sRGB or AdobeRGB when home printing

[Paul80]

Hi all

 

A quick colour space question, hopefully

 

All my equipment, Camera, Scanner, Printer and Editing Software all support both sRGB and AdobeRGB so which is the best one to use on a home printing setup

 

Do I go sRGB or AdobeRGB on everything.

 

Thanks

 

Paul

[Paul]

I think if you're printing for competition or framing, AdobeRGB, but then you'll have to edit for that to, as the monitors tend to show sRGB.

 

But having said that, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference as the human eye can only see 7,000,000  colours.

 

Adobe RGB is irrelevant for real photography. sRGB gives better (more consistent) results and the same, or brighter, colors. Using Adobe RGB is one of the leading causes of colors not matching between monitor and print. sRGB is the world's default color space. Use it and everything looks great everywhere, all the time.

 

 

Paul.

[chorleyjeff]

I think if you're printing for competition or framing, AdobeRGB, but then you'll have to edit for that to, as the monitors tend to show sRGB.

 

But having said that, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference as the human eye can only see 7,000,000  colours.

 

Adobe RGB is irrelevant for real photography. sRGB gives better (more consistent) results and the same, or brighter, colors. Using Adobe RGB is one of the leading causes of colors not matching between monitor and print. sRGB is the world's default color space. Use it and everything looks great everywhere, all the time.

 

 

Paul.

Hmmm

I must disagree.

I usually print from LR so no actual colour space.

From PS try print preview. You will then see a difference, especially in the reds.

Why restrict colour space to the lowest common denominator of sRGB? After all every little helps.

Anyhow we all have our work practices that we get to do what we want so that's fine.

Of course screen pictures should besRGB.

[Craftysnapper]

Hmmm

I must disagree.

I usually print from LR so no actual colour space.

From PS try print preview. You will then see a difference, especially in the reds.

Why restrict colour space to the lowest common denominator of sRGB? After all every little helps.

Anyhow we all have our work practices that we get to do what we want so that's fine.

Of course screen pictures should besRGB.

This is not actually correct LR has PhotoPro has it's native colour space.

Also when printing from LR you have to assign a colour profile, unless you are letting the printer manage the colour space output and then you have no control over it as the printer will use it's own colour management.

 

By the way there is no printer or monitor that can show the full gamut of colours that the PhotoPro colour space has, and monitors that can show the full gamut of even Adobe RGB cost in the thousands.

 

So what you see is not what you get even when soft proofing, all soft proofing does is show roughtly colours that your printer is capable of or you can use softproofing correctly to show out of gamut colours that will not print correctly so you can adjust them so they are in gamut and will print correctly.

 

Where as printing as srgb pretty well guarantees what you see is what you get if you have a correctly calibrated monitor.

 

Now I am not saying one is better than another but if you are going to go into the world of large colour spaces then be prepared for more work and lots of test prints unless you are letting the printer colour manage it then it will convert it to the lowest common denominator that it can handle (most likely srgb than Adobe rgb unless a expensive printer) what ever the colour space.

 

Off course you should capture in the biggest colour space possible as you can always output at a smaller colour space and still have leeway for future developments in printing and monitors.

Edited August 8, 2014 by OlyPaul

[ChrisLumix]

There is no harm in doing what home developer/printers did routinely back in the day - print a test strip of various settings and see which, if any, is what you want.

[Craftysnapper]

There is no harm in doing what home developer/printers did routinely back in the day - print a test strip of various settings and see which, if any, is what you want.

Indeed and i have done it my self.

[chorleyjeff]

This is not actually correct LR has PhotoPro has it's native colour space.

Also when printing from LR you have to assign a colour profile, unless you are letting the printer manage the colour space output and then you have no control over it as the printer will use it's own colour management.

 

By the way there is no printer or monitor that can show the full gamut of colours that the PhotoPro colour space has, and monitors that can show the full gamut of even Adobe RGB cost in the thousands.

 

So what you see is not what you get even when soft proofing, all soft proofing does is show roughtly colours that your printer is capable of or you can use softproofing correctly to show out of gamut colours that will not print correctly so you can adjust them so they are in gamut and will print correctly.

 

Where as printing as srgb pretty well guarantees what you see is what you get if you have a correctly calibrated monitor.

