Prints and Adobe RGB vs. sRGB

Okay, so I've searched tons of prior posts regarding color space,

color management, calibration, print labs, etc and have not found a

solid direction to go based on the input I've read. So, here's some

questions that I'd love to get some feedback on if you all would be

so kind :) Forgive me, this is a lot of random thoughts and

questions so it may not all be put together in the most digestable

way. I didn't proof read it...

 

-I work on a PC, even though I'd prefer a MAC at this point (of

which I'd like to transition to as soon as it's in the budget).

Should I not be working in the Adobe RGB color space because I'm on

a PC? Or should I say, is it smarter to run at 2.2 6500k sRGB until

I transition over to MACs? I've had strange results with different

labs. Either the photo looks like it was printed in sRGB from an

embedded Adobe RGB color space or it's always 25% darker in the

actual print than on my monitor. It lacks contrast and punch, etc.

My monitors have been correctly calibrated and there is very little

to no ambient light in the room. One lab uses MACs and supposedly

images in Adobe RGB. This lab is the one where I get 25% darker

photos. The other lab uses PCs and supposedly converts any embedded

color space correctly. This is the lab where our prints come back

with sunburned skin and over saturated colors.

 

-The lab I do proofs, online proofing, and who handles all my

family/friend orders post wedding (printroom.com) prints on the Fuji

Frontier. The problem lies in this. They claim that no matter what

color space you submit your photos in (adobe RGB, sRGB) they will

properly convert the image so no prior conversion is needed on the

photographers end. I was skeptical from the start when I read this,

but simply didn't know enough about color management to turn away

from their services. Me and my wife prefer to work in Adobe RGB from

the camera>photoshop>to print.

 

And of course the prints came back as if they were printed in an

sRGB type color space. I know this because I use a color calibrated

22in CRT for imaging and an LCD laptop as an extended desktop for my

PS palettes to display on. So if I drag an image from the Adobe RGB

CRT over to the sRGB LCD, I can clearly see how skin tones instantly

turn red (like a sunburn) and all other colors are over saturated as

well. I even used printroom's softproofing icc profile to check it

before print and it was a very subtle change, so I thought it would

be okay. WRONG. I held the physical print up to my CRT and it was

way off. Then I held it up to my LCD and it was dead on. Clearly the

printroom.com lab can't convert Adobe RGB files correctly on their

Frontier or am I missing something?

 

So why don't I just use sRGB so my results match with printroom.com?

Because sRGB seems to be more suited for web based graphics and a

more simple color space. What I don't understand though is why most

printers, even professional lab printers are most suitable with this

color space. Which is why I would then ask, what's the point of

doing anything in Adobe RGB if most printers can't even replicate

the wider array of colors?

 

But then I've also read that Adobe RGB is for the high end

professional and it is the superior color space for photography. For

example, Yervant Zanazanian (yervant.com) has amazing prints that

I've seen in person and at his seminars. He uses The Edge in

Australia and they run in Adobe RGB and print on Epsons. The prints

are amazing. It simply leads me to think that sRGB is for the

consumer end, yet so many online labs in the US work in sRGB.

 

Is there a US online lab that does online proofing, physical proofs,

online orders from my customers and runs strictly in Adobe RGB??

-->Should I not be working in the Adobe RGB color space because I'm on a PC?

 

The choice of a working space has nothing to do with the operating system!

 

-->Or should I say, is it smarter to run at 2.2 6500k sRGB until I transition over to MACs?

 

The TRC gamma and the white point of the display has NOTHING to do with the TRC

gamma and white point of your working space. You can use whatever working space you

wish! That being said, Mac users should calibrate the TRC gamma of their displays like

their PC brothers (2.2). But again, this has nothing to do with the RGB working space you

edit your files in. With a good ICC profile that describes your display, you can work on

either platform and produce the same color appearance from the same working space.

