Select the Optimal Color Space

Many DSLRs allow you to shoot in the Adobe RGB 1998 or sRGB color space. There is considerable confusion over which is the “right” choice. Adobe RGB 1998 is a wider gamut color space than sRGB, so many photographers reason that this is the best option. Professional digital-imaging labs, however, use sRGB for their digital printers.
Therefore, photographers working in Adobe 1998 RGB may be somewhat disheartened when their files are reconfigured and output in the narrower sRGB color space. As a result, many photographers use the Adobe 1998 RGB color space right up to the point that files are sent to a printer or out to the lab for printing.

Is there ever a need for other color spaces? Yes. It depends on your particular workflow. For example, all the images you see in this book have been converted from their native sRGB or Adobe 1998 RGB color space to the CMYK color space for photomechanical printing. As a general preference, I prefer images from photographers be in the Adobe 1998 RGB color space, as they seem to convert more naturally to CMYK.

In Adobe Camera Raw and other RAW-file processing software there exists another color space, which has become quite popular, called ProPhoto RGB. It is a “sticky” color space, meaning that it adds color data to the file. The added data cannot be seen on monitors currently sold, but what can be seen is the increased resolution and size of the image file.

A typical RAW file made with a Nikon D200, which uses a 10.2MP sensor, produces a file in the neighborhood of 22 or 23MB. A good size file, to be sure—but when ProPhoto RGB is used to process the image in the RAW file processor, the file opens at 72MB, a very healthy increase in file size and potential resolution. Many photographers who shoot RAW, and also make large prints, process the images in this color space to take advantage of the added color data and larger file sizes.