# sRGB vs. Adobe RGB



## W.Y.Photo (Aug 23, 2014)

There was an argument recently on a thread here about getting more clients, for fear of the thread being locked due to an off topic discussion I have created this thread

The argument goes as such: Some of us believe that processing images in sRGB exclusivly will help photographers provide more precise color and all around better looking images to a wider audience, while others, myself included, believe that working in larger color spaces like Prophoto and Adobe RGB then converting images is best as it provides a wider range of color that can produce much more of a color range when used in formats other than the web.

For those of you unfamiliar with color spaces, a DSLR is much more capable of recording color than most of our output devices are capable of reproducing, for this reason smaller color spaces have been adopted in order to fit these colors within the range of these output devices (like monitors and printers) The standard color space for images on the web is sRGB but there are larger color spaces like Adobe RGB and Profoto RGB that some photographers prefer as it gives them a wider range of color to work with.

Most digital output devices can only handle sRGB color spaces, however there are higher range printers that can handle Adobe RGB as a color space and the data points for color in Adobe Photoshop are capable of giving the photographer an idea of where color falls in an image that resides in an Adobe RGB or Profoto color space.

I'd appreciate if some of you could re-post your arguments so we don't lose anyone unfamiliar with the original discussion.
Lets keep this civil guys. Does anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?


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## Overread (Aug 23, 2014)

My understanding of this is that:

1) Adobe RGB and other similar colour spaces allow for a much more refined working approach to dealing with colour in the photo. You can push and pull things more so and avoid some banding issues when editing whilst using this colourspace approach. 

2) Adobe RGB isn't web-standard and as such nor is it the standard of most default in-camera settings nor most printing services. The public basically doesn't understand it so the whole system works to the sRGB approach. 

3) Editing in Adobe RGB and then converting to sRGB still gives you the bonuses of working with the wider colourspace to start with, because you're then only downsamping the colourspace once you're finished; instead of doing so at the start and then working with reduced potential range of data values whilst editing. 

4) For many situations the difference for most photographers is negligible to nothing. This is one of those situations where you can be a top rate photographer and still work only in sRGB. Thus there is an element of choice; however I would also say that a large number of photographers also don't formally learn photoshop. Much like using the camera its a cobbled together learning curve with mixed parts short snippet tutorials and user experiences. So sometimes some areas get overlooked or left out and this is one that oft gets left out beyond learning that adobe and s RGB exist.


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## Santa_Claus (Aug 23, 2014)

Why would you convert your working files? Do your work in Lightroom, referencing the RAW data, and only down sample to a smaller color space when outputting or exporting. Maybe I'm missing something.


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## W.Y.Photo (Aug 23, 2014)

Yes, and though sRGB is used in all web formats, there are still printers which are very much capable of handling Adobe RGB and if a photographer is really interested in creating the highest quality print in regards to color variation and vibrancy it is better to show a wider color range (like adobe RGB 1998)

Honestly, the problem with the argument we were having is that both sides were right and noone was willing to accept it.
I think this explains color space in a very objective manner: https://fstoppers.com/pictures/adobergb-vs-srgb-3167



Santa_Claus said:


> Why would you convert your working files? Do  your work in Lightroom, referencing the RAW data, and only down sample  to a smaller color space when outputting or exporting. Maybe I'm missing  something.



Okay, so I'm a photographer who works with the idea idea of hanging my  work in a gallery at the end of processing and printing. Because of this  I am a perfectionist and very OCD about the final results of a print of  one of my images. Every color, tonal value, and splotch of detail has  to be right in a print or I throw it out and start over again. I am used to using very high end printers that excel at color and tonal reproduction. In so doing I like to work in a color space that allows for the variation in color that the printer I am using is capable of creating rather than limiting the image I have created and in so doing limiting my ability to achieve subtle variations in color throughout a work. (keep in mind that I am talking prints that will be meticulously studied by professional eyes) I can't get anything wrong, so the bigger color range I have to work with the better.

I also like to display my images on the web, normally I do this by converting the image from AdobeRGB to sRGB after processing. (if i post up an Adobe RGB image to the web the browser itself will convert it in a much more terrible way and leave the viewer of the image with a garbled mess of color.) 

So, I work with images in the editing stage in Adobe and convert to sRBG for web later.


