Color Profile setting for D7000

[greg14]

I just noticed that I had my Color Profile in MAC Aperture set to :
sRGB IEC61966-2-1

I did not know about this setting, my Nikon D7000 is set for Adobe RGB

I just changed it to Nikon Adobe RGB 4.0.0.3001

IS THAT A RIGHT SETTING TO DO to match my camera?

Is there any drawbacks to have had the setting not match?

Sorry if this posted twice

Greg

[KCBrecks]

Now isn't that a coincidence, I was reading all about this in the Photoshop CS2 book this afternoon. Scott Kelby advises using Adobe RGB (1998) colour setting in Photoshop. When I had a look at that it was set to sRGB etc and my Canon 1000D is also set for sRGB.

I did change it in Photoshop CS2 and then opened a picture and it offered to make changes to the image. There was a little difference but rather than then go through the process of changing the monitor to match, but that was getting a bit too involved so I put everything back and decided to do what you have done - go to the Oracle.

At the moment I have left them as they were. It will be interesting to see what the Guru's have to say about it.

[Mark von Kanel]

Its a can of worms guys!!

it all depends on what you want to do with you images, the idea is if you set your monitor and calibrate it with a spider or eye one to the correct colour space then when you send you images to others to view and print they will view/ print them with the colours that you intended them to be.

for instance.... if you send me an image on the pc im using at the moment. it isnt calibrated, so when i look at your pic and it seems that the reds are over done, is it my monitor or your processing?

or... if your just going to look at the images on your pc then if they look correct to you it doesnt matter!

[Manfred M]

Greg - the colour profile that you use has nothing to do with your camera per se, but rather what you are planning to do with your images and of course the capabilities of the equipment you use, from camera, to computer screen, etc.

sRGB is a profile that is what most websites and non-colour managed software on your computer will default to. Some commercial photofinishers use this profile to make prints. It is the most common colour space in use and is very prevalent in consumer level products including cameras. It has the smallest overall colour range (gamut) of the colour spaces that are commonly used. It was developed by Microsoft and HP back in 1996.

AdobeRGB was developed by Adobe in 1998, to emulate the colours that a printer can handle, using RGB, rather than CMYK colours. This tends to be used in higher end prosumer and professional cameras and has a larger gamut than sRGB. One has to be a bit careful when using it because the colours can look muddy if you are displaying the results in a with non-colour managed software.

I know some people that are using ProPhoto, which is a very wide gamut colour space that was developed by Kodak and there is also Wide Gamut Adobe RGB. There are certainly some theoretical advantages to working with them, and the argument is similar to the RAW vs jpeg, as these give you more headroom. My experiments with ProPhoto have not been particularly promising because I’ve gotten some unexpectedly weird and funky colours in the output.

The highest gamut that both of my cameras can handle is AdobeRGB. My monitor also handles pretty well the whole AdobeRGB colour space, so this is the colour space that I do use. My PP default colour space is set there as AdobeRGB as well and that is what I do my work in. I find it is best to work in the highest quality you can get and down sample to lower standards as necessary. Down sampling (i.e. throwing away colours) is gives more accurate results than up sampling (trying to synthesise colours that did not exist in the old colour space).

The only downside of the way I handle colour space is that I have to remember to do my own conversion to sRGB for use by applications that cannot handle AdobeRGB.

[Melkus]

Both sRGB and Adobe RGB are RGB color spaces. As such, they share the same basic structure. Both have three channels of data, one for red, one for green, and one blue. In 8-bit mode, both allow values from 0 through 255 for each channel since that's all that is possible in 8 bits. In 16-bit mode, both are bound by the limits of 16-bit data and provide for values from 0 through 65,535 for each channel value. Without regard to what the numbers mean in fact, there is no difference between sRGB and Adobe RGB.

Adobe RGB is defined to have a wider gamut than is sRGB. That is to say, it uses the numbering scheme available to it to represent a wider range of colors. That's just the way Adobe specified it to be when they came up with it. Not more colors of course since both are limited by the same physical characteristics dictated by three channels of 8 or 16 bits.

It is a common misconception that Adobe RGB has more colors than sRGB since it is easy to assume that the palette of colors across the gamut of each is continuous, but it's not. Welcome to the digital world: zeros and ones. Digital creates the illusion of a continuous spectrum by the force of sheer numbers. Even in 8-bit depth with just 256 possible values in each channel, multiplying the possibilities of all three channels together yields 16.7 million total colors (256 times 256 times 256).

[Mike Buckley]

Greg,

In addition to previous comments, if you are shooting RAW files, you can always change the color space during post-processing and achieve the same results as if you had captured the image in that color space.

