Color Space

[wornish]

Still not fully up to speed on colour space settings.

Does the colour space setting in your camera make any difference if you are shooting in RAW ?

I normally have my camera set to Adobe RGB (aRGB) colour space and the same for Lightroom.

As a test I changed Lightroom to sRGB and exported the same photo I couldn't see any difference in the final pic.
Is this normal ? Is it dependent on the subject?

 

[SteveH]

Good question Dave, I often wondered the same. I think Mr. Horoscope Fish said in his 365 thread that he noticed he was set to aRGB and that sRGB would make his shots more vibrant... I may have misunderstood but I'd be interested to know the difference, and what is the norm when it comes to getting prints.

 

[wornish]

I think most print shops ask for sRGB so thats the standard.

The question is when you export for the WEB whats best.

I am going to try and set up the same shot with camera set to sRGB and then aRGB

then output each to LR set at sRGB and aRGB.

Just wondered if anyone else has done this.

 

[Felisek]

If you shoot RAW, it doesn't matter (as far as I understand). Very roughly speaking sRGB is good for monitors (online sharing), while Adobe RGB can be used for printing, but it is more complicated. Most labs will tell you to send them files in sRGB space anyway. Ken Rockwell thinks we should only use sRGB.

 

[wornish]

OK here are four combinations
All shot in RAW no extra post processing

Camera set to Adobe RGB
LR set to Adobe RGB ----------------------------LR set to sRGB



Camera set to sRGB
LR set to aRGB -----------------------------------LR set to sRGB



Can you see any difference. Maybe difference on skin tones ?

 

[WayneF]

Still not fully up to speed on colour space settings.

Does the colour space setting in your camera make any difference if you are shooting in RAW ?

I normally have my camera set to Adobe RGB (aRGB) colour space and the same for Lightroom.

As a test I changed Lightroom to sRGB and exported the same photo I couldn't see any difference in the final pic.
Is this normal ? Is it dependent on the subject?

No, the sensor takes the same picture of the light falling on it. And there are no camera settings in Raw. You set the settings later in the Raw software.

I hope you understand the significance of aRGB. You need special printing techniques, and special photo labs, that understand aRGB.

In general, photo labs print sRGB. And monitors show sRGB. And our home printers expect sRGB, UNLESS you have paid the dollars for special aRGB profiles. etc, etc. But in all cases, it is the same raw picture at the digital sensor.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

I hope you understand the significance of aRGB. You need special printing techniques, and special photo labs, that understand aRGB.

In general, photo labs print sRGB. And monitors show sRGB.

Exactly... And just to restate my problem, and I swear I'm not making this up, sometimes the adjustments I've made in Photoshop do not show up in photos when I post them online. In short: Photo looks awesome in Photoshop but the picture looks looks "flat" when viewed in Firefox. By "flat" I meaning colors do not have the same saturation they do when viewed in Photoshop and the contrast seems lower (in the posted photo). Corrections such as clone stamping and spot removal would be evident in the online photo, but the color and contrast adjustments were clearly NOT visible.

My thinking was my files were being opened in aRGB by Adobe Camera RAW by default, being passed to Photoshop using aRGB and were then saved as JPG using aRGB. Since monitors use the sRGB color space I was thinking this was why the images looked flat when viewed in Firefox. I've since reset Adobe Camera RAW to use the sRGB color space by default.

However, I tested things just now with RAW photos I have on hand. I opened the same RAW file (via Adobe Camera RAW) in aRGB and then again using sRGB. Both times I saved the RAW file as a JPG with no processing and then I saved the RAW file to JPG after applying +60 Saturation and +50 Contrast. Problem is I'm NOT seeing the same flattening of the image; they look exactly the same when viewed in Firefox.... Which is making me a little nutty.

I'm not done with this yet; I really want to figure out what it was I was doing that made the image look flat in Firefox and see if I can repeat the effect consistently.

....

