Which color-space to use in Photoshop?
Michael Cihelka
At the moment I'm using AdobeRGB (1998) color space in Photoshop for all of
my photo editing/manipulation. All my photos are burned to CD for future
use/reprints. But lately I've been reading on the Web that many colour
spaces will limit (or compress) the color gamut of an image, making it
impossible to get best quality prints from newer high quality printers.
So why not work in a color space that has a very wide color gamut? Is
AdobeRGB good enough? One friend suggested that I use the Kodak ProPhoto RGB
profile to future-proof all my work. Which is better, AdobeRGB or ProPhoto
RGB? What trade-offs are there in using a very wide-gamut color space?
Thanks for any info,
Michael
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Tony Spadaro
Blattner and Frasier. They have an excellent explanation of the colour
spaces, and how to get the most out of Adobe Gamma. Furthermore BruceRGB
(named for Bruce Frasier) is an excellent colour space - not too wide and
not too narrow. Unless you are part of a workgroup, BruceRGB makes life with
Photoshop considerably easier.
I will amend that somewhat - If the web is a strong component of your
work - BruceRGB is NOT a good colourspace for you.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Or thrill to sights you've never seen before all that often
Chapel Hill artist Tony Spadaro's Home page
http://tspadaro.homestead.com/Home.html
"Michael Cihelka" <michael...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3b411...@goliath.newsgroups.com...
Peter C Bell
> From: "Michael Cihelka" <michael...@hotmail.com>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> At the moment I'm using AdobeRGB (1998) color space in Photoshop for all of
> my photo editing/manipulation. All my photos are burned to CD for future
> use/reprints.
Burned to at least two duplicate CDs, I hope. Failure rate over time is high
enough to worry.
> But lately I've been reading on the Web that many colour
> spaces will limit (or compress) the color gamut of an image, making it
> impossible to get best quality prints from newer high quality printers.
>
This is primarily a problem with sRGB, a lowest-common-denominator color
space that is still assumed by many applications (e.g., Web browsers). If
you print from sRGB to, say, an Epson 1280, which has a wider gamut, you are
potentially missing out on some colors, or will see color shifts. Adobe
1998, on the other hand, is a reasonably good fit with the Epson printers -
larger, but not unreasonably so.
> So why not work in a color space that has a very wide color gamut?
1.) Your monitor can't display the difference between some of the colors, so
either you are "working blind", or some sort of conversion is occurring on
the fly. Both of these situations can lead to unexpected color shifts when
you try to print.
2.) Somewhere along the line, the "wide" colors will have to get converted
to colors that are within the printer's gamut. This may not work well.
Better to stay closer to the printer's gamut.
> Is
> AdobeRGB good enough? One friend suggested that I use the Kodak ProPhoto RGB
> profile to future-proof all my work. Which is better, AdobeRGB or ProPhoto
> RGB?
I have no idea, but most sources say Adobe 1998, so I go with that. Color
management is still a nightmare, and it will probably be several years
before it's all sorted out, but Adobe 1998 is the closest thing to a
high-end standard out there. For example, the Nikon D1x now offers an option
to output to Adobe 1998 from the camera.
By the way, if you are prepping photos for Web display, you might want to
consider converting to sRGB for your final editing, since it's generally
better for you to tweak things than to let a downstream application do it.
Hope this helps,
- Peter
Tamon Yanagimoto
not done extensive testing (the printer is not mine) but I have noticed a
pretty accurate representation of colors in the final print.
--
Tamon Yanagimoto
Yanagimoto Photo - Photography & Imaging Resources
ta...@yanagimotophoto.com
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"Peter C Bell" <peter...@home.com> wrote in message
news:B7668A4B.2817%peter...@home.com...
Lugh-Clyde
you are working with as much color as you can as the filters and editing
take their toll. Ideally, if you have good color synchronization as well as
everyone who uses your file, you shouldn't have any problem with this.
However, almost no one has great color management.
I tend to use AdobeRGB (1998) for images that I print or would have multiple
uses for. If it's an image that will be Web/screen only, I will convert to
sRGB or sometimes edit it in that from the start.
You aren't likely to find much difference in the other wide color spaces
from Adobe. Hey, try them and see if you can tell any difference.
Clyde
Joe Blow
How can I tell what color space an image is using?
Some of the digital camera EXIF files I've seen indicate that the
color space is sRGB.
What happens when those images when they are converted to Adobe 1998?
John
Tony
Management On or Off? What setting do you use on the Epson Main (Advanced)
Control Panel?
Tamon Yanagimoto <ta...@yanagimotophoto.com> wrote in message
news:9hrolo$ghm$1...@nn-tk106.ocn.ad.jp...
Peter C Bell
Regarding your question about conversion, let's tackle the case of sRGB
first, forgetting about Adobe 1998 for a minute.