[KCBrecks]

I have just finished reading several erudite (I assumed) papers I found on the internet about sRGB and then Adobe RGB (1998). My brain aches. Adobe say quite plainly that theirs is the best, but then they would. sRGB seems to be what the computer industry uses (Microsoft and Intel had a hand in devising it) and they would suggest using it for images aiming in that direction, but then they would. It's going to be a long hard winter I think so this is perhaps something which can help while away the dark cold hours till the sun comes back.

[Melkus]

I have just finished reading several erudite (I assumed) papers I found on the internet about sRGB and then Adobe RGB (1998). My brain aches. Adobe say quite plainly that theirs is the best, but then they would. sRGB seems to be what the computer industry uses (Microsoft and Intel had a hand in devising it) and they would suggest using it for images aiming in that direction, but then they would. It's going to be a long hard winter I think so this is perhaps something which can help while away the dark cold hours till the sun comes back.

Keith I see no reason to loose sleep over it. As I said in my post Both sRGB and Adobe RGB are RGB color spaces. As such, they share the same basic structure. Both have three channels of data, one for red, one for green, and one blue. In 8-bit mode, both allow values from 0 through 255 for each channel since that's all that is possible in 8 bits. In 16-bit mode, both are bound by the limits of 16-bit data and provide for values from 0 through 65,535 for each channel value. Without regard to what the numbers mean in fact, there is no difference between sRGB and Adobe RGB.

So my feelings are Adobe RGB is irrelevant for real photography. sRGB gives better (more consistent) results and the same, or brighter, colors. And using Adobe RGB is one of the leading causes of colors not matching between monitor and print.

[Colin Southern]

In simple terms,

- If you're only going to be displaying your images online - or getting them printed at a print lab, stick to sRGB

- If you're going to be doing your own printing, you MAY find some advantage in using Adobe RGB.

[Colin Southern]

Keith I see no reason to loose sleep over it. As I said in my post Both sRGB and Adobe RGB are RGB color spaces. As such, they share the same basic structure. Both have three channels of data, one for red, one for green, and one blue. In 8-bit mode, both allow values from 0 through 255 for each channel since that's all that is possible in 8 bits. In 16-bit mode, both are bound by the limits of 16-bit data and provide for values from 0 through 65,535 for each channel value. Without regard to what the numbers mean in fact, there is no difference between sRGB and Adobe RGB.

So my feelings are Adobe RGB is irrelevant for real photography. sRGB gives better (more consistent) results and the same, or brighter, colors. And using Adobe RGB is one of the leading causes of colors not matching between monitor and print.

Hi Paul,

Some mis-information starting to creep in here I'm afraid. Yes, sRGB and Adobe have the same NUMBER of colours, but they have a different RANGE of colours. Two ladders may have the same number of steps, but that doesn't mean to say they're the same height.

Adobe RGB can be very relevant to photography; sRGB basically defines a traditional monitor gamut, but printers usually have a gamut that significantly exceeds sRGB in certain areas. If one sticks to sRGB - and does one own's printing - then one may well be discarding colours that could have been printed. Theory and practice may differ however ...

- Most print labs ASSUME sRGB (don't get me started!) - so one needs to remember to CONVERT to sRGB if/when using them

- Remember that even if the camera captures colours outside of the sRGB gamut that the printer is capapble of printing, you still won't be able to SEE those colours on a monitor unless the monitor comes close to an Adobe RGB gamut (getting more common, but we're not there yet).

- It's usually only highly saturated "garden" type shots that benefit; if you're shooting models in a studio you probably don't need Adobe RGB.

In reality there's nothing to fear using Adobe RGB or even wider colourspaces like Prophoto - but - one needs to "know the rules"; the bigger the colourspace the more trouble one can get ones self into if one doesn't understand colour management.

[Colin Southern]

PS: I need to mention too that if you're shooting RAW then it doesn't matter what the camera is set to as it's technically impossible to apply a colour space to a RAW file - so the setting is simple ignored.

[Manfred M]

PS: I need to mention too that if you're shooting RAW then it doesn't matter what the camera is set to as it's technically impossible to apply a colour space to a RAW file - so the setting is simple ignored.

Correct, of course, but then you don't have much choice once you hit PP and you do have to choose a colour space, even with RAW. I do like your analogy regarding different heights on the rungs of a ladder.

The other issue is that when you are printing, different printer and especially paper selections can have pretty significant impact on colours that are in / out of gamut. The softproofing feature of Photoshop is really quite useful for seeing these impacts, but it does have its limitations.

[Colin Southern]

Correct, of course, but then you don't have much choice once you hit PP and you do have to choose a colour space, even with RAW.

Of course, but I was just trying to make the point that if one is shooting RAW then the setting on the camera doesn't do anything.