 

-->d strange results with different labs. Either the photo looks like it was printed in sRGB

from an embedded Adobe RGB color space or it's always 25% darker in the actual print

than on my monitor.

 

The issue was the lab isn't color managed and when they got a file that wasn't in sRGB,

their heads exploded. With someone that is working properly with color management, you

can hand them data in either sRGB or Adobe RGB and they will properly convert that data

to their printer color space (NO output device other then a display can output sRGB).

 

-->They claim that no matter what color space you submit your photos in (adobe RGB,

sRGB) they will properly convert the image so no prior conversion is needed on the

photographers end. I was skeptical from the start when I read this, but simply didn't know

enough about color management to turn away from their services. Me and my wife prefer

to work in Adobe RGB from the camera>photoshop>to print.

 

You need to have a conversation with them and see if indeed they do use proper color

management or simply tell you this. Most Frontier labs want sRGB because they are too

lazy to setup the machine to work properly with true output profiles so they want data in

sRGB so the system can simply assume that all files are in that color space for the eventual

conversion to the print color space. That CAN work but it's not ideal and if they are doing

this, giving them a file in Adobe RGB will produce quite unacceptable color output.

 

-->if I drag an image from the Adobe RGB CRT over to the sRGB LCD...

 

I seriously doubt you have an Adobe RGB (1998) CRT so you need to clarify what you're

referring to. There are about 500 such displays in the entire world (I have one) and they

cost more than most cars.

 

You might want to read the following article (it's general enough that much of it covers

some stuff you're talking about, just ignore the stuff about the E1):

 

http://www.pdnonline.com/photodistrictnews/cp/olympus/technology/article_display.jsp?

vnu_content_id=1000734256

I thought that this was the reason why Frontiers want sRGB files: The jpegs from consumer digicams are in sRGB colorspace.

You said your monitor was calibrated. How? And how long ago?

Interesting letter to editor in last month Photo District News, the writer ranting

about how most experts suggest working in the AdobeRGB Colorspace, and

goes on to say AdobeRGB is in fact, an extrememly wide color space that

cannot be matched by any print nor other output deive, including both offset

presses and inkjet printers. He continues saying the big divide at present is

that so many digital experts have been touting Adobe RGB as the space to

work within, though almost every part of an image file will be rendered "out of

Gamut by doing so. Just check the Gamut Warning under View in Photoshop

for any such AdobeRGB file if you are in doubt, etc.etc.,,He goes on saying

the leading digital lab in Atlanta who say point blank that nearly every printer

and diital house in the buisness works in sRGB, despite what we're being told

by the so called experts, personally I shoot in sRGB and do corrections in

sRGB and submit as request by my lab, the largest on the central coast, in

sRGB. I guess my question is if the big dogs and color experts cant get on the

same page, what chance does the average digital photographer have of

steering the proper course.

> Interesting letter to editor in last month Photo District News, the writer

> ranting about how most experts suggest working in the AdobeRGB Colorspace, and

> goes on to say AdobeRGB is in fact, an extrememly wide color space that cannot

> be matched by any print nor other output deive, including both offset presses

> and inkjet printers.

 

Kind of nonsense. NO output device can produce sRGB but a display that's producing

sRGB. It's based on the behavior of a display with very specific aim points (gamma, white

point, chromaticity values even the ambient conditions this display is setting in). Adobe

RGB (1998) also have (or will have) a defined reference medium (Adobe is working on this).

A reference medium is simply the specification under which this color space is supposed

to be viewed, NO printer can produce either sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998)! However, when

you bring images into these color spaces (a processes known as encoding), you get to

decide the gamut volume you can use for eventual output. Many, many output devices

have some gamut areas that exceed sRGB (and in some cases even Adobe RGB (1998).

Even if 10% of some areas fall outside sRGB, is that important to you? Having that 10% clip

to sRGB when you could have used it on your output device may or may not be critical to

the quality of the output. But if you clip the colors, they are gone, you never had the

opportunity to use those colors.

