On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 14:22:31 -0800, paul wrote:
Leave it in AdobeRGB. Only if you use an image for the web, you should convert a copy to sRGB before you ‘save for the web’. But do keep the originals in AdobeRGB.
Hmm so ‘save for web’ isn’t smart enough to convert to sRGB?
The web isn’t colour managed. A browser couldn’t care less what colour space you have and, indeed, "Save for Web" strips out an colour space info.
I was concerned that my cheap printer doesn’t understand adobeRGB so thought sRGB would be safer.
Your printer couldn’t care less what colour space the image is in. What you should be doing is turning off colour management in the printer and using PS colour management. Your printer will then print out using CMYLK inks and you’ll get the nearest possible repro.
It compressed the colors, yes. How that’s done depends on the intend. The reason you don’t see it is because your screen cannot display the full AdobeRGB spectrum in the first place.
But there might be some subtle improvement in prints? Strange concept to not be able to see the bonus colors, what if I don’t like them? <grin> I figure the aRGB just buys me more capture gamut to stretch into the final visible spectrum then it can be dumped. But, as long as it’s not going to be misinterpreted by the printer I guess there is no harm and it doesn’t seem to have an impact on file size. 16 vs 8-bit does have a huge impact on file size.
The reason for improvement in the prints is that the sRGB colour space maps the CMYK colour space more closely than the sRGB colour space does. Consequently you’ll get less colour clipping (Or conversion depending on your rendering intent).
Why don’t you convert them to AdobeRGB TIFF’s? That’s the best format for printing, and if you need a web image you just convert the TIFF to sRGB and save for the web. The original stays in AdobeRGB TIFF.
My current workflow is to save RAW and open as adobeRGB 16-bit then when adjusted I cram it down to 8-bit PNG’s to minimize file size. If I get a better printer or somebody wants to pay $300 for a big print I’ll recreate it from the RAW. I could even (maybe) forget the PNG and use JPG extra high quality & not notice anything except with huge prints.
For saving, do what Johann says. I leave all my "negatives" in RAW. Then I have a copy, 16 bit, with adjustment layers as my working image. All images are produced from that second image, with the RAW still there in case, but archived.
A JPG converted from RAW is much better than an in-camera converted JPG in terms of sharpness and being able to adjust but once adjusted there seems little difference.
That, I’m afraid depends on how good you are at making adjustments <g>
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