Color Space Choices

In the past I have shot SRGB, I have read up on ARGB and was weighing the option of switching my camera to ARGB. I know that ARGB has more color information vs. SRGB but in the test photos that I have done I really can't tell a big difference in quality. In fact SRGB seems to have richer colors, is this even an issue or by the time you download and convert to TIF or DNG in LR does it really matter? Is this getting to the point of just splitting hairs?

What is the preferred color space?

Hi,

If you are converting to TIF or DNG in Lightroom, does that means you are shooting in RAW? If so, your camera's color space does not affect the image as viewed in the software. Lightroom's default color space is actually Prophoto, which is an even higher gamut color space than AdobeRGB.

Higher gamut color spaces simply give more latitude in subsequent color corrections or edits, and to some extent while printing. This is almost always a good thing!

Adam

Hi,

 

If you are converting to TIF or DNG in Lightroom, does that means you are shooting in RAW? If so, your camera's color space does not affect the image as viewed in the software. Lightroom's default color space is actually Prophoto, which is an even higher gamut color space than AdobeRGB.

 

Higher gamut color spaces simply give more latitude in subsequent color corrections or edits, and to some extent while printing. This is almost always a good thing!

 

Adam

Thanks Adam!

That was basically the question. I wasn't sure how much the color space that you selected for the camera would effect what you had to work with when you got to processing.

I would guess then that the only reason to change the Color Space on export would depend on how the file was intended to be used. What would be the best choice for prints from the local lab?

In the past I have shot SRGB, I have read up on ARGB and was weighing the option of switching my camera to ARGB. I know that ARGB has more color information vs. SRGB but in the test photos that I have done I really can't tell a big difference in quality. In fact SRGB seems to have richer colors, is this even an issue or by the time you download and convert to TIF or DNG in LR does it really matter? Is this getting to the point of just splitting hairs?

 

What is the preferred color space?

Ideally you should record your image in the largest color space possible; but whether or not you can see a difference depends on how you view them, the quality of your monitor / printer etc.

Most likely the reason you are seeing richer colors when you shoot sRGB, is that your monitor is probably an sRGB gamut monitor. Then what happens is that some of the color recorded in ARGB is simply lost as your monitor cannot display them. You will not be able to see ARGB, and in fact your pictures may look worse, if your monitor is only sRGB.

In a perfect scenario, you would record in ARGB (most cameras won't record Prophoto) then import and manipulate in ARGB or Prophoto with a high gamut monitor that does ARGB or better. That will give you the best possible color picture at least on your screen.

Then it depends what you are doing with the image. If you are exporting for web viewing, then you should convert your exported image to sRGB where your software will essentially compress the colors into sRGB, so that when viewed on sRGB monitors by others on the web the images will not lose richness as you describe.

If your are printing then your printer profile will do the conversion to a more restricted gamut that the printer can print. If you are sending images out, then you should ask the printer folks what gamut / printer profile etc they prefer.

Recording in ARGB is really only of benefit if you are able to take advantage of it with a higher quality monitor, otherwise no matter what your camera or Lightroom setting is you will not be able to see the colors and take advantage of it. If you are thinking you might upgrade to a better monitor, then you may want to record ARGB so that you can come back in the future to images and tweak them just a little more.

Got it!

Thank you for the quick replies.

I've recently changed from sRGB to ARGB and here's what I noticed.

With sRGB your images will display consistently pretty much everywhere but with ARGB some programs will display with less saturation like Xee (Mac) for example. Preview displays ARGB correctly.

I have read that recent web browsers can display ARGB correctly, can anyone elaborate?