D-300, srgb vs. argb (sRGB vs. Adobe RGB)

[rick_pascale]

Hello,

 

I was reading about the "color spacing" in the D-300 manual and it seems as if

the difference is quite large between the two settings, srgb and argb.

 

In srgb it states that it is best used for "as is" photos that will go directly

to printing or to the internet while it says to use argb for "extensive

editing".

 

My question is which is best to use if you are mostly shooting in JPEG and will

do "some" editing on some of the photos?

 

thanks for your help!

[elliot1]

If you are curious and have the time, shoot the same picture twice, once with each color mode. Edit them identically, print them out as you would normally do and compare the results.

 

My 'quick' response is sRGB.

[rick_pascale]

Thanks Elliot, that is a great idea. I will give it a try....

[tonybeach]

You need to understand how to use aRGB in order to effectively take advantage of it. If you send your image files to a printer that uses aRGB then you can use aRGB without converting to sRGB, but for web and many commonly used commercial printers (like those at Costco for instance) you need to convert aRGB color profile image files to sRGB before saving them as JPEGs.

 

Naturally, shooting in RAW is best. If you do that then you can assign the color space when you convert the RAW file to a TIFF or PSD file for further editing. Note that I used assign and convert in this post, they are different -- you assign a color space when you set up the working space for editing an image file, but you convert an image file after editing it when you want to save it in a different color space.

 

If you are shooting in JPEG and not RAW, then you have already diminished your editing choices significantly. Without understanding what I have just written you probably should just shoot in sRGB and be prepared to see your reds oversaturated and out of gamut since sRGB often cannot display extreme reds.

[jc5066]

Web images should be converted to sRGB. If you use lower end labs, most consumer labs, then you also need sRGB to send to them.

 

Pro labs and people that print at home its best to use aRGB.

 

aRGB has a large color range. It is an advantage to save your jpegs as aRGB. Then convert them to sRGB for web display and if your lab requires sRGB.

 

If you are shooting jpeg then shoot in aRGB. This is the first time I've heard anyone use one or the other depending on how many "editing" you do.

[ajay_ukidve1]

Anthony I have a question. When I shoot in Adobe RGB always RAW I find the colors kind of dull. Adjusting color curves, LCH, saturation and color boost in CS3 I find the wow in pictures is still missing. Though I admit the colors are more even and natural. Whereas in sRGB the colors come out more vibrant, vivid and the pictures immediately catch the eye. My question is which color profile do the professionals prefer and why? Leaving aside the printer part.

[rick_pascale]

Since I am new to photography I have not done any editing past the basic adjustments in my photoshop program. For now, I only shoot in JPEG, but will be learning how to shoot and process RAW soon. It seems as though sRGB is the best setting for me at this point based on the above comments.

 

On my Nikon D-80 I was not aware of the setting sRGB or aRGB. Does the D-80 even have this choice? If not, then is the D-80 basically set for sRGB?

 

thanks again for your time.

[ellis_vener_photography]

A quick multiple choice question. There is only one right answer.

 

Q: Can you spot the differences in the two color spaces in the attached 2 dimensional graph?

 

a.) sRGB is a smaller color space than Adobe RGB(1998).

 

b.) Adobe RGB(1998) doesn't "force" the colors which exist outside of it's gamut into a smaller box.

 

c.) Color relationships are more natural in Adobe RGB(1998) than they are in sRGB.

 

d.) Adobe RGB(1998) contains the possibility of more color tones than sRGB does.

 

e.) All of the above<div></div>

[iancoxleigh]

The D80 has three JPEG colour-space/colour-mode combination choices. Two variants of sRGB and one aRGB. Colour mode 1 is a slightly saturated sRGB, colour mode 2 is an aRGB mode and colour mode 3 is a more vibrant/saturated sRGB.

 

Thom Hogan's D80 review covers this quite well.

 

Excerpts:

 

"The one D200 image quality option that isn't present is the separation of Color Space and Color Mode. The D80, like the other consumer cameras, gives you only Ia, II, and IIIa as combined Color Space/Color Mode options (that's two sRGB options and one AdobeRGB option for the uninitiated)."

