Workflow for Adobe RGB to sRGB?

[Rastus]

It's my assumption that the most common color profile for viewing images on the web is sRGB.
I typically export an Adobe RGB, DNG file out of Lightroom to be worked on in Photoshop CS3 for printing.

Occasionally I save a JPG w/ the sRGB profile assigned for the web from PS. Obviously when I do this the colors get changed.

Do most people here on the forum convert there picts to sRGB for the web when working in Lightroom or Photoshop? Any ideas or links to other peoples workflows would be great.

Surely there's an easier way than having to export both, Adobe RGB and sRGB to edit in Photoshop.

Rastus

 

[Victoria Bampton]

You're quite right about wanting to use sRGB for the web.

I'm not absolutely sure I'm understanding your workflow though. Can you run through that again? The obvious solution, if I've understood what you're doing, would be to Edit in PS as ProPhoto or AdobeRGB, and then when that file has come back into LR, use Export to export a web size sRGB file from that edited file.

 

[gavinseim]

I open images for final edits in PS right from LR and have it saved back into the LR catalog. Why are you exporting in order to open in PS when you can just click edit and it will take it right in and save it back into LR when you're done?

This way when I'm ready for exports I can define what Colorspace (usually sRGB) on the final JPEG export, but since my edits were done in the higher level colorspace I can always come back to that.

Hope that makes sense

sRGB is generally best for lab prints and web.
Adobe1998 gives a bit more guamet than sRGB.
ProPhoto RGB has the most, but prints won’t use full color range.

 

[Rastus]

I may not understand the different ways & reasons to export from Lightroom. I think my main problem is that I don't have CS4. CS4 seems to make the round trip process pretty smooth. I ordered the CS4 Production Premium package last night.

What is the difference between right clicking a photo in the Develop Module and selecting edit in PS versus exporting a Tif file from the File-> Export command? When I use "Edit in Photoshop" the dialog I attached pops up. I usually select "Render using Lightroom". It's my assumption that choosing this will apply my Lightroom edits, but I don't really know.

If I have a photo w/ problems that can not be fixed in Lightroom I export intending to use Photoshop CS3 using the Adobe RGB color space. If I export a PSD, the file is almost twice the size of the DNG. Tif tends to be a little bigger. So I use DNG. Then edit in PS using the Adobe RGB color space. Writing this, I see I might as well export to PSD because I end up saving to PSD.

When I am done editing in PS, sometimes I want to save a copy of the PSD to a JPG. When I do this I assume it's best to save the JPG in the sRGB colorspace because it's going on the web but when I do this it throws off the colors.

How do people get around the color shift when they work in Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB and want to save/export to sRGB for the web?

Sorry for the long post and thanks for the replies.

[quote author=Victoria Bampton link=topic=8448.msg57215#msg57215 date=1258795699]
...The obvious solution, if I've understood what you're doing, would be to Edit in PS as ProPhoto or AdobeRGB, and then when that file has come back into LR, use Export to export a web size sRGB file from that edited file.
[/quote]
Victoria- Is there a difference in exporting a sRGB file from LR versus PS? Wouldn't there be color shifts exporting sRGB from LR just like I'm getting exporting from PS?

Rastus

 

[Victoria Bampton]

[quote author=Rastus link=topic=8448.msg5726'#msg5726' date=1258843'35]
What is the difference between right clicking a photo in the Develop Module and selecting edit in PS versus exporting a Tif file from the File-> Export command? When I use "Edit in Photoshop" the dialog I attached pops up. I usually select "Render using Lightroom". It's my assumption that choosing this will apply my Lightroom edits, but I don't really know.[/quote]
No difference, other than export allows you to choose a colour space on the fly, whereas edit in PS uses the settings you chose in preferences.

[quote author=Rastus link=topic=8448.msg5726'#msg5726' date=1258843'35]
Victoria- Is there a difference in exporting a sRGB file from LR versus PS? Wouldn't there be color shifts exporting sRGB from LR just like I'm getting exporting from PS?
[/quote]
There shouldn't be a significant colour shift when going from AdobeRGB to sRGB, other than a slight difference because it's a smaller colour space. How are you currently converting - are you perhaps using Assign Profile instead of Convert to Profile? You want the latter. Exporting from LR will automatically choose the right way of doing the conversion to sRGB.

 

[Rastus]

[quote author=Victoria Bampton link=topic=8448.msg57342#msg57342 date=1259''2''2]
[/quote]

There shouldn't be a significant colour shift when going from AdobeRGB to sRGB, other than a slight difference because it's a smaller colour space. How are you currently converting - are you perhaps using Assign Profile instead of Convert to Profile? You want the latter. Exporting from LR will automatically choose the right way of doing the conversion to sRGB.

Excellent work Victoria! Thanks. I was assigning not converting.

Going through this process I've found that when I export a TIF or PSD file from LR in the Adobe RGB Color Space and open it in PS CS3 there is actually no color space assigned (See attached pict "Camera Data Blank"). I verified this by looking at the meta data in the programs: XnView and Exif Toolkit (See Pict "Exif Toolkit"). The strange thing is when I'm in PS the little info box below my picture shows Adobe RGB.

Anyone know why this is?

Thanks again,
Rastus

 

[Victoria Bampton]

If you've got AdobeRGB set in the LR external editor prefs, it's sending AdobeRGB, don't worry. Have a hunt through the other metadata.