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colour space (again)


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This has been discussed numerous times, but I admit to being a slow learner when it comes to this stuff. I currently have my cameras set for the RGB colour space rather than sRGB. Is this still the best option?

 

Also, is it best to do post-processing in RGB and then convert to sRGB only as a last step before submitting JPEGs to Alamy?

 

Still confused and lost in space... 😕👨‍🚀

 

 

 

Edited by John Mitchell
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30 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

This has been discussed numerous times, but I admit to being a slow learner when it comes to this stuff. I currently have my cameras set for the RGB colour space rather than sRGB. Is this still the best option?

 

Also, is it best to do post-processing in RGB and then convert to sRGB only as a last step before submitting JPEGs to Alamy?

 

Confused and lost in space... 😕👨‍🚀

 

 

According to me, the proper colour space is vital for high-end prints only. I work  in ProPhoto RGB for RAW processing and in Photoshop, and at the end convert the files to Adobe RGB (before) or Adobe sRGB (recently) for Alamy. I'm not an expert and don't know the pros and cons for Alamy stripping the original colour space. What I know is that it's not a good idea to post a photo in RGB for Social Media - sRGB is a must for that purpose...

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John, I don't think it matters for Alamy and stock, more so for high end printing (Edit: as Ognyan said, beat me to it :) )

I'm no real expert but from what I understand  (presumerably you are talking about AdobeRGB) there is a difference in that sRGB has a smaller gamut i.e. some vivid colour that can be represented in AdobeRGB will not be the same in sRGB so will seem more muted.

However, unless your monitor can represent these larger colour spaces, you will be looking at sRGB output anyway as those strong colours cannot be represented on most displays.

If your monitor supports the larger color spaces then when converted to sRGB some colours may not be quite as vivid as you remember them during processing 

 

Gamut Diagram

 

 

Edited by Martin L
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Thanks for the replies. Yes, I meant AdobeRGB. My current monitor, which I calibrate regularly, is nothing special, so I notice no difference between the two colour spaces when processing. I don't do high-end printing. However, I do submit images to POD sites. Those I leave as AdobeRGB.

 

Something I do notice is that some images can look quite different in the various processing programs -- Capture One Express for Sony, Affinity Photo, and Photoshop Elements -- that I use. For instance, colours look noticeably less vivid in PS Elements than in Capture One, which I use for developing RAW files. The colour match between Capture One and Affinity Photo seems closer.

 

 

Edited by John Mitchell
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13 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I meant AdobeRGB. My current monitor, which I calibrate regularly, is nothing special, so I notice no difference between the two colour spaces when processing. I don't do high-end printing. However, I do submit images to POD sites. Those I leave as AdobeRGB.

 

Something I do notice is that some images can look quite different in the various processing programs -- Capture One Express for Sony, Affinity Photo, and Photoshop Elements -- that I use. For instance, colours look noticeably less vivid in PS Elements than in Capture One, which I use for developing RAW files. The colour match between Capture One and Affinity Photo seems closer.

 

 

Now I am lost 🙂

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Taking a punt but maybe your calibration software is installing a custom display profile that only some of the software interpret correctly.

Or maybe some of the software have been set to always display in a different profile so convert it to sRgb when loading the image so they display differently. Must be something in their settings.

Or maybe I'm pontificating way above my pay grade :)

I would imagine the more expensive products like Capture One do it correctly.

I vaguely remember PS Elements had a setting somewhere on what to do with profiles i.e. convert,ignore etc so might be worth looking at that

 

Edited by Martin L
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3 minutes ago, Martin L said:

Taking a punt but maybe your calibration software is installing a custom display profile that only some of the software interpret correctly.

Or maybe some of the software have been set to always display in a different profile so convert it to sRgb when loading the image so they display differently. Must be something in their settings.

Or maybe I'm pontificating way above my pay grade :)

I would imagine the more expensive products like Capture One do it correctly

 

 

Capture One Express for Sony (and Fuji) is free software. However, it reportedly uses the same processing "engine" as the pricey Pro version. It just has fewer features (e.g. no layers). My version of PS Elements is quite ancient, so that might be (?) why images look different than they do in the more modern programs. I use PS Elements only for resizing and dust blob removal these days. Affinity Photo has many more options for tweaking, and it's regularly updated.

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I was waiting for Mark Chapman to come in on this one since it was Mark who put in the work to discover just what Alamy do with our files. Up to then Alamy had sent out a confusing and ultimately misleading email to anyone that asked the question regarding which colour profile should be used to submit images to Alamy.