 

"Color integrity is very good in Imatest's color checks, even with the slightly distorted sRGB color spaces that Nikon uses (Ia and IIIa). Saturation is a little higher than I expected, resulting in punchy colors for a Nikon body (AdobeRGB gets you closer to accurate)."

 

"Overall, color is very saturated and quite good even in the Normal and less saturated image optimizations, a bit over the top if you use any of the enhanced optimizations."

[trunfio]

However my lab requires sRGB. So, is there any advantage to shooting in aRGB?

[jc5066]

Yes. Until recently man pro labs only excepted sRGB. Gong from sRGB to Adobe later does you no good. In the future, if you want to print again your lab may take Adobe.

 

Might as well have the best possible image for archiving.

[tonybeach]

For Ajay:

 

"My question is which color profile do the professionals prefer and why?"

 

There is no one answer, but working in the wider gamut color spaces is preferred. For reasons I will explain shortly, I personally move between aRGB and LAB when I am editing images.

 

There is a difference between a color profile and a color space. A color profile is a device specific color space which assigns specific interpretations of what red, green and blue are (this also applies to Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow if you are using CMYK color space). If your camera, monitor and printer cannot agree on a specific interpretation of what one or more of the colors are, then you will end up with different results in your print than what you see on your monitor, which may be different from what you saw in your camera's monitor when you captured the image (i.e., things can become a real mess if you aren't careful).

 

Color spaces are the available gamut in which color profiles exist. Normal human vision can see about 30% of the colors that can theoretically described. sRGB color space contains 15% of the theoretical colors (yes, that's half of what we can see, but the colors that occur that we can see that do not exist in sRGB are confined to certain shades of red and green and represent a relatively small fraction of what we see). aRGB color space contains 25% of the colors that can theoretically exist and comes much closer to what normal human vision can see. There are wider RGB color spaces which exceed human vision, and LAB color space contains all the colors that exist (3 times as many as we can see).

 

Finally, Nikon offers color modes (which are specific color profiles) to create different looks. These color modes are intended to make skin tones more pleasing (mode I and mode Ia), to represent colors accurately (mode II), or to create more vivid colors which some people prefer for nature photography (mode III and IIIa). If you open a RAW file with ACR or any non-Nikon converter, you will not be able to utilize Nikon's color modes and those programs will apply their own color profiles to the image file (that lies at the heart of my beef with ACR in particular, since I personally do not like the way Adobe profiles NEF files).

 

Personally, I use color mode II in my Nikon cameras because I want to see accurate exposure information in the embedded JPEG. For shots featuring skin tones I assign color mode Ia or use Capture One's D200 Portrait profile; for all other images I stay in color mode II, use Capture One's D200 Generic profile, or open the file using Raw Magick Lite.

 

For Ellis:

 

e.) All of the above

[mark_in_st._louis]

Unless you have spent over $4k for your monitor and specifically chosen an aRGB monitor you will not be able to adequately view an aRGB photo. Which means when you get it back from the professional lab it may have a green or blue cast that you could not see. Unless they were nice enough to correct it for you.

[tonybeach]

"Unless you have spent over $4k for your monitor and specifically chosen an aRGB monitor you will not be able to adequately view an aRGB photo."

 

Please provide a source for this statement. My $400 monitor has no problem displaying aRGB color space. I do not have to see a color cast to recognize that it exists, I simply check the image using the color sampler tool in Photoshop -- and I do not see color casts on my monitor or in prints I get back from quality labs (and I do use the lab's printer profiles to soft proof my images during editing).

[mark_in_st._louis]

<p>Take a look at a monitor like the <A

href="http://www.eizo.com/products/graphics/cg221/index.asp">Eizo ColorEdge

CG221</A> monitor that can reproduce the aRGB color space. I would doubt there would be much market for a monitor like this if a $400 monitor was as capable of reproducing aRGB.</p>

<p>An An <A

href="http://www.shootsmarter.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=151">article

by Will Crocket</A> sums things up these differences well. I had a chance to see one of his recent road shows and learned a great deal.</p>

[bmm]

This whole area is BY FAR the most difficult to grasp for a beginning photographer such as myself. In fact it's the only area that I don't think I've yet understood.