 

Now I am not saying one is better than another but if you are going to go into the world of large colour spaces then be prepared for more work and lots of test prints unless you are letting the printer colour manage it then it will convert it to the lowest common denominator that it can handle (most likely srgb than Adobe rgb unless a expensive printer) what ever the colour space.

 

Off course you should capture in the biggest colour space possible as you can always output at a smaller colour space and still have leeway for future developments in printing and monitors.

thanks for reply.

I was referring to my raw processing done in LR4, and Martin Evening's book on LR4 remarks about raw files having no colour space.

But I defer to your better knowledge and readily acknowledge my confused understanding.

Cheers

Jeff

[Craftysnapper]

thanks for reply.

I was referring to my raw processing done in LR4, and Martin Evening's book on LR4 remarks about raw files having no colour space.

But I defer to your better knowledge and readily acknowledge my confused understanding.

Cheers

Jeff

Jeff that is correct to a extent it does not, but as soon as a image is imported to a imaging software like LR4/5 it has to be converted to a working colour profile/space to be displayed correctly and LR uses the PhotoPro colour profile the largest there is at the moment.

 

Funnily enough that colour space is what used to be a little known colour profile called Kodak Photo Pro and was little known about, a friend of mine that was a top Lab technician in the States sent me it to try but even PhotoShop 5.5 that I was working with at the time could not handle that profile correctly at the time (or I could not).

Edited August 10, 2014 by OlyPaul

[Paul80]

Thanks for all the replies to this.

 

What I have decided after reading as much as I could before my old brain started to suffer a meltdown is

 

Set both my Cameras to AdobeRGB to capture as much as possible and assign AdobeRGB to the output of my RAW files, I always output those as TIFF Files, and set Photoshop to AdobeRGB.

 

My Monitor is now Calibrated using Spyder Hardware and so it the Printer.  So what I see on the screen matches the prints or as close as the two different technologies can match.

 

All seems to be working well at the moment, although the Printer is now quite old so will probably soon die as have one Hard drive and Two Computers in the last couple of months, they are all about the same age, so I am expecting something else to give up soon.  Still it will give me an excuse to get an A3 printer to replace it

 

Which reminds me I must make more backups of my data and photos as the auto backup drives are just as old ;(

 

Paul

[Guest]

As I always say Paul whatever works for you is the right way.

[JHFoto]

Another vote for sRGB all the time..............

[colinb]

Another vote for sRGB all the time..............

 

Really??

 

sRGB (Standard RGB)

 

Defined by Microsoft and Hewlett Packard in 1996  and is now getting on a bit

 

sRGB is Designed for Average CRT monitor space - CRT is rather old Tec monitors these days are LCD and have better / larger colour pallet.

 

Suitable for internet and office applications - nowt wrong there then

 

Too small for artwork, not 100% suited for print workflow - which is why many prefer Adobe RGB

 

 

 

Using Adobe RGB is one of the leading causes of colors not matching between monitor and print

 

Surely it would more often caused by the monitor not being set up correctly or not understanding the relationship between your monitor/ editing programme/ printer profile and not having the editing programme handle the printer colour rather than the printer?

Edited October 28, 2014 by colinb

[Guest]

Really??

 

sRGB is Designed for Average CRT monitor space - CRT is rather old Tec monitors these days are LCD and have better / larger colour pallet.

 

 

Most LED/LCD monitors under £400 (which most people use) do not even cover all of the srgb colour space, my own calibrated £270 LED monitor only covers 97.8% of the srgb colour space.

 

A monitor that covered all of the Adobe 1998 colour space would cost in the thousands.

 

I agree with the last part of your post.

Edited October 29, 2014 by OlyPaul

[JHFoto]

Using Adobe RGB is one of the leading causes of colors not matching between monitor and print

 

This is true for most applications and why I never use it. I only print for competition so is has to be spot on for me.........

[Paul80]

Thanks for all the input on this

 

I was originally going to go with AdobeRGB all through until I profiled my Monitors, one a Samsung and the other an Acer and both monitors can only match sRGB so I figured its no point shooting in AdobeRGB if I cannot see all the colours so dont know what is missing before it gets sent to the printer.

 

So now shooting is sRGB and seeing on the monitor what I am seeing coming out of the printer.

 

Should I at some point in the future get a monitor that can display more than sRGB I will still have the RAW files to re process the images should I need to, cant see myself spending that sort of money on a monitor though at my age and with my eyesight I am lucky I can see anything.

 

Paul