sRGB or Adobe RGB ?

[Antoine_Fabi]

Hi,

On my Canon 20D, i can select sRGB or Adobe RGB.
What is the difference ?
What is the "correct" (standard) setting ?

I always shoot RAW.

thanks

[scharky]

If you are shooting RAW, color space won't do anything at all. If you are shooting RAW plus jpg, then colorspace will affect the jpgs. Basically you want to use Adobe RGB if you know you are going to be doing some post and printing work with your photos. If you are shooting for something that will be displayed directly on a web page or viewed on a monitor then sRGB will give you the best looking color. Adobe RGB is a much larger color space than sRGB but when viewed on a monitor, Adobe RGB will look very flat and muddy. Having this larger color space is great for doing post work on your photos as well as if you are printing on a inkjet printer.

Hope this helps you out.

[MattinSTL]

If you shoot raw then you can change the colorspace later in whatever program you like that can work with the RAW file.

Adobe RGB and sRGB have the exact same number of colors, but Adobe uses primaries that are more saturated with more "distance between tones" and sRGB uses less saturated colors with tones that are spaced closer together.

Magazines and other publications will want Adobe RGB, but again you can change it to that in RAW with no problems... as a good general guideline... you can shoot anything really saturated in Adobe and get even better saturation... like a flower on a bokeh of trees... or a colorful sportscar... etc. etc.

I shoot in sRGB because there's a smoother transition between tones which is suitable for most subjects and especially better for people.

[Antoine_Fabi]

I see a little difference between sRGB ans Adobe RGB files even if they've been shot in RAW.

sRGB looks a little more rich and seems to render more subtility.

very interesting.

I really dont understand everything...

thanks !

[scharky]

Well, that's just it, when shooting RAW there is no color profile, so no matter what your camera setting is, your RAW files are just that, RAW and have no profile attatched. The only thing that a color profile does is tell the computer how to properly display your file. Web browsers cannot properly display Adobe RGB files, hence the reason for using sRGB for web applications. Like MattinSTL said, depending on your use each color profile has it's advantages.

[Antoine_Fabi]

thanks to both of you !