 

Their system will convert images that are in a different profile (Adobe RGB typically) to sRGB and then strip away the profile since most uses will simply assume that they are sRGB anyway. This is probably common industry practice apart from specialist fine art libraries. Once Mark established this Alamy confirmed that he was in fact correct. In the light of this there is  no advantage to uploading images to Alamy with the Adobe RGB colour profile. It is true that Adobe RGB images will print better on high end printers and these days it is also true that monitors that can display this larger colour space are much more common, Mac Retina screens for example, but images downloaded from Alamy will be in the smaller sRGB colour space.

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1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

For instance, colours look noticeably less vivid in PS Elements than in Capture One

This will be an incorrect interpretation of the underlying RGB values in the profile, possibly that old PS Elements is not capable of displaying colour profiles correctly. 

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2 minutes ago, Martin L said:

Harry, it maybe settings, found this

 

PS Elements Settings

Yes, that's certainly the right area but it's possible that John's version was much less sophisticated when it comes to colour management, it might even simply expect everything to be in sRGB so gets confused by an Adobe RGB image. If the underlying RGB numbers of an Adobe RGB file are interpreted as sRGB then the colours will appear muted, and vice verse of course.

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5 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

This has been discussed numerous times, but I admit to being a slow learner when it comes to this stuff. I currently have my cameras set for the RGB colour space rather than sRGB. Is this still the best option?

 

Also, is it best to do post-processing in RGB and then convert to sRGB only as a last step before submitting JPEGs to Alamy?

 

 

If you are shooting raw, it is irrelevant what colour space you have your camera set to as it is all in the post processing - you have full control over white balance in post in other words. This is a very important point and is one of the main reasons to shoot raw, some of the others being better highlight and shadow detail recovery and better noise control in post.

 

If you are only shooting for Alamy then it probably doesn't matter much if you work in sRGB, especially if you are not using a wider than sRGB gamut monitor. As Mark discovered and as alluded to above, Alamy strips the profile anyway. This was not the case years ago when the advice from Alamy was to tag as AdobeRGB but those days are long gone it seems. But I think that applies if you are shooting for Alamy only. 

 

If you are submitting elsewhere as well and/or printing then it is wise to work in a wider colour space and narrow down if necessary but it is not possible to go the other way accurately (i.e. sRGB to AdobeRGB) as you have already thrown away the colour information. 

 

If you are using a wider gamut than sRGB monitor (such as all recent Macs which now use P3 colour space) or a wide gamut monitor than can display nearly 100% AdobeRGB (not uncommon nowadays), then you would be narrowing down the range of colours that you are capable of seeing if working in sRGB. Obviously this could affect the way you process the image.

 

I presume the discrepancies between the different programs are due to the way they each interpret the colour tags, assuming they are all set correctly and that they are all colour managed. I have no experience with 

 

 

 

Edited by MDM
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Thanks for all the useful information. I think the advanced age of my version of PS Elements is to blame for the different look of images. Also, I'm not sure how compatible it is with Windows 10. I've noticed a couple of other glitches since moving from Windows 7. As mentioned, I've switched to Affinity Photo for extra tweaking, etc. It's far superior software. I plan to invest in a better monitor when/if finances permit.

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1 hour ago, Martin L said:

It does affect the histogram you see on the back of your camera

 

The camera histogram is based on the in-camera JPEG so is only a coarse approximation to the raw histogram which can be viewed in Lightroom or other raw converter software. I never use the camera histogram as it can differ significantly from the raw histogram. I get a very good idea of what I will get from spot metering. The (Nikon) cameras I have been using for many years all have excellent dynamic range with amazing ability to recover highlight detail. It is very rare for me to clip highlights that I want to retain (e.g. a white wedding dress or snow). 

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1 hour ago, Martin L said:

It does affect the histogram you see on the back of your camera

I'd never thought about the colour profile implications of that before though I knew that the histogram, and the highlight warnings, were based upon the in-camera jpeg and so when I expose to the right (ETTR) I know that a certain amount of highlight flashing is actually a good thing provided I'm shooting RAW, it can be easily rescued from skies etc. This article does indeed suggest the there will be a difference between the histogram from an sRGB in-camera jpeg and an Adobe RGB version though it's going to be quite subtle. As the article points out, with mirrorless you're seeing the histogram even though no picture has been taken, and no jpeg saved. It's possible that different manufacturers may not all deal with it in the same way I suppose.

 

https://blog.kasson.com/using-in-caera-histograms-for-ettr/normal-in-camera-histograms/

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7 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

This article does indeed suggest the there will be a difference between the histogram from an sRGB in-camera jpeg and an Adobe RGB version though it's going to be quite subtle. As the article points out, with mirrorless you're seeing the histogram even though no picture has been taken, and no jpeg saved. It's possible that different manufacturers may not all deal with it in the same way I suppose.

