ProPhoto RGB vs. Adobe RGB

I've heard that the ideal working space is most closely matched with output device. But

Adobe RGB still doesn't come close to cover the whole Epson gamut.

 

So, I want to know what I have to pay attention when I edit images with Prophoto RGB,

instead of Adobe RGB.

 

Also, I wonder why they doesn't use ProPhoto RGB that much as working space for photo

image. Is there any other weak point of ProPhoto RGB besides it has bigger gamut then

Adobe RGB?

 

Thank you for kind advice.

<I>But Adobe RGB still doesn't come close to cover the whole Epson gamut. </i><BR><BR>I don't think that is accurate. Adobe RGB, and even sRGB are both wider gamuts than any Epson inkjet printer. Best wishes . . .

-->I don't think that is accurate. Adobe RGB, and even sRGB are both wider gamuts than

any Epson inkjet printer. Best wishes . . .

 

sRGB is smaller then the Epson gamut in many useful areas. Adobe RGB is going to get a

lot closer but there may be areas of overlap. In a prefect world your working space would

fully contain the gamut of the output device and ProPhoto will but you should be working

in 16 bit and realize that a lot of the colors in this space greatly fall outside display gamut.

Adobe RGB (1998) is a lot closer and some newer displays are covering that gamut (at a

price). So certainly skip sRGB but consider Adobe RGB (1998) which is safe for 8 bit

editing. Also, if the image itself isn't super saturated, it's probably going to fall below even

Adobe RGB (1998) gamut.

<i>I don't think that is accurate. Adobe RGB, and even sRGB are both wider gamuts than

any Epson inkjet printer. Best wishes . . .</i>

<br><br>

If you have 3D gamut viewer and try it with Epson 4000's premium glossy profile.

Then you will see.

 

Thanks.

From: http://www.shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc025.html :

 

"FACT ONE: there are no printers with a color space (aka output space) that is larger (holding more volume of data) than sRGB."

 

I didn't write the above paragraph - I believe Mr. Crocket did and supplies the graphs. I'm no expert, but it's my understanding that this is correct and makes sense to me. I believe Tim Grey and quite a few others take the same position and might disagree with your premise too. Perhaps we're all wrong! Anything you can point us to? ;-) Best wishes . . .

So, I'm going to try and attach the ICC profile for Epson 2200 Glossy vs. Adobe RGB - got

plot from ColorThink tool. Epson 2200 exceeds Adobe RGB in one area or so. sRGB is

smaller. I tend to stay in Adobe RGB because devices keep improving and maybe my scans

etc. will be retargetted to more capable monitors/output devices in future. sRGB is

smaller than Adobe RGB, so tend to avoid that... But probably doesn't matter most of

time... I have other issues...<div></div>

Crockett is wrong. It's easy to see this with Colorthink. It's easy to see it in day to day photography as well - sRGB does not contain a number of useful, relatively common tones that my Epson 2100 can reproduce and that I can find in nature and capture on E6.

 

Adobe RGB contains pretty much everything useful my printer can reproduce, except for a few extremely saturated yellows.

 

ProPhoto - too many colour outside the gamut of my display to be useful except in a few select cases, carefully controlled.

-->From: http://www.shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc025.html :

-->"FACT ONE: there are no printers with a color space (aka output space) that is larger

(holding more volume of data) than sRGB."

-->I didn't write the above paragraph - I believe Mr. Crocket did and supplies the graphs.

I'm no expert,

 

Mr. Crocket isn't an expert either and the article is complete nonsense. You can be

forgiven for not understanding the 3D plots on his site but he shouldn't be so let me

explain.

 

What you're seeing is one slice of a 3D plot that ideally you'd spin to see how the two

gamut maps intersect. Color spaces are three dimensional and you're seeing only a 2D

plot. This guy didn't even spin the maps to make his screen captures from ColorThink to

even get close to illustrating his incorrect notions. If you look at the maps, you'll clearly

see areas of BOTH printers that fall OUTSIDE sRGB! And Adobe RGB (1998). Those colors

are out of gamut of those working space and those colors can't be reproduced. Both

printers have colors that fall outside both working space, period.

 

The idea that no output space is larger then sRGB is totally incorrect. Please don't read

anymore of this nonsense. It's simply not true. There are all kinds of devices who have

colors that fall outside sRGB in SOME PLACES. Will is under the impression that since you

can't fully contain the entire output space in the working space that means the areas that

fall outside should be ignored. That's hogwash. I wish he'd either learn how to read a

stinking 3D gamut map or pull this off his web.

Hi,

 

Take a look at this website. The Pro Photo color space looks attractive until you see the efficiency of the color space. http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?WorkingSpaceInfo.html

 

Personally, I'm still undecided in what color space would be the best. I do a lot of 35mm slide scans in Adobe, and that's what my digital camera uses.

If you scan in 16 bit color, you can fearlessly use ProPhoto.

<p>Regarding the ShootSmarter [sic] <a href="http://www.shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc025.html">color space recommendations:</a> It is true that sRGB has a larger color volume than the output range of most printers. So what? As Andrew mentions above, the important point is that almost every printer exceeds sRGB in significant portions of their color range. The charts on the Shootsmarter site illustrate this. If you work in sRGB these colors - the most vivid and saturated ones the printer can reproduce - will never make it into print. Printer color gamuts are limited enough in comparison to the real world already. Why you want to throw away large hunks of printable color is not something I pretend to understand. Yes, sRGB is the lowest common denominator color space. If that is how you view your photography, use it.</p>

<p>If you want to make detailed comparisons of the actual color range of many printers, scanners, and digital cameras to sRGB, Adobe RGB, and ProPhoto RGB check the <a href="http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/printer_gamuts/">3-D gamut models</a> on our web site. There are nearly 100 printer/paper combinations along with assorted scanners and digital cameras whose color gamuts you can twist, turn, and look at from any angle. You'll quickly see that choosing sRGB as a working color space is akin to only using junk-grade film because that's all your local supermarket stocks. With little additional work, you can do much better.</p>

<p>Returning to the original subject, Pro Photo RGB has one thing going for it: It holds essentially every color any scanner or camera can capture and any printer can reproduce. The tradeoff is that the huge color gamut can cause problems. The spacing between individual RGB levels is sufficiently large that 8-bit editing is a sure way to create nasty posterization. You need to get that 16-bit religion and sharpen your Photoshop layer skills to work effectively in PP RGB. Effectively using the colors that exceed Adobe RGB is more difficult because your monitor can not display those colors. It takes some amount of old fashioned test prints and comparisons to the PS soft proof to get your eyes dialed in.</p>

One should definitely use 16 bits with ProPhoto! Otherwise you'll soon be a resident in Banding City. But take a look at your monitor's gamut versus ProPhoto's gmaut and it should become obvious very quickly why working in ProPhoto as a general colour space is quite dangerous and that you can not at all use it 'fearlessly'.

 

Good article by Bruce Fraser on wide gamut spaces:

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/8582.html

In <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009Ves&unified_p=1">this thread</A>

David Vatovec says he finds a "tremendous gain in highlights using

the ProphotoRGB color space when converting from RAW!"

Anybody else think so? If so it would seem more important

than any marginal gains in color gamut.

thank you everyone for your informative inputs, I have learned a lot. ;-)