Adobe RGB (1998) vs sRGB & Various Aberrations

ok here's the deal with this.

I use Nikon gear also. I'm not sure about Canon.
Go ahead and setup your camera for adobeRGB. Aperture should be set up to work in this colorspace also. You should also set your "working RGB colorspace" in photoshop to AdobeRGB under color settings. This way when you send images over to PS you don't get any conversion dialogs and you're certain that you still in adobe RGB.

Why adobeRGB: Adobe RGB has a larger Gamut (how many colors it can display) this helps when adjust levels and other things when you bump stuff it has more data to step through so you're less likely to get posterization and other stepping problems.

What you need to remember: All source files and files you work on should be Adobe RGB thats the only real use for it b/c it is the largest gamut.

One of the greatest things about aperture is being able to export your files to jpeg for sending files off to be printed. On photographic paper. Apple's jpeg preset is set for sRGB which is what most all Photo labs are set up for. It will automatically flatten the psd and convert the colors which is one of the best features in the world!!

Also sRGB is the colorspace used for any and all web images.

Here's where people mess up with colors spaces and inkjet printers. Ink jet printers are expecting an sRGB colorspace....even though its printed with 4~6 color inks. Most printer manufactures have made their printers wanting an sRGB file not AdobeRGB or CMYK it wants an sRGB file then the printer software will do the conversion to its colorspace. (there are more custom ways to do this but this is not the thread)

The only time you ever need to use CMYK is when you're sending something to an Offset Press. If you are in the print industry you should already know this but this forum is for photographers. I have a few clients that want the photos already converted to CMYK ready to drop into InDesign or Quark. For this you'll want to use the Web Coated SWOP v2 profile. Never use the Generic CMYK profile....Most places will be printed on coated paper and if not its still close enough.

Hope this answers any questions

Victor,

Neither of these should matter if you're using Aperture. That's because you should be shooting RAW, and at that point color space doesn't matter -- it's not applied to a RAW image by the camera (a tag is attached, but this is just a suggestion).

Aperture uses a color space that's larger than either Adobe RGB or sRGB. So less clipping of color should apply than either.

If you are going to be publishing stuff to the web, you should use the sRGB color space when you convert to JPEG (that's because very few web browsers support color space info -- only Safari and one or two other Mac browsers; no PC browsers do). If you're going to be sending it to a print shop -- it depends -- if it's a shop you take the stuff to personally and they explicitly tell you they can handle Adobe RGB it may be okay -- otherwise sRGB has more consistent results.

For printing on your home or business printer (Epson 800, 2400, 9600, Canon 9900 or new pigment model) probably you should export as Adobe RGB + TIFF files for optimal results.

But back to the original point -- in a RAW + Aperture workflow, Adobe RGB or sRGB is a non-issue... it doesn't come into play until you export as a TIFF, JPEG, or other "non-RAW" format.

William, that is essentially my question about this issue. I import RAW images from my camera, and I have a profile for my printer that I created using a Monaco EZ Color calorimeter. So even if I have the camera set to use Adobe 1998, am I right to conclude that at no time in my workflow will I be actually using it?

Hi David,

That is correct, unless you involve another application besides Aperture. For example, if you do "edit in Photoshop" or some other external editor, the file will probably be tagged with a profile, likely Adobe RGB (but I'm not sure on this).

Aperture doesn't use those color spaces internally... it uses a wider color space.