If Photoshop stays in sRGB, it has to fit all colors reported by the camera
into the relatively narrow gamut of that color space. It's not completely
obvious how it does this (at least in my version of Photoshop, 5.5), but
from what I can tell, it desaturates and lightens the colors throught the
image, until all colors fit into the color space. This so-called
"Perceptual" conversion avoids abrupt and unnatural clipping that would be
apparent if Photoshop modified only the out-of-gamut colors and left the
in-gamut colors untouched. Unfortunately, it also washes out the entire
image.
Now, what if you ask Photoshop to convert to Adobe 1998 when it opens a file
from the camera? In some sense, Photoshop breathes a sigh of relief, because
Adobe 1998 has a much wider gamut, so less desaturation and lightening is
necessary. Therefore, you get a nice, vivid image on-screen. You can edit
the image, print to an Epson printer, and even ignoring various additional
color management options, there is a good chance that the Epson print driver
will give you a nice image.
However, what if you want to prepare the image for Web display? In this
case, it's important to realize that the Web browser is going to convert
things to sRGB no matter what (at least for today - someday, with any luck,
this will change). If you give it a nice, vivid, Adobe 1998 image, it's
going to do what Photoshop would do in the sRGB space: desaturate and
lighten it. It might also shift the colors significantly. It's better, in
all likelihood, to convert back to sRGB yourself and then tweak things as
necessary.
Therefore, if you are only interested in displaying an image on the Web, you
might be better off staying in sRGB throughout your workflow.
You can see all this in action if you use the eyedropper in Photoshop to
sample the RGB values for some of your more saturated colors in an image
displayed in Adobe 1998. Then, use Image/Mode/Profile to Profile... to
adjust to sRGB, using the Perceptual option. The colors will change: sample
the same area, and you will see a (sometimes dramatic) difference.
Note that, if you have set up color profiles correctly, Photoshop does not
convert the underlying raw pixel data. Instead, it maps colors in the
profile saved with the image. So, you can go from sRGB into a wider color
space later - it's a non-destructive mapping instead of a destructive
conversion.
Now, I'm not really sure why the camera color space is important in all of
this. From what I can tell, it doesn't make any difference in the raw pixel
data from the camera. It's not like the camera is clipping all of its nice
colors to fit into sRGB's narrow gamut. Photoshop is going to convert the
raw pixel data into whatever color space is its default. I suppose if you
set up Photoshop to not do any conversion of incoming images, it would then
stay in the "safe", low-gamut sRGB space that the camera is reporting as the
default. Otherwise, I can't see that it matters. If anyone has any insights
in this area, please feel free to share.
Hope this helps,
- Peter
Mike Russell
scaling, and loss of saturation that Peter describes. There are some photographic images for which
Perceptual is the way to go, but they are rare.
For people who don't want to worry about all this, simply working in sRgb, Apple RGB, or Adobe RGB
is probably just
fine. PC folks may want to set their printers to gamma 2.2, or sRGB to keep the printout from being
too dark.
--
http://www.zocalo.net/~mgr
"Peter C Bell" <peter...@home.com> wrote in message news:B767F099.4027%peter...@home.com...
Tony Spadaro
inkjet printing it is the cats whiskers. Unfortunately it is not good for
the web.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Or thrill to sights you've never seen before all that often
Chapel Hill artist Tony Spadaro's Home page
http://tspadaro.homestead.com/Home.html
"Mike Russell" <ge...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:Qwx07.5871$Uj6....@open-news.pacbell.net...
Todd Walker
tonight and I tried the BruceRGB space and the results were fantastic.
I printed the same picture that I had just printed in sRGB and the
flesh tones especially with the Bruce space were much more accurate --
the sRGB skin tones were a bit too magenta. What "Intent" setting do
you use with the Bruce space? I used Relative Colorimetric and the
results look very nice. My only complaint is that a bright red object
came out looking a little orange. My printer is an Epson Stylus 640
BTW.
Thanks!
Todd
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Tony Spadaro
Red is, in my experience where BruceRGB is liable to give less than
satisfactory results. Any picture with heavy red - and I do a lot of night
photography, so there are a plenty of them - has to be tweeked at the
printing stage.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Or thrill to sights you've never seen before all that often
Chapel Hill artist Tony Spadaro's Home page
http://tspadaro.homestead.com/Home.html
"Todd Walker" <twalk...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3b44dd1f...@news-server.jam.rr.com...
David Chien
temperature. If you use a picture for online, adjust using 9500K; if you use it
for print, use 5000K.
I find that my 5000K monitor matches my Epson 1200 pretty darn good w/o any
color mgmt. at all, and tweaks on-screen match what I can expect in print. I
simply jump back to 9500k for any online photo tweaks.
--
But for me, Adobe RGB. Bigger color space, non-compressed colors (esp. reds
which will simply blow out in sRGB), and it'll gobble up most any other format
you receive w/o destroying the colors.