 

> He continues saying the big divide at present is that so

> many digital experts have been touting Adobe RGB as the space to work within,

> though almost every part of an image file will be rendered "out of Gamut by

> doing so. Just check the Gamut Warning under View in Photoshop for any such

> AdobeRGB file if you are in doubt, etc.etc.,,

 

The gamut warning in Photoshop is pretty useless. If you're talking about seeing a gray (by

default) overlay of the colors that can't be printed, that's there for old timers who used say

the sponge tool to manually desaturate those portions of the image to fall within gamut.

That was fine in the 20th century, but today we use good output profiles and robust

gamut mapping to do this. That's why it's so important to have good output profiles for

the process and to pick the rendering intent that YOU prefer. That does a far better job of

gamut mapping (either clipping or compression depending on what you pick).

 

> He goes on saying the leading

> digital lab in Atlanta who say point blank that nearly every printer and

> diital house in the buisness works in sRGB,

 

That's total BS. There isn't a printer on this planet that produces sRGB. What these printers

do is ASSUME that the color space is sRGB so they can convert the data to the actual

output color space. If they profiled the device and provided you the output profile, you

could do this yourself, see a far more accurate soft proof and decide how to map out of

gamut colors using the rendering intent YOU prefer. I repeat, there are NO output devices

that produce sRGB (or for that matter Adobe RGB (1998) or any other working space that's

based on the reference media of a display).

 

 

> despite what we're being told by

> the so called experts, personally I shoot in sRGB and do corrections in sRGB

> and submit as request by my lab, the largest on the central coast, in sRGB.

 

That's fine and if you are happy with the output, end of story. However, your capture

device and most output devices CAN produce more colors then you are funneling the

initial data into (sRGB).

 

> guess my question is if the big dogs and color experts cant get on the same

> page, what chance does the average digital photographer have of steering the

> proper course.

 

This guy doesn't sound remotely like an expert to me. Who was it?

I always thought an RGB monitor had a larger colour space than either Adobe 1998 or sRGB and the reason for using a reduced colour space is based on the fact that a reflective medium like a print is not able to diplay the wide range of colurs that a monitor can. The other reason for using sRGB is that with a reduced range of colour, a onitor does not need to be terribly well calibrated for the colours in the image to fit into its gamut.

someone else mentioned that out of gamut warnings in PS did not help that much, however they are speaking of RGB images. Remember that PS was designed for print and CMYK images where the colour gamut is much reduced over sRGB.

Many inkjet printers can take advantage of a wider colour space than can photographic printers and as such you have to pick the working colour space to match the output you are planning for.

for example I am shooting a wedding tomorrow that will be printed in a lab. All images will be kept in sRGB colour space, However if on the weekend I go and shoot images that are designed to be printed on my Epson 2200, they will be edited in Adobe RGB

Marrisa,

Before you change to a decent lab that can demonstrate at least a grasp of colour management, ask your current one for an icc profile of their printer, ink and paper. you can then use this to proof your image in photoshop prior to submitting them the job. The sRGB or Adobe RGB spaces are commonly used because their wide gamut means that they can hold images from many different sources and allow you to make quite large changes in an image whilst being confident that the colours held are a true representation.

-->I always thought an RGB monitor had a larger colour space than either Adobe 1998 or

sRGB.

 

Nope. Most current technology displays (CRTs) behave (or can be set to behave) as sRGB

devices. That's what sRGB is and was designed for.

 

If you view an image in sRGB outside an ICC aware display and it looks good, the display is

behaving closely to the sRGB specifications. Or to put it another way, if an image looks

good in the sRGB color space, that image truly is in sRGB being viewed on an sRGB device

(the display). The reference medium that defines sRGB is a display in a quite exacting

environmental condition (ambient light). This is another reason that when someone tells

you their printer produces sRGB, they are full of hot air. It's simply not possible. The data

has to be converted and rendered to the output (print) based on it's reference medium.

