AbodeRGB or sRGB?

[yelvertoft]

Ok, here's a question or two for you.

I have my camera set to use the sRGB colour space. I view the vast majority of my pictures on a PC screen, an SRGB compatible device, and I'm quite happy with what I see.

For the few pictures I get printed, should I convert these pics to AdobeRGB for printing? I get my pictures printed in High Street type stores. If I use AdobeRGB for viewing on a screen I get pasty, washed out colours, as I would expect. But does a typical digital photo printing machine expect sRGB or AdobeRGB?

Would I get any advantage by using AdobeRGB for prints?
If I use AdobeRGB, at what stage should I convert them? Use this colour space in the camera? Convert in post processing? Immediately before saving the final image after doing any other processing on screen in sRGB?

Answers on an electron to the usual adress please.

I suspect this is an ideal question for Robski.

Regards,

Duncan

[Saphire]

Duncan I asked this very same question on BF these are the replies.http://www.birdforum.net/showthread....highlight=srgb

[Canis Vulpes]

I set my camera for AbobeRGB as the manual recommends this for greater flexibility in image processing. Images look fine in NC (Nikon Capture) and when converted to photoshop. At the very end of my processing I do two things, change to 8 bit (for JPEG) and convert to SRGB.

I too print a few photos and use photobox.co.uk and their information states upload photos must have SRGB colour space. If I forget to convert to SRGB and leave in AbobeRGB red's apprear very washed out on photobox's preview screen.

[robski]

The Adobe rgb space is intended for commercial printing (press) use.

The srgb space is intended for crt display use.

The Adobe rgb space contains more blues and greens than the srgb space because CMYK printing inks (on a printing press) can produce this range of colours whereas the phoshors on a CRT cannot.

I am afraid I can't offer any help on the photo lab requirements. Not my field. My attempts to find info in this field have failed to turn up anything.

Anybody know a Photo lab machine technician ?

Does anybody have expertise on these machines ?


I can't remember if the camera setting is just a tag or it actually changes the image values.

[Canis Vulpes]

From photobox webiste, www.photobox.co.uk -> click quality advice.
Profile support

Are ICC profiles available for your photographic printers?
We don't publish profiles ourselves however we are working with the manufacturers of our printers in the hope that we can provide ICC profiles in the future.
Do you support profiles for Fuji Frontiers?
It is important to note that the Fuji Frontier printers currently strip out any embedded profiles in your images, so you should ensure that your images are submitted in sRGB. You can also use our calibration print to adjust your screen to match our output as closely as possible (see above).
Do you support profiles for Polielettronica Laserlab prints?
Yes, our Polieletronica Laserlab that produces our poster-sized prints will support images with an embedded profile; the profile which we find produces the best results is Adobe 98, so you may want to use this profile for your larger prints.

You should of course bear in mind that if you supply the same image for printing at large and small sizes - with an embedded profile - then it is likely that you'll notice a difference in the final output due to the profile being used in the larger but not the smaller prints. To avoid this problem, some photographers paste their smaller images onto a larger canvas in order to print them on the Polieletronica, trimming the prints once they receive the order. This then ensures that the larger and smaller prints all take advantage of the profile handling capabilities of the large format printer.

[Coaldust]

I think you will find that converting sRGB to aRGB will give you no benefits at all as the information has already been discarded when you took the picture. ( sRGB has a smaller gamut than aRGB ) and you can't put the information back by converting.

As far as I'm aware the vast majority of labs will want your images in sRGB but as I do my own printing and don't use labs I can't be 100% sure.

Why not do your shooting in RGB so you have the maximum amount of information available ? you could archive the original file incase printer technology catches up and then you could print your images in all there glory and it's simple to convert to sRGB after editing your images.

Hope this helps.

Steve

[Saphire]

I found the above thread gave me all the information I needed to know and went on srgb and not thought about it since. I went on what Nigel Blake recommended, he should know with the quality of his photo's.

[yelvertoft]

Blimey! Thanks for the quick response, very useful stuff. Looks like I should be sticking with sRGB for the moment.

I've only just realised I posted the original thread title as "Abode", there's auto-spell checkers for you!

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Saphire

Duncan I asked this very same question on BF these are the replies.http://www.birdforum.net/showthread....highlight=srgb

You have me at a disadvantage here as I don't subscribe to this board and therefore cannot read the thread. However this is my take on the subject.

If you print your own images using an inkjet printer then its best to use Adobe RGB 1998. As has been said it has a wider gamut of colours and inkjet printers particularly the 7 colour ones can take advantage of this. However in my experience most high street labs use the sRGB colour space so its best to use that if you use them. Again as has been said if you want to display work on the web then use sRGB as the browser cannot support ARGB

Now as I understand it, if you use this colour space in camera it is no problem to change to Adobe RGB in software like Photoshop. To say you cannot put in a colour space that was not applied in camera is not correct. If you use jpegs in camera which are 8 bit then its simple to convert to 16bit, its the same with 12bit Raw files. Much the same principle.

Onscreen, ie in your photo manipulation prog you can clearly see the greater depth of colour in ARGB, however if this is saved without converting to sRGB and then posted on the web the colours will look flat.

[Canis Vulpes]

Originally Posted by Stephen

You have me at a disadvantage here as I don't subscribe to this board and therefore cannot read the thread. However this is my take on the subject.

Stephen, I am not a BF'er either and I could follow the link fine. There is a logo suggesting we are Guests but scroll down and its all to read.