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## JacaRanda (Aug 23, 2014)

I have been watching videos by Aaron Nace of Phlearn and Julienne Kost an Adobe Evangelist.  If I am not mistaken, they both recommend using Prophoto in PS and saving to the appropriate color space as needed.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Derrel (Aug 23, 2014)

If you want to shoot and sell images that "regular people" will look at on color-space unaware browsers (Windows machines), then make everything really simple. Set the camera to sRGB, edit in sRGB, output in sRGB, and people will then view your images the way you intended them to look, with the LEAST chance for f&&c&-ups on your part, and with the best chance that the inkjet images they make, or the machine prints they have made, will look "right".

If you maintain control of your images in a one-man-band approach, and you supervise all of your own images, and they never,ever leave your system, and never,every leave your control, then do whatever you want.

There is theory, and there is the real, broader, messy world. There are people who view everything they shoot on one,single carefully-calibrated system that "they own". Those people seem to not be able to understand that the way the real world works is based on the sRGB color space. And on a general public who will see images that will look fine in sRGB.


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## KmH (Aug 23, 2014)

Just get a LG G3 ! ! ! !


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## dennybeall (Aug 23, 2014)

As Derrel says..........................................


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## Derrel (Aug 23, 2014)

Feel free to make jokes, but the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 shoots better, more-appealing high-definition video than the Canon 5D Mark III in this side-by-side, real-world comparison...done by a professional cinematographer, not just some schmoe...

Video Test: Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Versus the Canon 5D Mark III






sometimes the hundreds of engineers that design photo-related products actually understand more about how to get fast,easy, and consistent results than self-taught end-users with lots of preconceived notions about what is good,better,and best...


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## W.Y.Photo (Aug 23, 2014)

Darrel, I understand what you are saying, and am completely on board  with you that a person who is shooting exclusively for web would be much  better off using sRGB start to finish. But I want you to know that not  everyone is in that shooting for web boat. Telling a meticulous  photographic printer to use only sRGB is like telling a meticulous shooter to use only jpeg because its much easier to have your camera edit for you. It just doesn't work like that for everyone. Hence this "real world" you speak of is really just another carefully calibrated system called the internet. Not all photography is done for the internet..

Now, I know that this discussion didn't stem from giving advice to a person who was asking about printing, but rather a person who was asking about displaying images on the web. So i think the place where we all really disagree is whether or not to be shooting in sRGB or not.

I just want to point out that photographers out there who plan on creating masterful prints are not going to be using sRGB straight from camera, and that the problem with limiting yourself like that from the get go is an important factor. You can't convert from sRGB to Profoto color space in 50 years when your computer monitor is capable of portraying a much wider gamut of colors, but I can easily take my 50 year old picture of Times Square and show that era what it looks like in a full range of color that they are used to; and hell, if there is no such monitor in 50 years time I can easily just push down to whatever gamut they do use.


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## unpopular (Aug 24, 2014)

This is the workflow I have used. I have used it in a professional prepress environment, at professional photographic printers where output profiles were provided by the printer, and at wal-mart using third party produced profiles.

Convert the file to AdobeRGB at Raw processing
import into Photoshop
import the output device profile using View -> Proof Setup -> Custom, there are some settings here you can research
Enable software proofing by choosing View -> Proof Colors (command-y)
Make your final edits within the working profile (i.e. AdobeRGB) and proofed in the output device profile

If the output is web, you can either edit within AdobeRGB and proof in sRGB, or edit in sRGB from the start. It may not make a huge deal, unless the printer is capable of printing Ina gamut wider than sRGB.

but printers do not PRINT in sRGB. They print in their native subtractive colorspace. This is not sRGB, but it is likely within the sRGB colorspace, and this is why you can use sRGB this way. But this does not mean that using sRGB will automatically be perfect. When its time to print simply convert the working color space to the output:

Choose Edit-> Convert to profile
Choose the output profile (be sure to soft proof for every device; that&#8217;s kind of the point here)
If the output profile matches the profile used in proofing, the image will not change because the working profile (adobeRGB) exceeds the gamut of the device.

If the output profile is not sRGB but you need it to be, make sure to first convert to the device profile and then to sRGB. This isn't so much a problem, though because web stuff is best handled in the Save for Web dialogue. Just convert to the output device profile and then ensure that convert to sRGB its selected in convert to web.

As Darrel is asking, why do all this stuff in the first place? Well, he is right, it might be just splitting hairs. Certainly if the printer can print a wider gamut than sRGB it will make sense to edit in something like AdobeRGB. It may be useful also in more limited gamut in order to pick the next best color for an edit. This seems to be the case for straight CMYK, though I have no real evidence, though I might have an experiment I can try later&#8230;


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## unpopular (Aug 24, 2014)

BTW I am a little rusty on this stuff, so feel free to correct any mistakes. But I m pretty sure I got everything...


