Color management is a huge subject in its own right, so we won’t go into great detail here. If you’d like to learn more, Jeffrey Friedl wrote an excellent article on color spaces, which you will find at: http://www.lrq.me/friedl-colorspace
In short, we’ve already said that photos are made up of pixels, which each have number values for each of the color channels. For example, 0-0-0 is pure black. 255-255-255 is pure white. The numbers in between are open to interpretation—who decides exactly what color green 10-190-10 equates to? That’s where color profiles come in—they define how those numbers should translate to colors.
Lightroom is internally color-managed, so as long as your monitor is properly calibrated, the only times you need to worry about color spaces are when you’re outputting the photos to other programs. That may be passing the data to Photoshop for further editing, passing the data to a printer driver for printing, or exporting the photos for other purposes, such as email or web.
When considering the size of color spaces, imagine you’re baking a cake, and you need to mix the ingredients. ProPhoto RGB is a big enough mixing bowl that it won’t overflow in the process, whereas sRGB is like the cake tin that just about fits the cake when you’ve finished, but will overflow and lose some of your cake mixture if you try to move it around too much. You use the right bowl for the job.
sRGB is a small color space, but fairly universal. It can’t contain all of the colors that your camera can capture, which will result in some clipping. As it’s a common color space, it’s a good choice for photos that you’re outputting for screen use (web, slideshow, digital photo frame), and many non-pro digital print labs will expect sRGB files too.
Adobe RGB is a slightly bigger color space, which contains more of the colors that your camera can capture, but still clips some colors. Many pro digital print labs will accept Adobe RGB files. It’s also a good choice for setting on your camera if you choose to shoot JPEG rather than the raw file format, if your camera can’t capture in ProPhoto RGB.
ProPhoto RGB is the largest color space that Lightroom offers, and it’s designed for digital photographers. It can contain all of the colors that today’s cameras can capture, with room to spare. The disadvantage is that putting an Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB file in a non-color-managed program, such as most web browsers, will give a flat desaturated result. That makes it an excellent choice for editing and archiving, but a poor choice when sending photos to anyone else.
So your chosen color space will depend on the situation. You don’t need to worry while the photo stays in Lightroom, as all of the internal editing is done in a large color space which Lightroom manages. When the photo leaves Lightroom, then you need to make a choice. If you’re sending a photo to Photoshop using the Edit In command, ProPhoto RGB will often be the best choice, retaining as wide a range as possible. ProPhoto RGB doesn’t play well with 8-bit though, because you’d be trying to jam a large gamut into a small bit depth, which can lead to banding, so stick with 16-bit while using ProPhoto RGB. Once you’ve finished your editing, and you want to export the finished photo for a specific purpose, then you can choose a smaller color space.
Whichever color space you choose to use, always embed the profile on Export. A digital photo is just a collection of numbers, and the profile defines how those numbers should be displayed. If there’s no profile, the program has to guess—and often guesses incorrectly. Lightroom always embeds the profile, but Photoshop offers a checkbox in the Save As dialog, which you need to leave checked.
Adobe 1998 and ProPhoto color spaces ONLY offer an advantage when the SCENE being captured contains color information that cannot be found in sRGB.
When working in 16 bits, there is no measurable downside to shooting in a larger color space than the scene requires. BUT, the minute one converts to an 8 bit file in a wider gamut, there will be fewer bits available to describe the actual photo content as many of them will be lost to the regions of the color space that are NOT being utilized in the image. As a result, banding in skies and other large smooth areas might be more visible.
There is no advantage at all to a larger gamut if the scene does not contain anything that requires it. And, there could be some negative issues that are NOT just relating to color aware applications, especially when we finally get to the 8 bit realm.
> Adobe 1998 and ProPhoto color spaces ONLY offer an advantage when the SCENE being captured contains color information that cannot be found in sRGB.
…or when your editing may push colors outside of the sRGB range, which is a more frequent issue.
I definitely agree you want to stick to 16 bit when using a wider gamut like ProPhotoRGB.
You mentioned “there could be some negative issues that are NOT just relating to color aware applications”. Was there something specific you had in mind?
hello, you did not account for display gamut, while some have pro monitors (but then they don’t need to read this) very few people have even 100% sRGB, so if you are editing in PhotRGB you do not see actual image and real results of your editing…
would not be best then to edit image you are intending to export into sRGB, especially if also your display is only 100% sRGB in sRGB color space? this way you axactly see what you doing? and also grt accurate histograms…? so in Lightroom to develop in softproofing mode set to sRGB for digital output? of course you this way you still edit in photoRGB, which is LR native space, but you see what you edit?
Just because you can’t see the full range on your current screen doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to throw away data. Think about it… when photographers used to edit their photos on greyscale screens many years ago, they didn’t limit themselves to only editing B&W photos.
This post is talking about selecting a color space when sending photos to external editors like Photoshop.
Some people do like to use the Soft Proofing in Lightroom, set to sRGB, if they know they’re only ever going to export to sRGB. That’s fine, because anything you do in Lightroom is automatically done in a wide color space anyway. (It’s not actually ProPhotoRGB, but there are similarities.) It’s only when sending photos outside of Lightroom that you really need to start worrying.
Hello,
I thought raw files were anyway not color profiled, so whatever you choose on your camera menu, your raw files is still raw when importing it in LR.
The point for me is rather which profile/develop setting to use when importing. And i regret that LR doesn’t recognize th customer made profile in a Nikon, for instance, as it would be a nice au to try to have a start looking like what you saw on the camera screen..,
I personally created a Develop Setting that I input at import stage, so that all my raw files are as soft as I want them, also close to what I see on my camera screen with my custom profile (based on Neutral, but a bit softer and less contrasted still).
> I thought raw files were anyway not color profiled, so whatever you choose on your camera menu, your raw files is still raw when importing it in LR
That’s right Frederico. In fact, within Lightroom, handles the color management for any file. You only need to worry about color spaces (covered in this article) when sending photos to other applications (like Photoshop) or when exporting them.
Yes yes.. thx for your reply, LRqueen..:-)
I just felt like adding my few bits to the talk as I got into LR CC and struggle with syncing.
All good things!