 

I am worried that the choice that will give most flexibility - to shoot in RAW and convert during post to aRGB - will defeat the purpose.

 

By that I mean that I will neither be editing based on an accurate rendition of the exposure on a "standard" high-quality monitor if it does not read aRGB, nor will I be able to print the image in a satisfactory way.

 

Further if I edit in RAW with a view to aRGB conversion, surely a second conversion to sRGB for those applications where I need it will distort the edits I make by virtue of the smaller colour space (eg I won't be making the edits with the right colour space in mind).

 

MAybe I need a stiff drink and to sleep on it...

[photo5]

Bernard, if you want to keep it simple, shoot in sRGB and just forget about it. It is true that Adobe RGB does have a wider color gamut, but it is less compatible with output devices and computer monitors.

 

I've read that sRGB has advantages over Adobe RGB in that when you convert an image captured in Adobe to sRGB, there will be gaps in color transitions that wouldn't necessarily be there had the image been captured in Adobe in the first place.

 

It's all moot if you shoot RAW, which is always the best solution. So when in doubt, shoot RAW and forget about it! But if you shoot just JPG, best to shoot in sRGB if you have any doubts.

 

I capture in Adobe RGB and only convert to sRGB if I'm printing or posting a photo on the web.

[tonybeach]

Mark, I had to dig around in your links, and I appreciate the material you provided. However, I think it would be misleading to suggest that there are not advantages to working in aRGB color space (particularly when dealing with heavily saturated reds that I have personally seen shift towards green in prints). For me the bottom line is that I see the difference both on my modest monitor: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/483372-REG/Samsung_226BW_SyncMaster_226BW_22_Widescreen.html and in the prints I get from labs that accept aRGB image files. I often take photos of the Golden Gate bridge which exceed sRGB gamut, and I recently got a print back from a lab that had printers capable of printing aRGB color space that looked just like my monitor displayed and was not clipped (indeed, both the print and the monitor displayed what I saw with my eyes when I captured the image); the same image in sRGB color space goes out of gamut for sRGB printers even though it displays the same way on my monitor, and I have to burn the image to get it into the more limited gamut and sometimes I end up being unable to get even remotely close to what I originally saw.

 

At the website you referenced, Will Crockett (the author) said:

 

"Personally, I seem to get by pretty well with the high end sRGB screens from Eizo with my sRGB portrait work and my aRGB industrial / commercial images. If I need to see color critical areas of an aRGB file I know to print it to one of our high-end inkjets running the ImagePrint RIP - they will take an aRGB file and print me a super accurate color proof in a few minutes that show me everything I need. I do however have a few shoots where an Adobe RGB capable screen would be handy but not enough to cough up the big cash."

 

I would argue that the website may be dated in its recommendation to spend $3000 or more for a monitor that accurately displays the entire aRGB color space. Here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/483371-REG/Samsung_XL20_SyncMaster_XL20_20_LED.html is a monitor for $1600 that displays 114% of the aRGB color space. However, as stated in the article you referenced, the colors that are outside of either sRGB or aRGB are only a small part of what we would normally be able to see. The problem is with sRGB color space limited printers, and to take advantage of wider gamut printers both in your home or studio, or at a lab that has them, we need to work in aRGB color space even if we cannot see a few colors that are at the extreme end of what we encounter in the real world.

[ajay_ukidve1]

Anthony,

 

Thank you very very much for taking so much effort and clarifying these issues. I think I will have to understand the difference between accuracy of color rendition and what my eye likes to see. Secondly, yes now I grasp the difference between color profile and color space very critical indeed. I will have to train my color sense or my visual translation of colors to appreciate accuracy rather than just the vibrancy and vividness which in any case do not exist in real life most of the times. I am indeed very grateful to you for the wonderful insight. Many thanks.

[tom_swaman]

Perhaps I am oversimplifying this very complicated subjects. Frankly, what difference does it make if you are shooting in RAW since all of the data is captured and the image future rests with the editing. If you are shooting JPEGS and editing in Adobe 1998 color space, why not set the D300 to Adobe 1998 for JPEGs?

 

Tom