sRGB or RGB in original catch?
RovingEyePhoto
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I'm changing shooting genre, now focusing on modeled-street, placing either TFCD or token-paid models within city hustle/bustle/grit scenes, employing wide apertures for a lot of background/foreground bokeh, and even trying slow shutters for background/foreground movement to further pop the pin-sharp modeled subject. The key for me is keeping everything in context, blurring background/foreground to the point of strengthening subject model pin-sharp "pop" (in the eyes, always the eyes), but keeping the blur recognizable and understandable as consistent with why the subject's there and fitting in, everything fully contextual. This is mostly fast catch, hand held, on location, short FL, and minimal flash, works only if the two of us are unobtrusive and attact minimal attention, so of course is absolutely loaded with uncontrollables. Like most of us, I try to get it right in the box the first time, and toward that end set custom WB on every group of like shots (use a flexibly-foldable 12" diameter Lastolite white target with my Oly E3, works easy and well).
I'm using Photoshop sparingly, cropping, straightening, slight sharpening, obvious color enhancements, those sorts of things. I shoot everything in RAW+JPEG (large/fine) so both my and model's immediate needs are covered.
With that background, on to my question. A variable I haven't yet figured out is what colorspace to shoot in (the original snap, not in PP): sRGB, which everything I read tells me gives the wider color gamut more suitable for computer/TV screens; or RGB, with its narrower color gamut apparently more suitable for printing. Common sense seems to tell me to shoot in the wider-gamut sRGB, gather as much dig info as possible. Then either to stay in that colorspace for shots I don't plan to print and for my originals back-up archive, or convert in ACR/Photoshop to Adobe RGB (1998) for shots I plan to print. The primers I'm reading don't seem to come right out and say that, or maybe I'm forgetting as the reading material piles up, but either way, it's a coinfusion to me.
You dgrinners out there with hands-on knowledge, can you move me along? Would be a huge assist, and thanks very much in advance for taking the time.
I'm using Photoshop sparingly, cropping, straightening, slight sharpening, obvious color enhancements, those sorts of things. I shoot everything in RAW+JPEG (large/fine) so both my and model's immediate needs are covered.
With that background, on to my question. A variable I haven't yet figured out is what colorspace to shoot in (the original snap, not in PP): sRGB, which everything I read tells me gives the wider color gamut more suitable for computer/TV screens; or RGB, with its narrower color gamut apparently more suitable for printing. Common sense seems to tell me to shoot in the wider-gamut sRGB, gather as much dig info as possible. Then either to stay in that colorspace for shots I don't plan to print and for my originals back-up archive, or convert in ACR/Photoshop to Adobe RGB (1998) for shots I plan to print. The primers I'm reading don't seem to come right out and say that, or maybe I'm forgetting as the reading material piles up, but either way, it's a coinfusion to me.
You dgrinners out there with hands-on knowledge, can you move me along? Would be a huge assist, and thanks very much in advance for taking the time.
See my work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/26525400@N04/sets/. Policy is to initially upload 10-20 images from each shoot, then a few from various of the in-process shoots each time I log on, until a shoot is completely uploaded.
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You have me confused a bit. First, RAW images are in the colorspace of the sensor regardless of what you set the camera to so your question doesn't matter at all for the RAW part. You decide what colorspace you want in your RAW editor after the fact when you go to save a JPEG or TIFF from the RAW file.
Second, are you saying that your camera has an option for sRGB and a different option for RGB?
Most cameras offer sRGB or AdobeRGB which are both official standard colorspaces that should have the same meaning everywhere you go. "RGB" does not sound like a standard colorspace so if that's really what your camera is offering, I would avoid it and choose sRGB which is a bit smaller colorspace than AdobeRGB, but is what the majority of the world uses and works fine for web and printing. Most of the web expects images in sRGB (only Safari and the latest Firefox beta knows how to appropriately handle colorspaces).
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Since you are shooting a gray target for custom WB on site, using that target for white balancing in RAW with the eye dropper, is a piece of cake.
Post some shots - they sound interesting
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Camera options are sRGB and Adobe RGB. I was a little lazy in typing, sorry.
Guess I still have misunderstandings about colorspace, which is embarrassing considering the amount of study and practice I've put myself through. You say RAW images start out in colorspace of the sensor, regardless of what I set camera at (sRGB or Adobe RGB). So first question is, what colorspace is that, or are you saying RAW images don't have a colorspace till ACR assigns one? If that's true, then what am I doing in setting sRGB or Adobe RGB in-camera, just selecting how the camera processes JPEGs? Sounds right, but is it?
