a colour management question

*eadaoin

hi everyone, i'm learning about colour management (man there's a lot of technical stuff i just don't have any clue about!) and i have a question that someone might be able to help me answer.

i read today on the canon website (i use a canon to shoot) that it's best to take shots in Adobe RGB and set photoshop to Adobe RGB also for the best flow of colour from camera to computer. so from today i'll be taking my shots in Adobe RGB rather than sRGB, but i'm just wondering about my old shots that are all taken in sRGB. is it best to leave photoshop in it's current colour space when i'm working on old photos in sRGB or will switching photoshop to Adobe RGB make much of a difference? i guess the only real way to figure this out will be to give it a shot with both colour spaces, but i'd appreciate any advice.

i intend on using photoshop to control the colour of my prints so fingers crossed i'll be able to get a decent comparison to what i'm seeing on the screen. i really have a lot to learn though, and i haven't exactly got the printer in my hands yet so it may be a while until i'm up and running with proper prints.

melekalikimaka

ehhhh. srgb is generally the accepted norm.

Adobe RGB is defined to have a wider gamut than is sRGB, it uses the numbering scheme available to it to represent a wider range of colors. That's just the way Adobe specified it to be when they came up with it. Not more colors of course since both are limited by the same physical characteristics dictated by three channels of 8 or 16 bits.It is a common misconception that Adobe RGB has more colors than sRGB since it is easy to assume that the palette of colors across the gamut of each is continuous, but it's not. Welcome to the digital world: zeros and ones. Digital creates the illusion of a continuous spectrum by the force of sheer numbers. Even in 8-bit depth with just 256 possible values in each channel, multiplying the possibilities of all three channels together yields 16.7 million total colors (256 times 256 times 256).

more here

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/srgb-versus-adobe-rgb-debate.html

cmyk is best for printing proffesionally... i think... srgb by far for web and adobe... i think is slightly better for print... but really not much

CabanSail

Do you shoot RAW or Jpeg?

If you are shooting RAW then you can decide which colour space you use later & change it if you wish.

Steve (stcstc) did cover this in a talk he gave at DCC. I think he reccommended Adobe RGB but if you have files in sRGB then it's best to set PS to the same colour space. I could be wrong here. Steve will clear it up I am sure.

*eadaoin

thanks both, that link gave me some idea of how about the differences and i guess it's not hugely important when i'm not printing on a really professional level yet.

i do shoot in RAW, i hadn't realised that i could choose the colour space afterwards until now.

all this stuff is so new to me, it feels like there is a LOT to learn :eek:

melekalikimaka

as long as you shoot in raw, you have nothing to worry about, you can change to suit the printers preference. I'd focus on calibrating your screen more than colour profiles in that case

*eadaoin

usually i shoot in RAW, use the RAW editor that came with my camera to play with curves/exposure/contrast that kind of thing & then i convert it to a Jpeg to use in photoshop for cropping, resizing, adding layers etc. so i'll probably be using photoshop to print the end result.

i have no idea if converting to a Jpeg is a good idea & i don't know if this will have an effect on print colour. so far i've really only been putting images up on the web (to my flickr account) so i haven't looked at any other file format. so i guess that's why i'm looking into colour management now, i need to figure out my own correct workflow to get the best print results.

i really should invest in classes but i literally just can't afford that right now!

CabanSail

It all gets confusing but when you understand things it gets a bit less so.

Jpeg is a lossy compression. It would probably be better to convert to a lossless format for editing in Photoshop, such as TIFF or PSD, and then only convert the final image to Jpeg at the end.

pullandbang

CabanSail wrote: »

Jpeg is a lossy compression. It would probably be better to convert to a lossless format for editing in Photoshop, such as TIFF or PSD, and then only convert the final image to Jpeg at the end.

Now there's something I didn't know (being a complete rookie).
Must try that from now on. I've always developed from raw straight to jpeg.

*eadaoin

you know converting it to a PSD makes so much more sense, i don't even know why i hadn't considered that before

i think when i click the convert button it actually automatically converts it to a Jpeg without giving me any options, but if i remember correctly there is an option on the menu for converting to PS... i must check that out tonight!

ok so one more question (although realistically i'll probably ask waaay more on the forum lol). whats the best file format to save it in on PS for printing? or does that open up another giant debate?

CabanSail

You can print from wany format really. You don't even have to save it. If you are sending it out then it's probably easiest to send jpegs.

*eadaoin

great, thanks for all your help

can't wait to get my hands on the printer and start working things out now!