<I>Most Frontier labs want sRGB because they are too lazy to setup the machine to work properly with true output profiles </i><P>

Then why don't you set up your own Frontier shop Andrew vs accusing business owners who are risking their own capital of being 'lazy'? This is akin to complaining that amatuer mini-labs don't use professional paper, but you don't use professional labs because they are too expensive.<P>

I'm not thrilled with having to downgrade into sRGB from AdobeRGB either because it does result in a reduced printed gamut range on Fuji CA, which to my frustration always seems to happen with my macro work. Reds and magenta's especially get castrated. <P>

 

However, if I'm being that particularly anal about an image, I'll flip it over to a LightJet lab that's profiled out, which most are, and use them vs hassle a shop that's handling a 95% clientale that has no clue what AdobeRGB is.<P><I>

 

Is there a US online lab that does online proofing, physical proofs, online orders from my customers and runs strictly in Adobe RGB?? </i><P>

 

Isn't Mpix.com a profiled shop?

Mpix.com (among others) do color profiling but AFAIK do not support

AdobeRGB.

<P>

PDN reader writes: <I>"AdobeRGB is in fact an extremely wide color

space that cannot be matched by any print nor output device,

including both offset presses and inkjet printers."</I> The new

Epson R1800 is claimed to produce 97% of the AdobeRGB colorspace.

-->PDN reader writes: "AdobeRGB is in fact an extremely wide color space that cannot be

matched by any print nor output device, including both offset presses and inkjet printers."

The new Epson R1800 is claimed to produce 97% of the AdobeRGB colorspace.

 

This is a straw man argument. The PDN reader isn't providing the right answers here. Are

there any output spaces that fully fit within the Adobe RGB (1998) gamut? Most likely not.

But the shape of that gamut is very simple since it's based on very simple parameters

which describe how an idealized display behaves. Are there colors in an output and

capture space that fall outside Adobe RGB (1998)? Most certainly. Even if only 10% of the

output space in various areas falls outside of Adobe RGB (1998), those are the 10% of

colors at the extreme saturation you will NOT reproduce. This issue isn't "let's fit all of the

gamut from one into the other." it's "what part of the color gamut do you want to

reproduce. If you plot in 3D the gamut of an output device, a very large portion might fit

easily inside Adobe RGB (1998) with space left over. But if say a good portion of saturated

greens fall outside AND reproducing those greens are important to your image, then you

need a larger container (working space) gamut.

 

As for sending Adobe RGB (1998) to a lab, this isn't any different then sending sRGB. You

basically have two options here. You send them the data ready to go to the output device

IN the output color space for that device (you need an output profile). It doesn't matter

what the original color space is, you are providing the file in the color space for that

device.

 

Other option is you send a tagged RGB file and the lab either recognizes it and does the

conversion for you or like most dumb labs, they assume some color space (they don't

recognize the color space) and unless you send the file in the color space assumed, the

output is ugly.

 

It's not at all difficult or even time consuming to setup a device (even a Frontier) to

recognize an embedded profile (be it sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), or any flavor of RGB) and

convert that data to the output space. But if the device assumes everything is sRGB, then

sending anything but sRGB will hose the output. It's as simple as that.

 

And again, the output device isn't producing sRGB (or Adobe RGB (1998), it's producing

the color space of that specific output device.

So if one is happy with Frontier printing places (which only accept sRGB files) it is a complete waste of time capturing adobeRGB in camera and working with adobeRGB in PSCS. It would be better to have a complete sRGB workflow from beginning to end, is this correct?

Only if your lab demands files in sRGB. If you have a profile for your lab, you can still shoot in Adobe RGB, convert to their color space, and avoid sRGB altogether.

-->So if one is happy with Frontier printing places (which only accept sRGB files) it is a

complete waste of time capturing adobeRGB in camera and working with adobeRGB in

PSCS. It would be better to have a complete sRGB workflow from beginning to end, is this

correct?