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## Scatterbrained (Aug 24, 2014)

Derrel said:


> If you want to shoot and sell images that "regular people" will look at on color-space unaware browsers (Windows machines), then make everything really simple. Set the camera to sRGB, edit in sRGB, output in sRGB, and people will then view your images the way you intended them to look, with the LEAST chance for f&&c&-ups on your part, and with the best chance that the inkjet images they make, or the machine prints they have made, will look "right".
> 
> If you maintain control of your images in a one-man-band approach, and you supervise all of your own images, and they never,ever leave your system, and never,every leave your control, then do whatever you want.
> 
> There is theory, and there is the real, broader, messy world. There are people who view everything they shoot on one,single carefully-calibrated system that "they own". Those people seem to not be able to understand that the way the real world works is based on the sRGB color space. And on a general public who will see images that will look fine in sRGB.


It's actually really simple.  Make sure you embed the sRGB colorspace in Ps before export.  One issue I've found was that you will get different renderings if the colorspace wasn't embedded, even though it was converted to sRGB.  This may have been fixed with the latest version of Lr (I haven't checked since Lr 3 came out), but simply having the colorspace embedded vs just converting the numbers (which is what Lr does) can make a difference.  

I personally prefer to work in a larger color gamut to recover detail in very saturated colors that would clip in sRGB.   As far as the "real world" it's pretty easy to embed a color space; not exactly rocket science.    But I do agree that if someone doesn't have a handle on color management then working in sRGB from start to finish is the easiest way to go about it.


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## JimMcClain (Aug 24, 2014)

Let me see if I have this clear... If I want to assume at least some of the images I record on my camera will be suitable for printing and framing, then it's a good idea to shoot using the Adobe RGB color space. I can develop in Lightroom, even edit further in Photoshop (if and when I get that app) and then either print directly from there, or send or save a printable file to disk and take it to a printer. If I want to also edit for use on the Interweb, then I can edit in (whatever image editing program I use - currently Paintshop Pro X6) and select to change the color space to sRGB during export.

Do I have that right?

Jim


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## Overread (Aug 24, 2014)

Jim yes - only that only some printing services use Adobe RGB. Most consumer commercial ones work with sRGB because that's basically the default standard - same as how they tend to only accept JPEG photos as well. Higher end or more niche/photographer central printers will offer more variety in their setup as to what colourspaces and file formats they accept for print. 

The whole colourspace issue is really one of convenience and perspective. 

Convenience in not having to convert to sRGB from aRGB at the output step 
Perspective in if you see the differences in your final output from working in the different colourspaces (this is compounded by your editing skill/methods; ones own standards and also the amount of editing you do - if you're not doing much if any chances are you might not see much difference). 


Further to remove a confusing/additional learning curve many new photographers are advised to work in sRGB. It makes the process simpler to pick up.


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## The_Traveler (Aug 24, 2014)

Santa_Claus said:


> Why would you convert your working files? Do your work in Lightroom, referencing the RAW data, and only down sample to a smaller color space when outputting or exporting. Maybe I'm missing something.



Because LR is limited in what editing it can do and so many people export from LR to Photoshop which exports losslessly as a PSD or TIFF.


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## Santa_Claus (Aug 24, 2014)

The_Traveler said:


> Santa_Claus said:
> 
> 
> > Why would you convert your working files? Do your work in Lightroom, referencing the RAW data, and only down sample to a smaller color space when outputting or exporting. Maybe I'm missing something.
> ...



But, going from raw to PS is not "lossless" since the gamut is smaller. If I have to go to PS, I will do all the corrections I can in LR first (while I have access to ALL the color data), and can work non-destructively. I will then work in PS in the largest color space I can and save in a lossless format. Only when it comes to outputting will I shoehorn my image into a device's color space. I spent 18 years doing prepress work so I know the agony of taking a beautifully color-corrected image and upon converting to CMYK the reds go muddy and purples go blue. Converting the same image for use on a website may plug up the shadows tones a bit. Put it in a PDF and it might be virtually identical. But, if the first thing you did upon importing the photo was to convert to CMYK, and then you did all your work on that image, the best it'll ever look when you export to the web or PDF is that muddy red and dull purples PLUS plugged shadows!


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## The_Traveler (Aug 24, 2014)

If you know all that then you also know that not everything can be done in LR.


