Understanding Color Spaces

It will probably happen when you take the leap into color-managed printing. Or maybe it will happen when you get serious about editing your own images using Photoshop, or Aperture, or some other image editing program. You are going to encounter terminology that might be new to you – specifically, the terms “color spaces.” There are lots of color spaces – Adobe RGB, sRGB, ProPhoto RGB, CIE Lab – these are just a few of the dozens of different “color spaces.” What are they? How do you use them? Why are they important? A Color Space is a defined range of colors – also referred to as a “gamut.” There are device color spaces and working color spaces.  Device color spaces define the range of colors that a camera can see, or that a scanner can scan, or that a monitor can display, or that a printer can print, etc. But working color spaces, such as sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998), are not dependent on the color limitations of any particular device. Instead, they identify the range of colors in which you can work with an image.  This independence from the color limitations of a particular device will allow you to achieve consistent image editing results time after time. One of the most common working color spaces – sRGB – has become prevalent as the usual color working environment for internet use.  It was created several years ago to provide a gamut that would easily match the display capabilities of conventional CRT display monitors.  By today’s standards, sRGB offers a somewhat narrow gamut, especially given the continuing enhancements in LCD displays and printer capabilities.  But despite its limitations, sRGB continues to be the most widely used editing color space for use on the world-wide web, even today. Adobe RGB (1998) is another working color space that has evolved over the last several years, and its overwhelming popularity can be attributed to the widespread use of Adobe Photoshop products. This color space was designed with an emphasis on printing, and it affords a wider color gamut than sRGB, which makes it more suitable for this purpose.  By providing a broader selection of available colors, Adobe RGB offers increased color accuracy in printed images, as well as more satisfying tonal detail in shadow and highlight areas. There are many other color spaces in use, and all have their merits.  But universally, Adobe RGB (1998) is probably the most widely used image color space.  It still offers a color gamut that closely matches or exceeds the capabilities of even the finest inkjet photo printers available today.  For this reason, I heartily recommend that you utilize Adobe RGB (1998) as the working color space for your image files. Another working color space that is becoming more popular is ProPhoto RGB.  You may have already encountered this choice for a working color space, especially if you use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which defaults to ProPhoto RGB as the color space for editing your images. The color gamut of ProPhoto RGB is even wider yet than Adobe RGB, allowing for color possibilities that are even beyond the capability of the human eye to see!  Even though this is a more extensive working color space, it has its drawbacks. Because the ProPhoto RGB color space has such broad color capability, you can experience some quirky printed results when the image you see on your monitor is converted and compressed into the narrower color space required to match the capabiiities of your printer. The compression and clipping of colors that may occur when making this conversion can cause some unexpected results.  How well this conversion takes place depends to a large extent on the quality of your printer driver and its conversion algorithms. So the results you obtain can be unpredictable. For this reason, I do not recommend using ProPhoto RGB as your image working color space.  Because Adobe RGB more closely matches the typical color gamut capabilities of most printers, I still believe that Adobe RGB is the best and safest choice as the working color space for your image editing software. With more and more digital cameras today, you can generate JPG or TIF images using the Adobe RGB color space right in your camera. This is really useful – it eliminates the need for trying to convert to Adobe RGB after you have uploaded your images from your camera. But if you shoot RAW, choosing your working color space will have to happen later – you will have to convert from RAW to JPG or TIF once you have moved your images from your camera onto your computer.  At that time, the working color space you have chosen for your editing software will also become the working color space for your converted images. So… "color spaces"... not such a difficult concept, really. But your understanding of color spaces can have an important impact on your imaging workflow. Knowing which color spaces to use in particular display, editing, and printing environments can make a significant difference in the quality of the results you obtain in your digital printing workflow.

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