 

Not at all. Other than the time it takes to convert the data (and the tiny loss of data),

capture and convert to Adobe RGB (1998) or wider, convert to sRGB for the labs. Once you

initially convert into sRGB, the additional colors you MIGHT be able to use today or in the

future is gone forever. Of course you can hold onto your RAW files and now you have all

the color potential of the capture device...

First let me say thank you to everyone who gave feedback. Andrew especially.

 

So basically if I can find a lab who correctly handles/identifies Adobe RGB and sRGB files as two different types of files, then I should be okay? If you go to printroom.com and click on about us, and then click on the color management link on the left. They clearly state that they do the proper conversions for both color spaces. So either they're just bs'ing or they still don't have an accurate enough conversion going on?

 

And they do have an icc profile to download. But, when I use it to softproof I do not see the changes that I see in my physical prints. I see my reds lose richness and look a little washed out and orangeish. Then my black levels also lose punch, they drop down a few notches in darkness/richness. So I'm unsure how this icc profile that they gave me to use is actually accurate because I see totally different results in my physical prints such as oversaturation and sunburned skin tones.

 

And no, I don't own an actual Adobe RGB CRT monitor :). I simply meant that I work with an extended desktop with two monitors and one of them is a CRT working in Adobe RGB while the laptop is for my palettes; in sRGB.

 

I'm still unclear as to why I should continue to work in Adobe RGB. It just seems like there's not much reason if every printer out there is converting to it's own color space that has far less color range than even sRGB (from what I've read and seen from most people's posts). Maybe I'm still missing something.

 

Andrew, what color space do you primarily work in? What would be the real pros and cons of just working in sRGB? Why work in Adobe RGB if it's only going to look that way on my monitor and not in the final print?

 

I want to focus my time on becoming a better photographer, not on all this friggin' color management stuff. Of course I understand that it's important for a digital photographer to know all of this. But a simpler, more universal system should be in place so photographers can shoot, image, and print without having to worry about their prints looking inaccurate to what they saw before leaving their computer. It's also irritating having to research the globe to only find that everyone is divided about the subject.

 

It doesn't seem like Mpix.com offers online proofing and ordering for wedding photographers, but thanks for the link. Does anyone know if collages.net (burrell) works with both sRGB and Adobe RGB files? And converts them correctly?

<P>

Here is <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB">the definition of sRGB colorspace</A>.

 

<P>

The title is <I>A Standard Default Color Space for the Internet - sRGB</I>. Note that it says "Internet", not "Printing".

 

<P>

sRGB is predicated on a number of assumptions:

<UL>

<LI>People may have inexpensive, small-gamut monitors. sRGB chooses this gamut because it is "the lowest common denominator". You may easily have a monitor that outperforms sRGB.

<LI>The gamut is tailored for CRT display, not printing or digital cameras.

<LI>The authors assume (correctly) that most people do not have a calibrated monitor, that digital image files do not have embedded ICC profiles, and most image viewing programs do not know about ICC profiles.

<LI>They also make the (rather poor) assumption that most people do not want ICC profiles in their image files, viewing programs, or operating systems. While it may have been valid to think that ICC profiles add too much extra overhead ten years ago, computers now have enough speed and storage to make ICC profile overhead insignificant.

</UL>

 

<P>

The sRGB standard therefore assumes that digital imaging is an uncalibrated system for most people. The goal of the sRGB standard is to impose a colorspace that everyone gets by default. That way, images on the worldwide web will display reasonably accurately on people's CRTs. Since the CRT is uncalibrated and unprofiled, and the display software is not performing a colorspace conversion, the gamut of sRGB is equal to the gamut of a cheap CRT (circa 1991). This limited gamut is "baked in" to digital image files.

 

<P>

Unfortunately, because of this need to address the "lowest common denominator", sRGB is a compromised colorspace.