I'm reading that Adobe RGB isn't a good choice for online output, and sRGB isn't good for print output. So if intended output on any particular shot could go either or both ways, I think I'm understanding it right that my RAW image colorspace is set in ACR either as one or the other, or I can process a single RAW image twice if I want one of both, or I can take JPEGs shot at sRGB right out of the camera for internet output, or if shot at Adobe RGB take them right to the printer. Is that correct?
What about JPEGs shot at Adobe RGB and intended for the internet? Do I convert them to sRGB in Photoshop? And what about the opposite, JPEGs shot at sRGB that I ultimately want to print? Does Photoshop fill-in the missing gamut through some algoritthm, and is that reasonably effective.
Assuming I've gotten at least most of the preceeding right, where does this leave us? I know it's opposite from where I started, thinking sRGB was the fuller gamut. How I could still be confused on that is beyond me, embarrassing. The approximately 4mb "large/fine" JPEGs produced by my camera are pretty damn good, especially considering I custom WB for each like set (simple one-topuch technique using the white Lastolite target mentioned), so I'm thinking maybe sRGB could be a sensible setting in-camera. It could totally avoid Photoshop for online output if I didn't want to take the time, and if I did want to crop and straighten (main two uses so far), I'd just do that. For more complicated Photoshopping, I'd go to the RAW image anyway, wouldn't use the JPEG. Does that make sense? Or am I overlooking something, and should set the camera at Adobe RGB, which is what some of the material I've read suggests?
Am I getting there?
Again, many thinks for taking the time.
Please see reply to "jfriend". Thoughts?
Also, the target I use is a white target, not gray, which is what Olympus' one-touch custom WB requires. I have used PhotoVision's Digital Calibration Target (white, gray and black, all in one), and it's great for using Photoshop eye droppers, but there's no way in the world to conveniently use in the modeled-street genre I'm after. If I had to wait for Photoshopping before delivering models' JPEGs in good WB condition, the whole thing would fall apart, everyone's in just too big a hurry, and my time's just not immediately there. For what it's worth, I get excellent results from the custom WB routine followed, biggest problem is that I sometimes forget to do it, but my LCD quickly reminds me after the first first non-custom WB shot.
I hadn't considered using ProPhoto RGB coming out of ACR, but its even wider gamut makes logical sense for later conversion into sRGB or Adobe RGB, or something else I haven't even considered. Most reading I've done suggests converting to Adobe RGB out of ACR. Does ProPhoto RGB merely leave open more options? I just looked it up, and material suggests ProPhoto RGB is better for "high-end dye sublimation and ink jet printers", nothing I've yet run into (I have printing done by pro labs, don't do my own, and they've never asked for it). Am I missing something here?
I've never posted any shots here, but good advice, think I'll do it. The shooting I described is more fun than a barrel of monkeys, you walk along pre-visioning, and with a canvas like Manhattan, just returned from there, you can't go ten steps without a whole new idea showing itself. And that's only what's above ground, the subways are a goldmine! Riskiest part is finding a quietly pretty mod not too far into a "career", wanting the shots as much as you and not already jaded in her thinking, not shy about showing off her poses, and able to pull the whole thing off in a way not attracting too much attention or risking a riot.
Thanks very much for taking the time. Your input is more than just helpful.
RAW shots are technically just data from the sensor. That means they can only be translated into real colors when they are combined with a color profile for that sensor. That's what a RAW processor does (ACR in your case). Then, when you want to save the RAW image to a standard image format like JPEG or TIFF, ACR asks you what standard colorspace you want to use sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB. You are correct. When shooting RAW+JPEG, the colorspace setting in the camera does not affect the RAW files at all, but it does determine what colorspace JPEGs will be if you shoot RAW+JPEG.
AdobeRGB is not currently good for web display because very of the installed browsers looking at the internet know how to properly render colors. Only Safari (Mac or Windows) and Firefox 3 beta properly display AdobeRGB images. Images on the web in AdobeRGB in any other browser will look washed out - colors lose saturation. This is what happens when an image in a larger colorspace (AdobeRGB) is displayed, but an app that doesn't know anything about it. sRGB is what all web images should be for now. This will probably change in a few years, but that's what we're stuck with for now.
You must convert to sRGB before displaying on the internet.
