Color space confusion

Bucketp

Bucketp

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Messages
335
Name
William
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi

I have a setting on my camera (Sony A500) which lets me choose a color space of either sRGB or AdobeRGB can somebody please tell me what the difference is with regards to the final picture, does it make a difference when editing, and does it make a difference to what I see on my monitor.

Many thanks:help:
 
sRGB is the standard for displaying images on the internet and for consumer printing. It is the assumed colour space for software that is not colour managed. Basically, if you want an easy life then, unless you have a reason to use Adobe RGB you will be well advised to shoot to sRGB. It could save a lot of pain.
 
sorry to hijack the thread here...

I am also confused about the whole colour space thing. I have a calibrated screen and printer and use Adobce CS5 for all me editing, can I get away with the wider space of adobe RGB or is that not the case?

Am I right in saying that my monitor can't display the full adobe RGB range anyway - or is that my printer?

Thanks
 
Not an expert on this, but I think the answer depends on your monitor and printer. Some monitors do claim to be able to display the full Adobe RGB gamut, but most do not. If you want your stuff to look good most everywhere it appears then sRGB is probably the smarter choice. Consumer and even most "professional" print shops will expect sRGB files. Adobe RGB is, I think, a bit of a niche for specialised commercial printing.

If you shoot to raw then the colour space setting actually does not matter. Apart from a flag in the data all the pixel values are identical either way. It's only when you start processing the file and output it to a usable format that the choice of colour space matters. If you shoot to JPEG then it's a bit different. You have a reduced tonal range that can be recorded in the 8 bit files. If you use (waste) some of those data values to record colours that will not be used/displayed in the final product than you are robbing from data that could have been put to better use on colours that are within gamut, giving finer tonal gradations for in gamut colours.
 
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