 

<P>

For photography, there is no reason to restrict yourself to such a limited colorspace. Your capture device (digital camera, or scanned film) can capture a wider gamut than sRGB. Photoshop handles colorspaces in a competent manner. Your modern monitor exceeds sRGB, and you can get a reasonably-priced calibration kit. Printer gamuts do not match sRGB (and future printers will improve).

 

<P>

What Andrew suggests is that you do not compromise the quality of your results by using sRGB, when better tools are at your fingertips, and there is little or no cost in using them.

> So basically if I can find a lab who correctly handles/identifies Adobe RGB

> and sRGB files as two different types of files, then I should be okay?

 

IF you want to send data that's in an RGB working space (which is not an output space) to a

lab and they are going to do the conversion to the output space AND they say they will

accept (recognize) sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998), you're OK. You don't get to soft proof the

image to the printer or pick the rendering intent.

 

> go to printroom.com and click on about us, and then click on the color

> management link on the left. They clearly state that they do the proper

> conversions for both color spaces. So either they're just bs'ing or they still

> don't have an accurate enough conversion going on?

 

No, they are (hopefully) recognizing the embedded profiles from those RGB working

spaces and doing the conversion for you. Better would to get the actual output profile but

we're not there yet...

 

> And they do have an icc profile to download.

 

Great!

 

> But, when I use it to softproof

> I do not see the changes that I see in my physical prints. I see my reds lose

> richness and look a little washed out and orangeish. Then my black levels also

> lose punch, they drop down a few notches in darkness/richness. So I'm unsure

> how this icc profile that they gave me to use is actually accurate because I

> see totally different results in my physical prints such as oversaturation and

> sunburned skin tones.

 

Well there are a few ways to setup a soft proof (like using the Simulate Paper White/Ink

Black etc) and of course you are expected to be viewing the prints under a controlled light

(a CCT 5000K light box). If all that's setup and the soft proof is still "off" it could be the

result of the display profile or the output profile (or both). But we are not there yet...

 

> And no, I don't own an actual Adobe RGB CRT monitor :). I simply meant that I

> work with an extended desktop with two monitors and one of them is a CRT

> working in Adobe RGB while the laptop is for my palettes; in sRGB.

 

No I don't think so. Both displays are probably much closer to the behavior of sRGB but the

bottom line is you need to calibrate and profile the displays.

 

> I'm still unclear as to why I should continue to work in Adobe RGB. It just

> seems like there's not much reason if every printer out there is converting to

> it's own color space that has far less color range than even sRGB (from what

> I've read and seen from most people's posts). Maybe I'm still missing

> something.

 

That's not the case. There are lots and lots of printers that have areas that exceed sRGB.

 

> Andrew, what color space do you primarily work in?

 

Adobe RGB (1998) or ProPhoto although I have "legacy files" made in the 90's in

ColorMatch RGB.

 

>What would be the real

> pros and cons of just working in sRGB? Why work in Adobe RGB if it's only

> going to look that way on my monitor and not in the final print?

 

That's not the case. You can work in Adobe RGB (1998) and use some of the colors you

have at your disposal. If that's not an issue, use sRGB.

 

> It doesn't seem like Mpix.com offers online proofing and ordering for wedding

> photographers, but thanks for the link. Does anyone know if collages.net

> (burrell) works with both sRGB and Adobe RGB files? And converts them

> correctly?

 

Burrell doesn't have a clue about color management (unless they've done a total 360 in the

last few months or so). They expect you to tweak (read screw up) your display to match a

print they send you. Really bad idea!

Marissa,

 

You may find the following web-site useful - it graphically (no pun intended) represents various printers colourspaces in comparison to Adobe RGB.

 

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/printer_gamuts/

I have yet to try Drycreek, but had downloaded their instructions here:

 

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/custom/customprofiles.htm#Profiling_kit_downloads

 

They provide a target to test your printer first before ordering a profile. The document also cautions that some colors cannot be produced on some printers, regardless of profiles and color spaces, etc. I give them a lot of credit for stating this.

