Okay, maybe a dumb question but I'm wondering how many people use the "Adobe" colour space setting on their camera rather than "sRGB"? Personally I use sRGB for everything. The reason being that I'd have to convert pictures back to that anyway for use on the internet or if sending to a lab for printing.

Just wondering what others do - or if I'm missing out on anything much by sticking with sRGB?

Well, not sure my answer is going to be of much use. Because I shoot everything raw, it doesn't really matter which colourspace I have set on my 30D as that's a decision that I can take later during my raw conversion, although I've set the cameras default colourspace to be Adobe RGB.

- Thorsten. 

I know one or two people who used Adobe colour space, and posted the jpg online only to notice that the colours didn't match what Photoshop was showing.

They say that if you use a high end printer or print lab, then Adobe colour is much better for the print results.  RGB is the only colour space that is used for web display though.  So, if you use standard printing and/or mostly use your images for the web, then RGB is the way to go.

Never hurts playing around and trying though, but in general it's safer to stick to what works.

I did for a while.

This was based on the fact that Adobe's colour space model has a wider gamut range than sRGB, however I changed back to sRGB because:

a) it is the default for the Internet (only option for IE and Firefox)

b) you can't print the extra colours without going to a lab anyway.

c) it caused confusion with other people and applications who may access my raw images.

Gareth

www.eyeforphotos.co.uk

Thanks for the replies. So there is no advantage in using the Adobe colour space for editing (assuming it will ultimately get converted to sRGB for final use)?

I noticed an article on the internet recently where someone mentioned they  used the even wider Pro-photo colour space for editing. However, it is still necessary to convert back to sRGB to view the pictures on the internet. And the local lab I normally use (Bennetts) also asks that pictures for printing be saved in the sRGB format.

In other words, is it true that any advantage of working in a wider colour space be lost when the pic is converted to sRGB at the end?

There isn't a simple "Yes" or "No" answer to that question. "What's new?", I hear you say Such is the exciting world of digital imaging that we live in. One could concievably argue that just like a larger bit-depth, a larger gamut will help you retain the maximum amount of information as you work on your image and that you should only compress your data when you're done editing and are ready to print.  Rather than going into any great depth here, I would recommend those interested to have a read of an excellent PDF document on Workflow Guidelines which also explains why having a larger gamut to work in isn't necessarily a good thing.

The general consensus still seems to be edit in a wide gamut space and compress (convert) to sRGB for printing and on screen display. All you're really doing when converting is re-mapping the colours and in extreme cases this can cause colour shifts. 

I think the key point is to pick a colour space and stick with it throughout your workflow and only change if necessary for the final output.

Thanks for the info, although I'm still a bit unclear if there is any practical advantage to using the Adobe space for pictures that will get printed at a lab or posted on the net. Are the advantages lost when doing the necessary conversion to sRGB at the end?

fotoIE - Thanks for that explaination. So I guess that the advantage of using Adobe colour space only really applies when using the CYMK process.