodneycm.pdf

Read up, ask questions after.

I read all three articles, and while I could ask a million questions I will limit it to this one, maybe somewhat tangential: given the importance of the color space selection, I note that neither Lightroom nor Aperture allow for a selection of one. Does that mean that less high-powered image editing software than PS makes a color space selection for you (assuming you never export the image to PS for additional processing)?

blalor

KED wrote:

given the importance of the color space selection, I note that neither Lightroom nor Aperture allow for a selection of one.

Aperture does. View -> Onscreen Proofing and View -> Proofing Profile -> [pick one]. This allows you to view your images using a particular color space. When you export the image, you decide which color space to use.

arodney

KED wrote:

I read all three articles, and while I could ask a million questions I will limit it to this one, maybe somewhat tangential: given the importance of the color space selection, I note that neither Lightroom nor Aperture allow for a selection of one. Does that mean that less high-powered image editing software than PS makes a color space selection for you (assuming you never export the image to PS for additional processing)?

Lightroom supports three encoding color spaces from Raw" sRGB, Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB.

http://www.ppmag.com/reviews/200701_rodneycm.pdf

KED

blalor wrote:

Aperture does. View -> Onscreen Proofing and View -> Proofing Profile -> [pick one]. This allows you to view your images using a particular color space. When you export the image, you decide which color space to use.

Well, you're right about that, but I only ever used that for "soft proofing" based on my printer's ICC profile. Even with that my prints (from an outside printer through SmugMug) never bear any resemblance, but that's a different topic. Clearly, given where it appears in the Aperture menu structure, it's not meant to set up the "working space" that has been the primary focus here.

blalor

I think the point is that you start with a calibrated monitor and use the onscreen proofing to develop the image according to the output device. You need a calibrated ICC profile for your printer and paper (or service); if you don't have that, then you're basically wasting your time. If you develop using onscreen proofing with your printing service's ICC profile but SmugMug overrides or embeds sRGB into what it hands off to the printing service, that will probably result in a different print than what you want. I can't speak to what SM does as an intermediary, but I'm pretty sure that just working in the sRGB color space start to finish is not going to give you the output you want.

I sat through an Aperture seminar with Brent Haley in Boston a few weeks ago and we discussed this topic for a little while. It seems like an insanely complex topic, and one which I'm not equipped well enough to talk authoritatively. Aperture seems to have the tools to get you the output you want without guess-work, but it depends on having a (recently and frequently) calibrated monitor and then doing your proofing with an ICC profile calibrated to your output device.

KED

You may have hit on the crux of my printing issue -- the SM interpositioning of sRGB -- I will investigate that further. I am a well-educated guy, but in color management I think I've met my match!!

blalor

KED wrote:

You may have hit on the crux of my printing issue -- the SM interpositioning of sRGB -- I will investigate that further. I am a well-educated guy, but in color management I think I've met my match!!

Ah ha!

arodney

KED wrote:

You may have hit on the crux of my printing issue -- the SM interpositioning of sRGB -- I will investigate that further. I am a well-educated guy, but in color management I think I've met my match!!

You need that output profile to soft proof. You can't use sRGB. That's a color space for display and on a pretty particular monitor. Without an output profile and software to soft proof, you'll maybe get close if you're lucky.

Photoshop has no way to show you want a print will look like until its told about the printer. There are no such thing as an sRGB printer. So there's the disconnect. And since LR has no soft proofing, it can't show you this anyway.