For printing, you have several choices. sRGB is always a safe choice to print as all printers and online labs accept sRGB files. However, if you have a RAW capture that has some brilliant colors in it that are beyond what sRGB contains, but are inside of what AdobeRGB can contain and your printer is capable of displaying these additional colors, then those particular colors may print better if you have the image in AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB when you print. The purists can never imagine losing a little color range by using sRGB because there are some images that benefit from the larger colorspace. Remember, regular colors will print the same in both. It's only super saturated colors that might get clipped a bit in sRGB. The practicians realize that there are many images where the printed result will look no different when printed from sRGB vs. AdobeRGB and, in fact, many online print labs can't even produce all of sRGB. If you're uploading to the web and ordering prints from there or letting others order prints from there, then just convert to sRGB (because you have to for proper web display) and don't worry about it. If you want to get the maximum out of a special image that you're making an enlargement of, then you may want to keep it in a larger colorspace (AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB) and send that to the printer (you have to confirm that they will accept it).
Depending upon an individual's familiarity and understanding of colorspaces, I recommend one of three paths:
1) Simple. Don't have to worry a whole lot about colorspaces. Won't make any big mistakes of using the wrong colorspace at the wrong time.
Set the camera to sRGB and just keep all your images in sRGB. If shooting RAW, set your RAW convert to sRGB so it produces sRGB JPEGs.
2) Simple with a few exceptions. Do everything the same as option 1) except shoot RAW and occasionally process a particular photo destined for a printer that has rich colors in AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB. Never put the non-sRGB version on the web. Use it only for printing.
3) Advanced. Keep all your images in AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB except you custom convert to sRGB just the ones that you are putting on the web or sending in email. You have to constantly be aware of what colorspace your image is in and what you are going to use it for because putting a non-sRGB image on the web will look lousy and giving your printer an image in a colorspace they don't support will look lousy too.
My estimate, based on your comments so far is that you are in the middle range, perhaps thinking about option 2), but probably not yet ready to go all the way to option 3) because the likelihood of a mistake of using the wrong colorspace at the wrong time might still be too high or more work than you care to think about.
I myself shoot only RAW. That gives me the luxury of not having to pick a colorspace until I'm generating JPEGs. Since most of my JPEGs go on the web, I'm usually making sRGB JPEGs. If I print locally directly from Lightroom, the image stays in the Lightroom internal colorspace (which is something like ProPhotoRGB - a large colorspace) so I don't have to make a decision then. If I take it into CS3 for some tweaking before printing, I convert it into ProPhotoRGB/16-bit and print from that since that will preserve all the color I have. I usually don't need to save the ProPhotoRGB version to disk so I tend to just have RAWs (with adjustments in Lightroom) and sRGB JPEGs that I use for the web.
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A RAW file, contains all the image and color data acquired by the sensor when exposed. It is rendered by the RAW converter into an image in a specific color space. ProPhoto 16 bit is the largest space currently available in Photohshop. Files saved as psd's can be saved in ProPhoto. Once you convert that file to 8 bit sRGB, you cannot convert back to the previous file because data is thrown away when you go from the very large 16bit ProPhoto to the smaller 8 bit sRGB. The image may look unchanged, and indeed, Photoshop will let you "convert" it back to a 16 bit ProPhoto color space image - but it is NOT the same image it was before downsizing to 8 bit sRGB. Data was compressed and what was not needed was lost in rendering.
sRGB is for web display and for printing via WEB print labs, and does an excellent job of this. I have several large 20 x 30 in prints from sRGB and they look lovely.
AdobeRGB is a slightly larger color space than sRGB ( but with larger steps between hues ) and is what some houses require for converting to CMYK for standard linotype printing presses. Some fine art ink jet printers have larger gamuts than linotype presses and can display aRGB colors.
Many monitors cannot fully display aRGB, and current monitors cannot display the full gamut of ProPhoto. It's "there", it just cannot be seen!
So if you shoot in RAW, sRGB or aRGB really makes no difference.
If you save RAW + jpgs, then sRGB or aRGB does affect the small jpgs.
Purists will insist that aRGB holds more hues, but the web and color TV are all based around sRGB. For most shots of people, either color space will provide satisfactory images. IF you know why you prefer aRGB over sRGB, then you should use aRGB. If you do not know precisely why you prefer one over the other, sRGB is probably a safer choice for you.
Bear in mind, that all jpgs need a tag for color space to render correctly, either on the web, or in print. In Photoshop CS3, Edit->Convert to Profile->Destination Space sRGB IEC61966-2.1 will tag the image with the sRGB profile and display it properly.
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