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## Santa_Claus (Aug 24, 2014)

To me, working in sRGB is similar to working in CMYK.


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## unpopular (Aug 24, 2014)

^^^ greatest exaggeration ever.


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## KmH (Aug 24, 2014)

For those that don't know it, LR Develop module uses a wide-gamut color space very close to the ProPhoto RGB color space - Melissa RGB.
The LR color space was named after one of the LR development team members - Melissa Gaul.

We can't change the working color space of LR.


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## W.Y.Photo (Aug 24, 2014)

God I love Melissa:hug::


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## unpopular (Aug 24, 2014)

All of this naturally assumes that your monitor is at least remotely calibrated. But honestly, I have never worked in a fully calibrated environment either. Monitor calibration is just the cheapest and easiest part of this process.

When talking about printer output your finished prints will never look exactly like the monitor. I mean, yeah, you could buy an $8000 light booth and then you remove at least one variable (viewing condition), this is also not exactly a realistic way the print will be displayed (though it'll help you decide where a problem is, and this is why they are used).

But even that isn't the whole story. Paper does not glow. The pigments don't add together and make white, they absorb light and get ever darker until you reach the maximum carrying capacity of the media - aka, "process" black (or at least that is what we call it in the prepress world).

So, no, until we have subtractive monitors (which is possible, though maybe not very practical - at least not for prepress and photography), you'll NEVER ever get a print that looks and feels exactly like the monitor.

The ONLY way to get a as spot on as possible is a complete, custom setup, which is pretty expensive.

X-Rite i1Photo Pro 2 Color Management Kit EO2PHO B&H Photo Video

Ideally printed on your own equipment, or, and if they permit it (way back when I had trouble with this, some baloney about how their color space is proprietary ... I think they were worried about people making comparisons), have your print shop print a swatch provided to them in your working color space (i.e. AdobeRGB).


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## W.Y.Photo (Aug 24, 2014)

In school I worked with epson 3880's connected to fully calibrated systems. May as well have called that lab "heaven"

They were very accurate when softproofing, but even then if you wanted a completely perfect print it would take 3 or more attempts (unless you got really lucky)

Keep in mind when I say perfect I mean 100% the exact color you want in every portion of the image. They were very good machines. 1 shot at a print from a soft-proofed image could easily make a print that a non-photographer client would adore and show all their friends 

It made me very good at spotting color errors in photographs, but it also made me despise working in a way that was not completely calibrated to the needs of the printer I am working with. I'd probably use like 15 sheets of paper trying to get one print just right using my epson 2200 and my laptop


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## astroNikon (Aug 24, 2014)

Gawd, this thread makes one want to shoot strictly in Black & White 

at least I believe in Santa Claus again  

sorry for the interruption ... continue on ...


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## AlanKlein (Aug 24, 2014)

Don't you edit with the monitor calibrated to its Native setting and then output in the gamut according to your needs? (ie. sRGB for internet, etc.)


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## Santa_Claus (Aug 25, 2014)

unpopular said:


> ^^^ greatest exaggeration ever.



I didn't say that it's "the same as", I said that it is similar, i.e. analogous. Using an sRGB color space is throwing away a huge amount of color data right off the top. I would at least normalize your shots before switching to a smaller color space. Working in a prepress environment, we knew that everything was for print, so we did most of our work in CMYK, but we would always adjust exposure (especially pulling out shadow detail) before converting. If we converted first, we would never be able to recover that detail. This is true converting to sRGB, just to a less dramatic extent. So fine, call it exaggeration, but hey, if folks don't GET IT when the point is subtle sometimes you have use a more obvious, but still analogous, example. 

BTW, I have been on these forums for all of three days and already find it one of the more caustic boards I've ever joined... and I participate in a lot of quite varied forums. I hope folks are just having a bad week and this is not the norm. FWIW.


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## Santa_Claus (Aug 25, 2014)

KmH said:


> For those that don't know it, LR Develop module uses a wide-gamut color space very close to the ProPhoto RGB color space - Melissa RGB.
> The LR color space was named after one of the LR development team members - Melissa Gaul.
> 
> We can't change the working color space of LR.



I'm not sure I'm following you on this. You do choose the "process version" in LR which dictates how the raw data is represented in LR. And I use XRite to create my own profiles, which also affect color rendering. What we work on in LR are proxies, created for our screens to approximate what the output will look like. It's not until we output (print or export, for instance) that the raw image data is rendered into the final color space and resolution. Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible).