If you only work with sRGB digicams and files, sRGB can be a better choice for
you as you avoid conversion completely.
d =)
Mike Russell
common for PhotoShop images to look different depending on what software you use to look at them
with. Not using color management is one simple and effective way to accomplish this.
Good quality images are trivially possible without using color management at all - keep in mind that
profiles weren't integrated into PhotoShop until version 5.0, and we all did just fine up to that
point, thank you.
Kind of reminds me of OSX - something wonderful if only *everyone* got on board, and a bit of hell
on earth if they don't
--
http://www.zocalo.net/~mgr
"David Chien" <chi...@uci.edu> wrote in message news:3B44F79B...@uci.edu...
Tony Spadaro
commercially available ones. I've done nothing to get my scanner display to
match my monitor display. I have set things up to get the scan looking
right, and to hell with what the preview looks like. When I'm doing a scan I
make preliminary scans at 500 dpi (one pass no ICE - takes about 4 seconds)
to tune the image. This is mostly for broad colour correction. Fine tuning
is done in Photoshop where I can make several small moves to the Curves or
Levels.
I do however use Adobe gamma, and keep my monitor calibrated. It would
be foolish to do otherwise.
I don't set my monitor at 5000k either. Whites will always come out
yellow looking at 5000k. Blattner and Frasier explain it as an anomaly
having to do with the way monitors display colour. I can tell you that a
slide observed with a 5000k light source looks much bluer (and better) than
the same slide viewed at a monitor set for 5000k.
I do remember printing from Photoshop 4, completely without colour
management of any kind - it was a miserable crap shoot as to what would come
out on the paper. I get surprized every now and again still, but I no longer
figure on 5 to 6 sheets of paper tossed out to get a single print.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Or thrill to sights you've never seen before all that often
Chapel Hill artist Tony Spadaro's Home page
http://tspadaro.homestead.com/Home.html
"Mike Russell" <ge...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:VM817.6019$Uj6....@open-news.pacbell.net...
Peter C Bell
issue from profiles. You will be working in a particular color space no
matter what - it's just a matter of whether you want to choose it yourself
or rely on what your app happens to give you. For example, it still may make
sense for you to work in Adobe 1998 when you want to get a complete gamut
for prints, even if you never use profiles.
That said, I agree that there is nothing magical about profiles. It seems to
be most important for those sharing color-critical files between monitors,
which I imagine is a relatively small number of us. Otherwise, just find
some way to match your printer to your monitor - there are lots of
possibilities. Many people just goof with their monitor settings until the
image matches their prints. This is verboten to the profile folks, but who
cares, if it works for you.
- Peter
> From: "Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com>
> Organization: Road Runner - NC
> Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital
> Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 02:44:07 GMT
> Subject: Re: Which color-space to use in Photoshop?
>
Tony Spadaro
workgroups.
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Or thrill to sights you've never seen before all that often
Chapel Hill artist Tony Spadaro's Home page
http://tspadaro.homestead.com/Home.html
"Peter C Bell" <peter...@home.com> wrote in message
news:B76A7D70.441F%peter...@home.com...
Joe Blow
Ok, so how do I tell what color space an image is in?
John
Peter C Bell
If you choose to save profiles from Photoshop, then open the file later in
Photoshop, it will recognize if there is a mismatch, but I don't think it
will bother to tell you the original color space.
As I've said elsewhere, it will probably be years before all of this stuff
gets sorted out.
- Peter
> From: Joe Blow <donts...@donthaveanisp.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital
> Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 20:26:33 -0400
> Subject: Re: Which color-space to use in Photoshop?
>
>
>
Tony Spadaro
than they were 3 years ago!
--
http://home.nc.rr.com/tspadaro/
The Camera-ist's Manifesto
a Radical approach to photography.
Or thrill to sights you've never seen before all that often
Chapel Hill artist Tony Spadaro's Home page
http://tspadaro.homestead.com/Home.html
"Peter C Bell" <peter...@home.com> wrote in message
news:B76BC73C.4573%peter...@home.com...
Big Bob
"Joe Blow" <donts...@donthaveanisp.com> wrote in message
news:0nlcktkge7s9cj4il...@4ax.com...
>
>
> Ok, so how do I tell what color space an image is in?
>
profile is. It will also notify you if you open an image that is not in the
same colorspace, but you have to choose that in the preferences.
(edit...color settings...notify on profile mismatch), and that will also
tell you what assigned profile it is. It's kind of annoying having it pop
up with new images, so I just have it convert automatically.
Big Bob
Joe Blow
I've figured that part out.
But what I'm really after is how to determine the color space the
image was created in.
Some of the EXIF data I've seen for my digital camera shows that it's
using the sRGB color space.
Wouldn't that be a bad thing?
John