Best Color Profile Is?

T
Posted By
TomBrooklyn
Aug 26, 2007
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353
Replies
7
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Closed
CS8
My working space is set up to be ProPhoto RGB. I read somewhere that’s the best.

But my photos from Canon EOS Rebel are sRGB.

Which is better working space?
Which should I change?
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best color profile

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Peter_Figen
Aug 26, 2007
Unless you have a clear understanding of what you’re doing, you’re going to be much better off sticking with sRGB. ProPhoto is a space that can get you into trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing, plus you pretty much need to work in 16 bit per channel to avoid posterization in ProPhoto, which means you’ll also have to start shooting raw file and processing them. That’s what a lot of us do, but, again, more work and more to learn…
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TomBrooklyn
Aug 26, 2007
Hi,
I was shooting mostly RAW lately, but my last few shoots were jpeg. Should I change the PS workspace depending on if I shoot RAW or jpeg?

On a related note, is sRGB the best setting in my Canon Rebel XTi camera? That’s where it is now. I have a choice of that or Adobe RGB.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Aug 26, 2007
The color space setting in the camera only applies to JPEGs, and is irrelevant to RAWs. For JPEGs, Adobe RGB will provide you with a wider gamut and thus preserve more colors; if you are going to be printing, this is better than sRGB, but if you are going to be doing work for the Web you will need to be in sRGB at the end stage and can avoid a conversion step by shooting in sRGB and working in it. There is no single "best setting" — in photography there are advantages and disadvantages to every setting and you need to determine what the most appropriate compromise is for your particular needs. (E.g.: Is ISO 100 better than ISO 400? Is aperture priority better than exposure priority? Is manual focus better than automatic? Is a wide-angle lens better than a telephoto?)
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TomBrooklyn
Aug 26, 2007
Hi Michael,

Thanks for that explanation of the camera setting.

AdobeRGB is clearly superior to me as even though 90% or more of what I do is web destined, having to do a conversion step at the end is to me a small price to pay for getting and preserving a wider gamut of colors.

1. Now if I set the camera to AdobeRGB, what should I set Photoshop to? (I guess AdobeRGB if there is such a setting. I haven’t looked yet.)

and

2. When I am working with RAW photos, what Photoshop workspace provides the best quality?
N
NoSpam
Aug 26, 2007
wrote in message
The color space setting in the camera only applies to JPEGs, and is
irrelevant to RAWs. For JPEGs, Adobe RGB will provide you with a wider gamut and thus preserve more colors; if you are going to be printing, this is better than sRGB, but if you are going to be doing work for the Web you will need to be in sRGB at the end stage and can avoid a conversion step by shooting in sRGB and working in it. There is no single "best setting" — in photography there are advantages and disadvantages to every setting and you need to determine what the most appropriate compromise is for your particular needs. (E.g.: Is ISO 100 better than ISO 400? Is aperture priority better than exposure priority? Is manual focus better than automatic? Is a wide-angle lens better than a telephoto?)

Are you sure that color working space is irrelevant when working in RAW? Is it not true that, when opening a RAW file the working space of the camera appears in the left lower corner of the display?

If it is irrelevant, why would it show up?

Thank you for any suggestions"

GR.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Aug 26, 2007
If the JPEGs are being recorded by the camera as Adobe RGB, Photoshop should recognize that. What it does depends on your settings in the color management preferences. I have it set to give me a prompt if an image’s profile is different from my working space (which is Adobe RGB). When I open a file from my Canon 10D, which is set to Adobe RGB, it opens in the default working space, as it should. When I open a file from my Panasonic LX2, which is sRGB, I get a prompt because it is different from the working space; this lets me choose to use the sRGB space for working on this photo or convert it to Adobe RGB. If your Rebel is set to Adobe RGB and your working space is Adobe RGB, the images should simply open in the working space. If it isn’t tagging the images with the proper working space, you should Assign the proper profile.

As to RAW images, I used to use Adobe RGB but lately I have been using ProPhoto RGB, which has a wider gamut. I’m not sure either one is "better" per se. Try both, and see which you prefer. Make sure you are using 16 bits per channel, not 8, especially with ProPhoto RGB.
CC
Christopher_Carvalho
Aug 26, 2007
What your camera calls "Adobe RGB" in Photoshop is "Adobe RGB (1998)." The question of which color space is "best" isn’t really the exact way to look at it. The choice of a color space depends on a number of factors. At the risk of providing too much information, a short list is:

The image source (camera, film, illustration art, etc.)
The editing environment (your monitor and editing software) The output environment (video, web, print, press, etc.)
How well your devices are calibrated
How much you understand about color management

Pro Photo RGB is a very large color space. For most kinds of imaging, it is too large. As mentioned, it can result in posterization when editing images that aren’t 16-bit depth. It also creates all kinds of problems going to print media, which have a much smaller color space. My advice is to stay away from it until the point that you know what you are doing with color management. It will become obvious to you that it’s the right thing once you reach that skill level. In doing professional editing myself for seven years now, I still haven’t found an image where I need Pro Photo RGB. But I have heard of situations where it has been of benefit.

Even the choice of Adobe RGB can cause trouble because most monitors can’t display all the colors it holds. While it’s very good for general-purpose editing, if your images have saturated colors in them you will eventually encounter images where you can’t figure out why your edits don’t produce the prints you want. It usually means your monitor can’t accurately display the colors you’re trying to adjust. If you deal with mostly neutral colors and flesh tones, sRGB is just fine. If not, you’ll need something that encompasses more colors.

The best general advice is to choose a color space that includes all the colors in the source image without clipping them, but not much larger than that, unless you plan to radically alter the color saturation for artistic purposes.

A very good treatise on color space selection is the late Bruce Fraser’s "Out of Gamut: Exploring Wide, Open (Color) Spaces" at <http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/8582.html>

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