Was wondering what color space you shoot with in your camera. sRGB or Adobe RGB? What benefits do you see in using one over the other? My opinion is that Adobe RGB is superior for a proper colorsync workflow, but was curious what others thought.

Well I just found another thread that already discusses this but I don't know how to delete a post.

David,
Are you shooting raw? If you're shooting RAW you can decide this in your conversion software such as Lightroom or ACR. Personally I process and work in Pro Photo RGB and then convert down from there depending on what the final output is.

as geoff said, in RAW it doesn't matter. although my camera is set to sRGB...

i do everything in sRGB and only convert to RGB for press printing through WHCC.

I shoot everything RAW, my camera is set to Adobe RGB and I convert my files to Prophoto RGB.

I have heard that sRGB is good for skin tones. I also know a world famous wedding photographer that shoot (at least he used to) jpgs and still get incredible quality shots.

But I rather begin with the largest file possible, better dynamic range, better and wider color space and the most pixel I can get. That way I have greater latitude when working in the image.

Most all lab printers can only reproduce sRGB color space. The only benefit I can see from shooting in Adobe RGB is some day lab printers will be able to print a larger color space and you will have images in a larger space, and can take advantage. A larger color space will also allow more latitude when editing.
Also, I believe monitors can only reproduce sRGB. There is one high end monitor by NEC that can reproduce Adobe RGB color space. It is a kazillion dollars.

While it is true that photo lab print sRGB, editing on a larger color space and 12 - 16 bits file offers great benefits than starting with a smaller color space like sRGB and smaller file, specially if you do manipulations in PS which it is destructive editing.

I don't think the last stament about color monitor is accurate. I believe all monitors, by definition, are RGB monitors.

Can you elaborate on why you say monitors are sRGB color space?

I know it is very confusing.This is how i understand it, I could be wrong. Monitors are RGB, but operating systems and the internet are set to a default sRGB. So you see the sRGB color space. You can calibrate your monitor to see a larger space, but you will never see the Adobe RGB space.

Here is a statement from Pantone:
"The issue of color has been addressed by the establishment of a standard monitor color space for the World Wide Web and the Windows operating system. This is known as sRGB. Traditionally, operating systems have supported the display of colors on a monitor by using RGB. However, as RGB varies between devices, color was not reliably reproduced across different monitors.

Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and others have developed the sRGB standard monitor color space that is optimized to meet the needs of most users. Very simply, sRGB is calibrated RGB that is optimized for the vast majority of computer monitors, operating systems and browsers. sRGB specifications use a monitor with a gamma of 2.2 and 6,500 degree Kelvin white point. sRGB will allow color to be reproduced and displayed in a single, unified method that provides for viewing consistency from monitor to monitor.

Further, Microsoft has made sRGB the default monitor color space for Windows 98/2000/XP."

You just have given me another reason for not using a Windows system for Color correction. Windows always had issues with monitor calibrations. If what you are saying is true, it means that color correction on a Windows based system is not accuarate as it is based in the narrower color space.

"The bigger the color gamut for a specific device is, the more
color you can show on screen. If your display is not capable of
reaching a certain colorspace, you will not be able to do
accurate color simulations, not even if you calibrate your
screen."

As far as I know, MAC has no such issues.

"Full color gamut. Any color printable on an offset press is viewable on an Apple Cinema Display. So now, more than ever, the color you see on screen is truly the color you get on paper. The display’s maximum brightness means you can evaluate color from the comfort of a well-lit room."


"In a color managed environment like MacOS X, the color is always corrected when it is sent to the display. That is why there is ColorSync! For instance, when you open a photo in iPhoto or Preview, the numeric RGB data is first converted from RGB to CIE-Lab via its embedded (or default) ICC profile. Then ColorSync takes the monitor profile (which is selected in your System Preferences: Displays: Color) and transforms the color back to RGB (which is the output space for your monitor of course). Via this color transformation, ColorSync will do exactly what it should do: correct color for the different behavior of every device.

So, when using ColorSync (or any other CMS solution) the quality of your display profile is extremely important! If that profile does not exactly descibe the color capabilities for the display, you’ll see unpredictable output on screen. That is why we were happy to see that the default ICC profile that gets installed for your display is so precise."


I believe Microsoft was going to deal with that issue in Windows Vista.

Windows has sRGB as the default monitor profile. If you make a custom monitor profile, you can see a larger space of RGB.
Adobe RGB is for editing, and high end ink jet printing. When your lab says they allow Adobe RGB files, they just convert to sRGB before printing for you.
You cannot see all of Adobe RGB on any monitor that is under $6000. Even if you owned a Adobe RGB monitor, and upload to Pictage, website, blog, anything over the internet your images will be in the sRGB color space.

it's all about the s son. sRgb is where it's at, we were taught prophoto at brooks, but even 1998 is too big, so prophoto is just rediculous, sRgb is all that is right with monitors and printers. hope this helps.