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## unpopular (Aug 25, 2014)

Santa_Claus said:


> unpopular said:
> 
> 
> > ^^^ greatest exaggeration ever.
> ...



I dig it, I just don't know. But still, it's on a scale like saying by shooting Astia instead of Velvia is like you're shooting B/W. Ok, maybe not that much. But it&#8217;s a pretty huge exaggeration.

Though, I get your frustration. It just seems like people get it in their head that this is all just too hard and give up.

But really *THIS IS HARD ON PAPER ONLY*. In real life, it&#8217;s not that complicated.



> Don't you edit with the monitor calibrated to its Native setting and then output in the gamut according to your needs? (ie. sRGB for internet, etc.)



Yep, this is exactly right. The idea is that you calibrate every monitor to one another so that everyone is looking at the same thing. The monitor is the benchmark. You then convert *to* where you want to go.

Where AdobeRGB gets tricky (as I understand it) is because it's larger than most (all?) monitors. So you cannot see all the colors in your document.

If you just leave it in AdobeRGB all these colors you can&#8217;t see are being sent to the printer. The printer says &#8220;well, I can&#8217;t print that color, but this one is pretty close&#8221;. But because you couldn&#8217;t see the color to start with, you look at your print and say WTF, that isn&#8217;t right!! In reality, it may very well be pretty close, it&#8217;s just YOU couldn&#8217;t see it.

sRGB is a nice middle ground for the Derrels amongst us. It's smaller than your typical monitor's color space, so you can see all the colors, but is still significantly wider than the typical output color space so all the colors still fit inside. 

So when you diligently send your files out as sRGB, they (or their RIP software) converts it to their custom output profile.

That works OK, but I think it&#8217;s far better (well, more precise anyway) to work in a wider color space and soft proof the files to specific devices (provided that this is possible). For one thing, the a custom output profile is going to be physically based in the real world, so it will have a better idea about things like dot gain (how ink/grains spread out on paper at different levels of saturation) and how colors actually mix together. sRGB cannot really predict that kind of thing and certain colors (especially darker ones) might not be represented well in the sterile, ideal world of sRGB alone.


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## CameraClicker (Aug 25, 2014)

What you shoot, who you shoot for, and where your images end up can all affect how you work.  There is no "right" answer.  
For instance, check what the folks shooting the last Olympics were doing.  They shot sRGB JPEGs to get the speed because they had to submit photos within an hour or two of a event, and they had to move to the next event as well.  But, many of them (OK probably all of them) had cameras with dual slots, so they shot raw into the second card.  Beautiful JPEGs for immediate use, much better files for printing on quality printers later!
Those printers that take a dozen pigment ink cartridges, give or take, can print the Prophoto colour space.  If you have one of those, why would you limit yourself to sRGB?
If you are shooting for a catalogue, colours have to be as exact as possible through the whole work flow.  Profiled camera, profiled monitor, profiled printing.  Somebody is going to hold the picture up beside the product and the colour had better be the same.
At the other end of the spectrum, my sister-in-law downloads family photos I post to Flickr, sRGB colour space, 1024 by 768 px, and prints them at Walmart, or wherever.  Drives me crazy!  She can have a free, quality print for the asking.  But, she's happy, so ...
Some people are discerning, some not so much.  This is driving many good professional photographers to distraction because new photographers can hang a shingle and get the not discerning customers as clients by charging next to nothing for photos.
I like to shoot raw files because there is no colour space, there is maximum data and adjustment latitude.  I follow what Epson said should be done, moving the file from raw to Prophoto for editing in Photoshop and sending it to an Epson printer.  When I use a lab, I ask what they want and convert accordingly.  When I want to post on the Internet, I run an action I recorded that makes an sRGB JPEG and puts it where I can find it for upload.  It may be more trouble than some people want to go to but it works for me.


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## unpopular (Aug 25, 2014)

^^ exactly. This is why it's SO important to actually understand this stuff and make an informed decision about what is best.


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## unpopular (Aug 25, 2014)

CameraClicker said:


> Those printers that take a dozen pigment ink cartridges, give or take, can print the Prophoto colour space.  If you have one of those, why would you limit yourself to sRGB?



How wide is the gamut on these decahexawhateva printers? I might be out of date here, but I just have a hard time seeing any subtractive space covering all of sRGB. Maybe certain areas??


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## unpopular (Aug 25, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> Gawd, this thread makes one want to shoot strictly in Black & White



Digital? Because seriously, that's even worse.


