Colour Space when moving from Lightroom to CS4 and back

I now use Lightroom 2.3 alone for most of my workflow. Once in a while for some serious editing, I need to move into Photoshop. When I do this, I have been converting to Adobe RGB, as in the past, that has been the colour space I used. If I am going to later export Adobe RGB Tiffs from Lightroom anyway, would it be better to keep the Prophoto Colour space for editing, and export later in Adobe RGB? My concern is that I might blow out highlights and some bright colours due to the change in gamut if I keep the Prophoto Colour space.

Anyone else worked this out?

Cheers,

Marli

Hi Marli,

Adobe recommends selecting the ProPhoto RGB color space in the LR preferences and use the same color space in Photoshop as well. Scott Kelbie recommends the same in his LR 2 book FWIW. Adobe recommends you chose 16 bit. The few times I've done it I have used the default of 240ppi. Guess it depends on what you plan to do with the images. Leaving everything in ProPhoto though makes sense to me.

Good Luck,

Steve

Thanks, Steve.

The Kelby book is good; I just picked it up, and although I have been using Lightroom since it came out, it still has some tricks that I didn't know about. Guess I missed that about colour space. Since using Lightroom for almost everything, my stock agency asked if I had a new camera. (in a positve way)

Cheers,

Marli

Your library should have a preference for colour space. If you are using a print company to make your prints, they should have a preference too.

ProPhoto is a great theoretical space, but can be a bit problematic as it is bigger than most devices can reproduce.

Like Steve has said it depends what you are doing with the pics.

Example if you are supplying RGBfiles to clients for them to convert to CMYK, it can be a little problematic in that what they get from you will be difficult to reproduce in CMYK. Given you are supplying lots of water, that could result in you sending them "blue" water, and them converting and getting "purple" water.

Adobe 1998 while not as big as ProPhoto, I've found it to be more reproducible, so is a bit "safer" as a standard.

Good to know Darren,

I was thinking Marli was asking how to get an image from LR to Photoshop and back again to LR without getting crossed up in the colorspace. Hey Marli since you have the book, check out chapter 8, page 238. Glad to know the stock agency likes your new camera.

Have fun,

Steve

Yes,

Partly me question was because of what Darren suggests; I always have to provide for publishing in Adobe RGB. I'm just thinking now that if files are kept in Prophoto in the Lightroom catalog (or wherever I store them), I can still export as RGB later, and maybe, way down the road, if Prophoto becomes standard (or another space that has a larger gamut than Adobe RGB) I am closer to the mark with files edited outside of the DNG format.

Cheers,

Marli

Adobe 1998 while not as big as ProPhoto, I've found it to be more reproducible, so is a bit "safer" as a standard.

That's my conclusion, too. My printing lab accepts AdobeRGB profiles, but not proRGB in submitted files.

I'm not sure if the unaugmented human eye can tell the difference. I found that calibrating my monitor several years ago made a visible difference, but printing from A- v sRGB didn't, provided that the images were tagged and the printer recognised the profile.

(Though since Marli has images accepted by an agency, and I don't, what's my opinion worth?)

Tim

I found it interesting that Nature's Best (Ocean Views) wanted ProPhoto colour space. I think they wanted as much info as possible for their lab to make their gorgeous enormous prints.

I do think there will be a move for gallery quality images, but the print industry is rather leashed to Adobe RGB. Then again, they were leashed to slides, too.

Cheers,

Marli