Adobe RGB or sRGB please?

[360_6pack]

I am just starting to get my head around my 5D III after a 60D. I have been to a few photography courses and have LR4.1 and PSE10. I shoot raw & L JPEG. My confusion is that some recommend sRGB however other people recommend Adobe RGB. The 5D III manual recommends sRGB but the LR books are divided. I only shoot for my own enjoyment at this stage but may join a club later when I get a little better. Any thoughts very much appreciated.

[cpsico]

Pretty much everything is gear towards srgb, printers at labs like mpix,miller labs, monitors, etc. Save some headaches and shoot srgb.

[neuroanatomist]

If you print at a commercial lab, ask them.  Else, just use sRGB.

[curtisnull]

The Adobe RGB colorspace contains way more color than sRGB. Most printers (Labs) print in sRGB. Shoot in Adobe RGB then dumb it down to sRGB yourself if you need to for printing. sRGB is a very old colorspace developed many many years ago by Microsoft. Adobe RGB is a much more modern, up to date colorspace.

[shining example]

I'm currently doing a course on colour management for digital photography, and the instructor told us to always shoot Adobe RGB.

As I understand it, the reason is that because the Adobe RGB colour space is larger than sRGB, you will have more colours to work with in post, even if you then convert your final output to sRGB.

Or what curtisnull said while I was obviously typing too slowly...

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Adobe RGB has a wider Gamet, which means it can show more colors.  However, you then need a monitor that can show Adobe RGB and a printer that can print it.
Thats why most except for the really tech savy use SRGB.  I've used Adobe RGB, my Epson 3880 can print a wider gamet, but truthfully, SRGB is a lot less headache.
Also note, when you set your camera to Adobe RGB, the first digit of the file name will be a dash.  This causes lots of people consternation that have changed the setting without really knowing what they were doing.

[neuroanatomist]

Shoot in Adobe RGB then dumb it down to sRGB yourself if you need to for printing.

Actually, if shooting in Adobe RGB matters, you've already dumbed it down a lot, because that means you're shooting JPG.  If you're shooting RAW, color space is irrelevant - you can set it later.

However, you then need a monitor that can show Adobe RGB and a printer that can print it.

Exactly - if you're sending it to a lab that prints with Adobe RGB, then you need a monitor that has that same wider gamut.  Perhaps 'need' is too strong - if you've got a lot of experience working with images on a stardard monitor and the corresponding Adobe RGB output, it can be done, much like working in CMYK on an RGB display.  But if you lack that experience, you may tweak an image to look fine to you, only to have it look funky if you share that image with others.

[Jamesy]

Like Neuro said. Shoot RAW and color space is irrelevant. Most printers who do 'C' prints understand RGB. If you send them an Adobe RGB or Pro Photo image it will look really bizarre. Higher end print shops will share their printer profiles with you but save yourself the hassle and go sRGB.

[crasher8]

I have heard, Print yourself shoot Adobe, print at a lab shoot sRGB.

[risc32]

I shoot RAW, so as was just pointed out I can just select whatever colorspace i like after the fact. But i always use sRGB. years ago i took some test shots and printed the images myself in both adobe and sRGB. The images had lots of green foliage. The human eye is most sensitive to green, and if memory serves me green shows the largest improvement in colorspace range when you compare sRGB to adobe. So if adobe was going to be an improvement, this would show it. End result, the images looked slightly different, but just barely and I couldn't say i liked the adobe more.  stick with sRGB. you don't want to start fooling with adode unless you have lots of time and money to spend. you don't want to start moving sliders around , adjusting an image when you can't really see what it is you're doing. so you need a new monitor. you probably don't want to see what they cost, and that's only the beginning of the fun.

[360_6pack]

Thanks for the responses. I am using a computer running Win Pro 7 and a Canon Ink jet or Fuji colour laser printer. So if I understand the advice it won't matter for my local printing but will probably matter to a lab. All my photos to date have been sRGB. Would I notice a big difference changing to Adobe RGB. If so would it be just when printing or on my computer monitor as well.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I am just starting to get my head around my 5D III after a 60D. I have been to a few photography courses and have LR4.1 and PSE10. I shoot raw & L JPEG. My confusion is that some recommend sRGB however other people recommend Adobe RGB. The 5D III manual recommends sRGB but the LR books are divided. I only shoot for my own enjoyment at this stage but may join a club later when I get a little better. Any thoughts very much appreciated.