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## KmH (Aug 25, 2014)

Santa_Claus said:


> KmH said:
> 
> 
> > For those that don't know it, LR Develop module uses a wide-gamut color space very close to the ProPhoto RGB color space - Melissa RGB.
> ...



The process version is the set of algorithms that determines what Develop sliders are available plus how and how much those sliders change a photo.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 * Process versions

The working color space in LR has always been Melissa RGB.
The key point is Adobe designed LR so we use a wide-gamut color space to view the interpolated colors of Raw files.
Raw files have no color space, which means the sRGB or Adobe RGB 98 settings in the camera have no effect on Raw files.

Adobe and other image editing experts recommend using a wide-gamut color space for editing, and once a photo is edited then choosing the appropriate color space for the use of the photo.

As unpopular mentions, few people have electronic display devices that can display an appreciable % of the Adobe RGB 98 color space colors not included in sRGB.
When it comes down to tablets and other mobile display devices the color temperature of ambient light falling on the display becomes a factor.

Dumbing it down to a lowest common denominator certainly is appropriate for the casual hobby photographer that relies almost entirely on sharing photos electronically.

As CameraClicker alludes to, it benefits a professional photographer, and the photographers clients, if the photographer has a good grasp of color management fundamentals.


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## Santa_Claus (Aug 25, 2014)

Agree with everything you said, except that process version does affect the way the raw is rendered in addition to how the sliders work. The link you shared says as much, but you can witness it, too. If you load an image, apply no adjustments to it, and switch the process you will see a change in the way it is rendered.


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## W.Y.Photo (Aug 25, 2014)

unpopular said:


> CameraClicker said:
> 
> 
> > Those printers that take a dozen pigment ink cartridges, give or take, can print the Prophoto colour space.  If you have one of those, why would you limit yourself to sRGB?
> ...



That all depends on the printer of course; but there are many high end large format printers that come close to or exceed the *size* of Profoto. I have never heard of a printer that completely covers the Profoto gamut's actual colors however. There are just some colors that we haven't made stable enough dyes for yet. That being said, most if not all of these 12-13 ink printers completely cover Adobe-RGB in gamut and that is why more and more professional print studios are moving up to Adobe from sRGB.

The only printers that cant go past sRGB nowadays are LAMBDA's (lasers on photosensitive paper) but if I'm not mistaken that has to do with the paper and not the printer itself. (Color-Photo paper only uses 3 dyes)


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## W.Y.Photo (Aug 25, 2014)

Santa_Claus said:


> Agree with everything you said, except that process version does affect the way the raw is rendered in addition to how the sliders work. The link you shared says as much, but you can witness it, too. If you load an image, apply no adjustments to it, and switch the process you will see a change in the way it is rendered.



It effects the colors due to a change in process version for the develop module which only effects lightroom's processing and display of the image. Not in terms of color space "setting" a factor that has nothing to do with a raw image until it is converted into a jpeg or other image type.


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## ruben_c (Sep 12, 2014)

unpopular said:


> So, no, until we have subtractive monitors (which is possible, though maybe not very practical - at least not for prepress and photography), you'll NEVER ever get a print that looks and feels exactly like the monitor.
> 
> The ONLY way to get a as spot on as possible is a complete, custom setup, which is pretty expensive.
> 
> X-Rite i1Photo Pro 2 Color Management Kit EO2PHO B&H Photo Video



Well it mustn't be expensive if you feel ok with something that is near to perfect.

I don't create my own profiles with a hardware. I use the provided ICC printer profiles from the manufacturer. 
I like hahnemuehle papers also because of this service:
ICC Profiles - Hahnemühle FineArt

So using these profiles and calibrating your display with a hardware calibrator (I use a Spyder4PRO in my case) is a not so expensive solution to get satisfactory high quality results...


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## unpopular (Sep 13, 2014)

And many of my posts above hint at that it cannot ever be "perfect". As I said, pigment on paper just doesn't work like a monitor does.

So the really expensive options is likely going to be overkill for most people.


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## KmH (Sep 14, 2014)

See the *Summary*:
Working Space Comparison: sRGB vs. Adobe RGB 1998


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## spacediver (Sep 15, 2014)

For what it's worth, Digital Cinema content is mastered in the DCI P3 color gamut, which is fairly similar to Adobe RGB. The green primary is nice and saturated but slightly different from Adobe RGB, and the red is even more saturated in DCI P3. Next time you're in the theatre, see if you can make out these differences (probably noticeable in scenes that have neon lighting).


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