<p>So my background is math and computer science, and there's an important observation regarding the sRGB/Adobe RGB religious wars that seems completely obvious to me, yet almost never gets mentioned by photographers or color geeks:</p>

 

<p>Everybody knows that AdobeRGB represents a wider gamut, but everybody also seems to assume that this means it is "better" somehow. Why? Using a larger color space doesn't magically give you <i>more</i> colors to work with. It spreads the <i>same</i> number of colors across a wider area. This is because no matter how many bits per channel you work in, there are a finite number of states that you can use to represent colors. If you insist on stretching your color space to include lots of primary greens that can never exist in nature and will never be printable, you have to devote some of these states to representing those unusable colors. Those states are wasted, leaving you with fewer to allocate to the colors that can actually be used. The wider your color space, the coarser your color gradations will have to be and the more banding.</p>

 

<p>Thus it seems to me that the ideal working color space would be one that represents the full gamut of your destination output device, <i>and not one color more</i>. If sRGB is larger than your printer's actual gamut, you are already wasting some of your workable bits and using an even larger space would just waste more.</p>

 

<p>Now if the argument is that one should preserve more information in order to take advantage of future improvements in printer technology, fine, but I find it hard to believe that most working professionals (most of the people that care about color calibration that is) really care about that. How many event photographers or journalists care about making prints of 10 or 20 year old pictures? Fine art photographers maybe. I'm none of these things so I don't know.</p>

The concept of relative size is not adequate in color spaces because they overlap. Rather, one must ask larger or smaller in which part of the gamut? The issue of posterization has been discussed repeatedly, but does anyone read the archives?

 

Bear in mind that technology is developing. The gamut you can get using a new inkjet is much greater than what you could get ten years ago. A few years from now, if you need to make a print of a current picture (e.g., because the print faded!) you will be obviously be using newer technology, so why limit the images to a small color space?

Thanks Mark and Robert for the drycreek links, I'll definitely check those out.

 

Andrew, what do you make of Michael Dickerson's post? This sounds like it makes sense but at this point I've swayed in so many different directions I don't know what to believe.

 

Oh, and I picked up a 12x18 engagement shoot print today at my local pro lab and it looked exactly like what I had on my monitor. They prefer working in Adobe RGB. Thing is, they charge quite a bit more for prints than online labs so that's why I'm trying to still find a pro online lab that accepts and prefers Adobe RGB. An online lab that caters to the pro, not the consumer point and shoot end.

 

Oh, I contacted mpix.com about what printers they use and what color spaces they prefer. This is what they told me...

 

 

Yes, I have attached our ICC printer profiles for soft proofing in Photoshop. Uploaded files should be in sRGB color space with no embedded profiles. Mpix outputs with Durst Theta 50 and Kodak RP30 printers.

 

 

profile's internal name

(MPRP30E1_02_26_04.icc and MPThetaE5_02_26_04.icc)

 

 

Mpix printers output in sRGB color space.

 

Which color space is correct? ICC color spaces are simply mathematical representations of a particular device?s color gamut or the color gamut of the objects you are attempting to replicate. Fundamentally understanding color space differences may seem simple. Wider spaces encode a wider range of color than smaller spaces. So, on the surface, it would seem to make the most sense to use the largest color space possible. sRGB is one of the smallest color spaces, so why is it our default color space? There are two main reasons. First, we choose sRGB as our working, preferred color space because most of the current digital cameras capture in sRGB. Second, the digital photographic printers we use are also sRGB devices. Using a wider color space is moot if you are capturing in sRGB and outputting to sRGB.You can not increase the color space of an image since the color space of an image is defined at the moment of capture. Translating sRGB images into and out of other color spaces is not only time consuming but of little benefit.We use sRGB because it simplifies the amount of work that is necessary for you to prep a file for submission. As always our goal is to partner with you and offer solutions that both meet your high quality standards and workflow as much as possible.

