camerashy wrote:
> I have CS2....under Edit> Colour Settings in the Working Space box
> what should be the setting RGB sRGB or something else and could you
> explain why please.

Either Adobe RGB 1998 or sRGB for most cases.

Adobe RGB gamut's range of colors is greater (not more colors in quantity, but a larger range of colors) The range in mainly blues and greens (and some others) are greater in Adobe RGB - think landscapes and seascapes.

For that reason, depending on the images colors, you are likely to get more accurate color in print, especially if you have a photo quality inkjet with more color cartridges than your standard office inkjet. Or if the lab you take your prints to accepts and prints images with an Adobe RGB profile.

sRGB is a smaller gamut and is closer to how non-color managed applications see color. So on the web and in email, sRGB is the best to use. Adobe RGB images will look washed out or dull in non-color managed spaces. (by the same token, sRGB will look dull in an Adobe RGB colorspace).

So depending on where your final result will be destined - print from inkjet or lab, or to the web or email, will determine what colorspace to use.

You can set Photoshop's color space to, say, Adobe RGB and when you've finished editing and want a particular image to go to the web, you can in versions CS or before - go Image>Mode>convert>convert to profile and select sRGB and save. It will then be 'ok for web viewing'.

You may want to also print that out so, you'd have to make a duplicate of the document/image and save one out with the Adobe RGB profile and convert the other to sRGB and save that out.

This option of using one color space and then converting to another for either print or the web, doesn't work as well when you have your colorspace set to sRGB.

Why? Because the sRGB gamut has a smaller range and it's impossible - once sRGB has been chosen as the colorspace in Photoshop, to 'create' the larger range needed to make a conversion to Adobe RGB.

Photoshop will 'allow' you to do the conversion in the same manner - Image>Mode>convert>convert to profile>Adobe RGB, But the gamut's range has already been truncated by using the sRGB as PS's colorspace. So the conversion won't have the same gamut as you would if you have PS set to Adobe RGB.

That said, in some images the difference in gamuts will not vary that much. Much depends on what type of images you shoot and how accurate the colors must be for you or your client, if that's the case. If you go to the web a lot and print seldom, then using sRGB as the colorspace in PS certainly makes the workflow easier, but again, some prints will suffer.

Another consideration that is usually brought up in this type of discussion is archiving. The idea being that there 'may' be devices - monitors, printers, and maybe there will be more applications that are color managed in the future and Adobe may become a standard. In which case, images that have the sRGB profile won't be able to take advantage of any new developments along those lines.



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Kent

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