LR room basically uses ProphotoRGB internally (even larger than AdobeRGB). In ACR and PS, which are a bit different than LR, I set them to ProphotoRGB 16bits. If you ever get a wide gamut monitor, the sRGB files will have clipped away colors in some photos (mostly stuff like: fall foliage, sunsets, intense tropical waters, glow in the dark clothes colors, many flowers, anything with really deeply saturated reds, oranges, yellows, deep blues, purples, turquoise). I would save a prophotorgb output from LR for any files that could make use of it. If you want, you can also save an sRGB version for easy use with anything without any color-management issues.

FOr in cam jpgs, you are cooked in, so for stuff like fall foliage and sunsets and flowers I'd use AdobeRGB since if you shoot sRGB you'll never have a way to get the colors back (for RAW shots it doesn't matter what the camera is set to) although for shots without any dramatic saturated things I'd shoot sRGB since AdobeRGB would just waste bits and perhaps sRGB might make some tonal transitions a trace smoother.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

The Adobe RGB colorspace contains way more color than sRGB. Most printers (Labs) print in sRGB. Shoot in Adobe RGB then dumb it down to sRGB yourself if you need to for printing. sRGB is a very old colorspace developed many many years ago by Microsoft. Adobe RGB is a much more modern, up to date colorspace.

Keep in mind that if you print yourself though, then you can take advantage of more than sRGB and surely you can if you view on wide gamut monitors (which are slowly becoming more popular, and the upcoming OLED stuff is natively all somewhat more wide gamut and we are also moving to 4k monitors). Most ink jets can print lots of colors outside of sRGB, although it's true that at the same time there are a lot of sRGB colors, never mind others, that they can't print. (and a few commercial labs also accept and make use of wider gamuts)

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I shoot RAW, so as was just pointed out I can just select whatever colorspace i like after the fact. But i always use sRGB. years ago i took some test shots and printed the images myself in both adobe and sRGB. The images had lots of green foliage. The human eye is most sensitive to green, and if memory serves me green shows the largest improvement in colorspace range when you compare sRGB to adobe. So if adobe was going to be an improvement, this would show it. End result, the images looked slightly different, but just barely and I couldn't say i liked the adobe more.  stick with sRGB. you don't want to start fooling with adode unless you have lots of time and money to spend. you don't want to start moving sliders around , adjusting an image when you can't really see what it is you're doing. so you need a new monitor. you probably don't want to see what they cost, and that's only the beginning of the fun.

It's actually a fallacy that Adobe vs sRGB is only about the greens. People base that on a single 2D slice of the 3D gamuts and all they see is a giant chunk of green added.

Crazy saturated intense greens are actually somewhat rarer to come across in nature so it's actually reds, purples, oranges, yellows that are where you'd see the most difference between say ProphotoRGB and sRGB viewing on a wide gamut monitor. Try to make a deep red rose or deep purple petunia look realistic in sRGB and it just can't be done, same for many flowers, use prophotorgb and a wide gamut monitor and suddenly they look vastly more like real life. Shoot a sunset and in sRGB some bright saturated cloud bands disappear but pop back right out at you on a wide gamut.

[2n10]

I shoot RAW, so as was just pointed out I can just select whatever colorspace i like after the fact. But i always use sRGB. years ago i took some test shots and printed the images myself in both adobe and sRGB. The images had lots of green foliage. The human eye is most sensitive to green, and if memory serves me green shows the largest improvement in colorspace range when you compare sRGB to adobe. So if adobe was going to be an improvement, this would show it. End result, the images looked slightly different, but just barely and I couldn't say i liked the adobe more.  stick with sRGB. you don't want to start fooling with adode unless you have lots of time and money to spend. you don't want to start moving sliders around , adjusting an image when you can't really see what it is you're doing. so you need a new monitor. you probably don't want to see what they cost, and that's only the beginning of the fun.

It's actually a fallacy that Adobe vs sRGB is only about the greens. People base that on a single 2D slice of the 3D gamuts and all they see is a giant chunk of green added.

Crazy saturated intense greens are actually somewhat rarer to come across in nature so it's actually reds, purples, oranges, yellows that are where you'd see the most difference between say ProphotoRGB and sRGB viewing on a wide gamut monitor. Try to make a deep red rose or deep purple petunia look realistic in sRGB and it just can't be done, same for many flowers, use prophotorgb and a wide gamut monitor and suddenly they look vastly more like real life. Shoot a sunset and in sRGB some bright saturated cloud bands disappear but pop back right out at you on a wide gamut.

I have noticed the differences mentioned for the colors highlighted and in deep blues being more realistic and more accurately portrayed.