Howdy.

Okay. I'm asking any experts in this area for help.

I've read books, researched on the web, heard about how the Adobe RGB is a better thing - but now when I'm outputting in Photoshop the image in SAVE FOR WEB doesn't look the same as the working image in Photoshop. I'm aware of adjusting the master color space in PS, and also being able to "convert" colour spaces in PS. But I'm not sure which image I should trust: working image or SAVE FOR WEB IMAGE.

In general, I'm not fully trusting this Adobe RGB thing...

I've checked with some of my friends who are pro and they say that the Adobe RGB, though technically better for photography, tends to cause a lot of issues - specially since most printers us sRGB space.

So: If you are working with photos in the professional realm, which colour space are you using?

Thanks in advance for all your Wonderful Help and Advice! - ReinDawg

dawg: I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly (blame it on the rain). Are you concerened with files being used for the web, files being sent to a printer (desktop) or files being sent to press?

If your image will be used solely for the web or sent to some low-end printers, sRGB is good enough. sRGB apparently emulates the average monitor (probably uncalibrated ), but has a lower colour gamut than Adobe RGB.

If you are working on a job for press, you will have to convert your image from RGB to CMYK. In this case, you should be working in Adobe RGB because of the greater colour gamut.

Some files I receive from clients come with an embedded colour profile. If this is the case, I never colour manage, I use the embedded profile. An embedded colour profile ensures that the colours won't change regardless of which computer the file is on.

Reinman,

Jerry717 wrote a great article about this very subject sometime last year. I can’t seem to locate it, even in the migrated topics. You ought to email him and ask him directly. Perhaps he could be persuaded to post here as well.

Few weeks ago I visited a printer. They were printing a brochure and I did the retouche for it,... they anted RGB visuals instead of CMYK, becuase they use a custom profile for their press. Tehy wanted to do the colour-correction because of their custom profile, which is a good idea so you won't waste time redoing the colour corrrection. They advised me to work with adobeRGB because of the greater colour gamut like Sage said.

I think if you would only use your visuals for web the whole thing wouldn't matter,... because there is a big colour difference between monitors, just make it the best way possible on your monitor,.. it's a think you can't have a grip on. (there is just a difference between mac screens and 'ordinary' pc screens,... and between an mac screen and other mac screen can be different too).

Interesting, Chrispis. I have dealt with printers (digital and offset) that refuse to work on files if they are in RGB. If they have to do the conversion, they charge a ridiculous amount.

Just goes to show, talking to your printer is always the best thing to do before starting on a job.

Lab color is the shit.

There it is then: clear as mud!

Thanks anyway peeps - at least I don't feel like I'm alone in my confusion. It looks like I just gotta do what I gotta do and then invoice somebody!

I totally agree with you,... a good communication with your printer makes sure you'll end up with the best result, and they really appreciate it when you show interest,... they will do more for you that way.

Hi Reinman,

The simple solution to your problem would be to "convert" the image from Adobe RGB to sRGB before saving for web. This way all of the colors that you see in the original will be retained. A certain amount of loss will occur because of the difference in the color gamuts between the two profiles, but the difference should be minor. It is also important to actually embed the profile while saving the image. To test this, keep a copy of the original image open in PS and then open the newly saved file in an ICC aware Web Browser like Explorer and compare the two images.

I work in Colormatch RGB because it is a safer colorspace for comercial printing IMO. When saving a file for web use I always convert to sRGB first. It is important to actually convert the file as opposed to just assigning a new profile. Say for instance I just assigned the sRGB profile to an existing image in Colormatch RGB, the image would imediately become darker and slightly less colorful because of the difference in their gammas and gamuts. Colormatch RGB uses a 1.8 Gamma while sRGB uses a 2.2 gamma and Colormatch is a larger colorspace. By assigning the sRGB profile, the numbers of the file do not actually change. Only the appearance of how the system reads the data will change. This is a very important distinction. THE SAME IS TRUE WITH ANY RGB TO RGB CONVERSION. By converting the Data from one to another the file is actually being edited and the numbers will change to reflect the differences in each profile and the color appearance and luminosity will be nearly Identical. Or as close as is possible.

The best book that I know of to date is a book written by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy and Fred Bunting called Real World Color Management. If your professional life is critical in dealing with color than this book is a must read. Understanding the fundamentals of color management is something that would be helpfull to anyone using photoshop today.

Cheers
Jerry

Thanks, Jerry. I will look for the book.

Jerry - THANKS! Good advice. You confirmed some stuff that I was just getting a handle on... you've shortened my learning curve and that is great!

One more question on this for you all - in SAVE FOR WEB there is that arrow thingy



where you can choose (amoungst other options) either UNCOMPENSATED COLOR or USE DOCUMENT PROFILE. If you are using the TWO UP setting you have this option for both windows.

Question: Is this changing just the view in the SaveForWeb window or actually changing the image in output? There have been a few times where I can NOT get the JPEG version to match the PSD version at all no matter what I set here (I suspect it is because I had not converted the file to sRGB as Jerry recommended).

In short, is what I actually see in the JPEG preview pane ACTUALLY what my WebBrowser will see? And (as I suspect now) is this dependant on wether the web browser "sees" the embeddd profile or not?

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phew! I shoulda stayed a plumber!

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Thanks in advance for your help and input on this, one and all!

Hi Again Reinman

All of your assumptions are indeed correct.

When viewing the image in PS or in the "Save for Web" dialog box, the image is being viewed by the settings that are avaiable. No change is actually occuring to the image data. That can only happen by doing an actual conversion in PS. If you use the setting, Use Document Profile, The image will display according to that profile as read by the system software. In other words, the assigned profile or no profile is telling the system how to display the file only before saving. In your case I suspect that that difference would be quite large.

I suspect that the reason that you can not match the appearance to a ps file in your web browser is that you are using Adobe RGB as your default colorspace. This colorspace is much larger than can be viewed by any browser that I know of because the WWW is limited to a rather narrow color gamut (roughly sRGB). But, if you have an image open that falls within the color gamut of sRGB or web space color than there is no reason that your images won't match between display methods on your system, providing you are using a colormanaged browser like Explorer of Safari. You just need to make sure that you are assigning the actual profile being used by PS. This is why I recommend converting to sRGB first, but it is not actually necessary if you make sure to assign your corrent profile and use the "Use Document Profile" setting. How it actually appears on someone elses monitor is another can of worms altogether.

Before actually "Saving For Web", you can preview the image in your default browser before actually saving by clicking the little colorful Icon at the bottm right of the dialog box. It is to the left of the little arrow thingy. This will open the image in your web browser and let you preview it there before saving.

As a side note, Explorer has to have colorsync turned on in the general preferances pane to use and view images in there assigned colorspaces. Safari is ICC aware by default and can not be turned off to my knowlegde. I have no knowlege of other browsers because I don't use any others.

I hope this answers your questions or at least gives you a springboard to learn from.

Cheers
Jerry

Once again, a clear and concise (consise? concice? lexdyxia r us!) bit of help there, Jerry!

Thanks mucho. I feel a wee bit more in control now. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me (us).

Hey hey hey!!!
HOLD YER HORSES!

Rein and sage.... you guys talk to your printers?

Canadians are weird

Yes. We do talk to them.

But we can be slow at responding to things at times.