 

 

All orders coming in are reviewed by a color tech and given a color correction on a calibrated monitor before it is submitted to the printer. We do offer a 'no color corrections' list were your files are sent directly to the printer without any adjustment from our tech's. I would be happy to flag your account for no color corrections if needed.

 

 

Mpix Customer Service

> Using a larger color space doesn't magically give you more colors to work

> with.

 

No it doesn't, it provides the potential./

 

>It spreads the same number of colors across a wider area. This is

> because no matter how many bits per channel you work in, there are a finite

> number of states that you can use to represent colors. If you insist on

> stretching your color space to include lots of primary greens that can never

> exist in nature and will never be printable, you have to devote some of these

> states to representing those unusable colors.

 

But the colors DO in many cases fall into the scene and CAN be output. 100% certainly not.

Again, if 10% of the colors you could capture are able to be placed in the Adobe RGB

(1998) container but not in the sRGB container and you want to reproduce those 10%, one

allows this, one doesn't. It's pretty simple.

 

R0/G255/B0 is just a number and doesn't tell us how to reproduce that color. We need a

scale. How green is G255? Well in Adobe RGB (1998) it's the same values as in sRGB but

the scale tells us that the green is more saturated in Adobe RGB (1998) than sRGB.

 

 

> Those states are wasted, leaving

> you with fewer to allocate to the colors that can actually be used. The wider

> your color space, the coarser your color gradations will have to be and the

> more banding.

 

And why with progressively larger color spaces you want to be working in more than 8-

bits pre color. But at least in the last 8 years, Adobe RGB (1998) has proven to work quite

well with 8-bit data.

 

> Thus it seems to me that the ideal working color space would be one that

> represents the full gamut of your destination output device, and not one color

> more.

 

Exactly but that's simply not possible for a number of reasons. For one, the gamut of the

working space is based on (almost always) the reference medium of a display. The

reference media and gamut of a printer isn't anything like that. So there's always a bit of a

disconnect.

 

>If sRGB is larger than your printer's actual gamut, you are already

> wasting some of your workable bits and using an even larger space would just

> waste more.

 

IF but I doubt that's the case in most output devices for the reasons above. The sRGB color

space is based on the behavior of a display (a very specific display condition). There may

be some output devices who's gamut fully falls within sRGB but most do not (and in some

cases that's even true with Adobe RGB (1998) but the issue is less; more output gamut is

contained in that space). But you'll likely never get a prefect fit. The SWOP gamut (as

defined by SWOP TR001) fully fits inside of Adobe RGB (1998) but not sRGB. So there's at

least one example.

 

> Now if the argument is that one should preserve more information in order to

> take advantage of future improvements in printer technology, fine, but I find

> it hard to believe that most working professionals (most of the people that

> care about color calibration that is) really care about that.

 

Then they are pretty dumb! If you look at the progress made in digital imaging and output

in the last 15 years, this would be a grave mistake.

 

> How many event

> photographers or journalists care about making prints of 10 or 20 year old

> pictures? Fine art photographers maybe. I'm none of these things so I don't

> know.

 

Speaking as someone that spent a large amount of time making a living as a photographer

and how spends most of his time working with that group, I'd say a lot. Why paint yourself

into a corner with your data. It's like you can go back to your original chrome and rescan

it. When you press the shutter and tell your digital camera to toss the RAW data and funnel

that color into sRGB, you're stuck with what you get FOREVER.

 

If photographers didn't care that much, you wouldn't see the discussions of the archival

nature of print and even film clogging up the net as you do. Photographers DO care!

-->First, we choose sRGB as our working, preferred color space because most of the

current digital cameras capture in sRGB. Second, the digital photographic printers we use

are also sRGB devices.

 

Write them back and tell them I told you to tell them that's nonsense.