 

https://blog.kasson.com/using-in-caera-histograms-for-ettr/normal-in-camera-histograms/

 

It's an interesting point but would it really make any difference to your actual exposure whether the camera is set to sRGB or AdobeRGB? I expose for the midtones keeping an eye on how bright any highlights are in the scene but I don't worry too much about getting a really precise exposure. If I am within a stop or even two stops of a decent exposure and the highlights are not blown out then I can recover any image. I always use manual exposure modes. 

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2 minutes ago, MDM said:

It's an interesting point but would it really make any difference to your actual exposure whether the camera is set to sRGB or AdobeRGB?

Well, as I said it's going to be quite subtle but I'm glad to have been made aware by Martin that there will be a difference, mine is always set to Adobe RGB. I use manual all the time but still think that ETTR is a good discipline whether or not files can be rescued if the exposure differs appreciably from that. I agree that Wedding Photography with black suits and white dresses offers its own challenges, I spent quite a few years doing that myself, mostly on film.

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23 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Also, is it best to do post-processing in RGB and then convert to sRGB only as a last step before submitting JPEGs to Alamy?

 

Only if you want to produce wider gamut images for something else, in which case it's also best to be working in 16 bit mode.

 

21 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Something I do notice is that some images can look quite different in the various processing programs -- Capture One Express for Sony, Affinity Photo, and Photoshop Elements -- that I use. For instance, colours look noticeably less vivid in PS Elements than in Capture One, which I use for developing RAW files. The colour match between Capture One and Affinity Photo seems closer.

 

If you're talking about how RAW images are rendered, then that will differ between programs as each provider (Adobe, Capture One, DXO, Sony) etc. because they all apply slightly different RAW "interpretations" to produce default renderings they believe look best.

 

If you're talking about how sRGB jpeg images (with profiles) are rendered on an sRGB monitor - they should look identical in each program. If not, then there's something wrong with the calibration or the settings. For example I believe in PSE it's possible to set the working colour space to Adobe RGB but also ignore the profile in any images imported. (Not a good idea).

 

When I discovered that Alamy convert everything to sRGB I also noted how the histogram of an AdobeRGB image was clipped when converted to sRGB.

I uploaded an AdobeRGB image to Alamy.

 W2BEBF.jpg

The image I uploaded was in AdobeRGB colour space and had this luminance histogram.

 Histogram-as-uploaded.png

I then purchased my own image and I found the image Alamy supplied was in sRGB space with the profile removed and had this luminance histogram.

Histogram-as-returned.png

The conversion from AdobeRGB to sRGB has caused some clipping.

 

From that point on I decided to finish my image processing in PS in sRGB colour space and submit to Alamy in sRGB which avoids this problem (the histogram stays almost the same). That way I could be more confident that what I was seeing on my screen in PS would more closely match what the customer would receive.

 

Mark

Edited by M.Chapman
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1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Only if you want to produce wider gamut images for something else, in which case it's also best to be working in 16 bit mode.

 

 

If you're talking about how RAW images are rendered, then that will differ between programs as each provider (Adobe, Capture One, DXO, Sony) etc. because they all apply slightly different RAW "interpretations" to produce default renderings they believe look best.

 

If you're talking about how sRGB jpeg images (with profiles) are rendered on an sRGB monitor - they should look identical in each program. If not, then there's something wrong with the calibration or the settings. For example I believe in PSE it's possible to set the working colour space to Adobe RGB but also ignore the profile in any images imported. (Not a good idea).

 

When I discovered that Alamy convert everything to sRGB I also noted how the histogram of an AdobeRGB image was clipped when converted to sRGB.

I uploaded an AdobeRGB image to Alamy.

 W2BEBF.jpg

The image I uploaded was in AdobeRGB colour space and had this luminance histogram.

 Histogram-as-uploaded.png

I then purchased my own image and I found the image Alamy supplied was in sRGB space with the profile removed and had this luminance histogram.

Histogram-as-returned.png

The conversion from AdobeRGB to sRGB has caused some clipping.

 

From that point on I decided to finish my image processing in PS in sRGB colour space and submit to Alamy in sRGB which avoids this problem (the histogram stays almost the same). That way I could be more confident that what I was seeing on my screen in PS would more closely match what the customer would receive.

 

Mark

 

Thanks, Mark (got it right this time). Very interesting. I realize that RAW processing programs yield different looking results. My version of PS Elements is 5.0, which makes it a digital archaeological artifact at this point, which is why I switched to Affinity Photo a few years ago. I still like the uncluttered interface of the old Elements but only use it sometimes for simple stuff like resizing or dust removal. Shall experiment with histograms, although I find that they often don't look exactly the same in different programs.