 

[WayneF]

However, I tested things just now with RAW photos I have on hand. I opened the same RAW file (via Adobe Camera RAW) in aRGB and then again using sRGB. Both times I saved the RAW file as a JPG with no processing and then I saved the RAW file to JPG after applying +60 Saturation and +50 Contrast. Problem is I'm NOT seeing the same flattening of the image; they look exactly the same when viewed in Firefox.... Which is making me a little nutty.
....

I sure see the big difference here in Firefox (your saturation/contrast changes of same file, then web save as JPG). It is as expected.

Firefox about:config has Color Management capability. Maybe yours is off?
See Google for Firefox Color Management... I don't have any specific article to recommend, I try not to think about CM much.
This one is a test, and maybe a shortcut? Firefox-19.0 Colour Management | Oyranos
No recommendations, I have not paid any attention to any of them.

Re: aRGB. My own notion is, the world definitely is sRGB, and if we want Vivid, we should just use Vivid in sRGB. I tend to get real tired of Vivid though, real fast. It sure is popular here on the forum though.

 

[Horoscope Fish]

I think I found my answer...

For anyone else who might be following along, I first found this post on another forum that seemed to mirror my own experience to some degree (I don't shoot in aRGB, like the poster does, but close enough).

That article me led to this freakishly in-depth explanation that turned out to be a rather interesting read.

....

 

[Michael J.]

The image above explains it pretty well. Both images contain only three colors, however, the colors shown in the AdobeRGB scale have more differential between them. This means photos taken in the AdobeRGB color space will have more vibrancy in their colors, whereas sRGB will traditionally have more subtle tones. In situations where you're photographing strong color tones, sRGB may need to dull them out to accommodate, whereas AdobeRGB is able to display those colors with more accuracy.

https://fstoppers.com/pictures/adobergb-vs-srgb-3167

 

[WayneF]

https://fstoppers.com/pictures/adobergb-vs-srgb-3167

Absolutely wonderful as it is (era changing), I think there is much danger in the internet. Anyone can post anything. And if they are explaining Color Management without understanding it, this causes risk to our own understanding.

Do not misunderstand, not many understand less about CM than I do. I have lots of questions about the basic premises. I find I can choose sRGB and then ignore it.

But the camera digital senor or the film scanner sensor simply scans the color that they see. And all RGB is device dependent.. if Red is value 251, it will be presented as a different shade of red on all devices trying to show it. 251 simply means about as bright as the device can make it, whatever that is. RGB will be different with dye ink, or pigment ink, on papers of different reflectivity. It will be yet different again if shown by a CRT monitor, or a LCD monitor, or an old one or a new one, your monitor or my monitor, or a calibrated one or not, etc.

RGB is simply absolutely device dependent. There are no absolute RGB colors. Red 251 is not a specific color, it only means whatever the device can do with it. We may fault monitors as being limited to sRGB, but to me, they seem much less limited than printer ink. Reflected color (prints) can have less than half the dynamic range of transmitted color (monitors).

Yet we can simply declare at will that sensor results will be sRGB, or aRBG, or whatever? Our choice? That is very convenient.

The article in the link shows the top left picture here:

It claims this is the difference in sRGB and aRGB, all of course as shown on my sRGB monitor, in my browser.

But the one thing I do know is that the CIE chromaticity diagrams always show no difference in red or blue, but aRGB only has a greater extent of green, same as this one on Wikipedia.

Yet, the RGB histograms of just that one left color varies drastically in all RGB channels, top and bottom (histogram order there is green, blue, red, dark to light). Why did red and blue change? Some people don't understand all they think they know, and one of them is me.

I think any CM study should require considerable consensus by knowledgeable people... not just some internet source.

 

[wornish]

I think I found my answer...

For anyone else who might be following along, I first found this post on another forum that seemed to mirror my own experience to some degree (I don't shoot in aRGB, like the poster does, but close enough).

That article me led to this freakishly in-depth explanation that turned out to be a rather interesting read.

....

Thanks for these links, as you say a very interesting read. I am going to play safe and stick to sRGB for LR/PS going forward.
I have learnt a lot in the last day, especially the fact that specific browsers are very different in how they handle colour space so sticking to sRGB for WEB use removes one possible variable.
Obviously everyones monitor calibration will all be different but thats life.