sRGB vs Adobe RGB?

[kshapero]

My Epson RD-1 asks which color space I want to use, sRGB or Adobe RGB? It asks this in the control panel of the camera and then in Epson Raw sortware. My photo software, ACDsee Pro V2 also asks this at the printing window. So which should I use?

 

[Toby]

Adobe RGB has a wider colour gamut than sRGB so from a purely technical standpoint is a superior colour space. However sRGB is the de facto standard for the web is the most commonly used colour space for prolabs, who often request files be sent in RGB. The upshot of this is that if you use Adobe RGB and you upload to the web or a sRGB friendly lab you may experience unpredictable colour shifts in your pictures.

 

[Charly]

Adobe RGB is a much bigger colour space and therefore the correct choice for capture.

For processing, I use ProPhoto RGB (larger than ARGB). For the web, you then need to convert to sRGB. Most printers will automatically scale your colourspace - but softproofing allows you to choose how you want it scaled. I'm not at all familiar with ACDSee so I've no idea exactly what question it is asking.

If that all makes sense to you, great. If it doesn't, you have 2 choices - blind trust in a stranger or thorough research. luminous-landscape.com has some excellent articles by Michael Riechmann and Jeff Schewe on topics such as this.

 

[2tcreative]

color space

color space

depends. Are you going to be printing your images to some paper media? If so, then use Adobe RGB. If your primary media is the web then you can use sRGB. Only the Safari web browser can color manage and the color gamut for the Adobe RGB is too big for all the rest of the browsers out there.

the debate between Adobe RGB and ProPhoto color spaces are still going on. Not sure which I would lean toward but use Adobe RGB primarily out of familiarity.