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1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

From that point on I decided to finish my image processing in PS in sRGB colour space and submit to Alamy in sRGB which avoids this problem (the histogram stays almost the same). That way I could be more confident that what I was seeing on my screen in PS would more closely match what the customer would receive.

 

 

 

Therein lies the fundamental problem of all digital imaging - you have no control over what anyone else will use to view your image. They might receive an image in the state you intended but may (and most likely will) perceive something very different. One could say something similar about print images as it depends a lot on the lighting used to view the image and also on the way the viewer perceives colour. 

 

I would still rather process in a wide colour space and narrow it down according to requirements. Why have all this fantastic camera gear and throw so much of the colour and tonal information away in the basic processing? Even iPhones and iPads use a wider colour space than sRGB.

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I usually save either a Tiff or a jpeg in AdobeRGB  and a jpeg in sRGB as well with s at the end of the name so I know. I do all my processing in AdobeRGB, but for most libraries and even a lot of printers, I need to convert to sRGB, tweak colors if needed, and save as a jpeg.

 

I figure that if I later want to make a print using a high end lab that takes AdobeRGB files, I don't want to have to reprocess my RAW file.  Interestingly, I've gotten equally beautiful prints from labs that use AdobeRGB, labs that use Tiffs instead of jpegs, and labs using sRGB jpegs but iI think it's still worth saving the full color image since converting to sRGB loses a lot of color info. It can also occasionally cause sky banding and other issues due to the fewer steps between colors, so it's important to convert yourself and make any corrections needed rather than have the agency do it. I have an Eizo monitor that lets me switch between color spaces with the press of a button, and my laptop is pretty accurate as well, so that helps since sometimes converting to sRGB can lead to a dull image without tweaking and it can also do weird things to some colors. 

 

I figure with more monitors able to view a wide spectrum, at some point even images for the web might need a larger color space and for better prints I certainly don't want to have to re-process my RAW files. A few print labs I've used have switched from sRGB to AdobeRGB over the years, so it's worth it to me to work in that space and convert right before saving the final jpeg. 
 

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14 minutes ago, Marianne said:

I figure with more monitors able to view a wide spectrum, at some point even images for the web might need a larger color space and for better prints I certainly don't want to have to re-process my RAW files. A few print labs I've used have switched from sRGB to AdobeRGB over the years, so it's worth it to me to work in that space and convert right before saving the final jpeg. 
 

 

That's already here. Apple products use P3 nowadays which is wider than sRGB. But web browser implementation ofcolour management is a nightmare - not worth worrying about  I think. Also don't just think monitors - many people use tablets and phones to view images now as well. 

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4 hours ago, MDM said:

 

I would still rather process in a wide colour space and narrow it down according to requirements. Why have all this fantastic camera gear and throw so much of the colour and tonal information away in the basic processing? Even iPhones and iPads use a wider colour space than sRGB.

 

That's pretty much how Lightroom works.   Adobe RGB is default for most everything other than the Develop module which uses ProPhoto RGB.  Then when we Export we set the color space as needed.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/color-management.html

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6 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Only if you want to produce wider gamut images for something else, in which case it's also best to be working in 16 bit mode.

 

 

If you're talking about how RAW images are rendered, then that will differ between programs as each provider (Adobe, Capture One, DXO, Sony) etc. because they all apply slightly different RAW "interpretations" to produce default renderings they believe look best.

 

If you're talking about how sRGB jpeg images (with profiles) are rendered on an sRGB monitor - they should look identical in each program. If not, then there's something wrong with the calibration or the settings. For example I believe in PSE it's possible to set the working colour space to Adobe RGB but also ignore the profile in any images imported. (Not a good idea).

 

When I discovered that Alamy convert everything to sRGB I also noted how the histogram of an AdobeRGB image was clipped when converted to sRGB.

I uploaded an AdobeRGB image to Alamy.

 W2BEBF.jpg

The image I uploaded was in AdobeRGB colour space and had this luminance histogram.

 Histogram-as-uploaded.png

I then purchased my own image and I found the image Alamy supplied was in sRGB space with the profile removed and had this luminance histogram.

Histogram-as-returned.png

The conversion from AdobeRGB to sRGB has caused some clipping.

 

From that point on I decided to finish my image processing in PS in sRGB colour space and submit to Alamy in sRGB which avoids this problem (the histogram stays almost the same). That way I could be more confident that what I was seeing on my screen in PS would more closely match what the customer would receive.

 

Mark

 

I don't know much about using PS for this as it isn't in my workflow, but your last point is why I like to use the soft-proofing option in Lightroom. You can set it to soft proof in sRGB and it will show you both visually and on the histogram what clips in sRGB. I find a lot of the time reds clip - particularly on a vivid sunset or bright flowers. 

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