AdobeRGB color space from camera

My camera (Canon EOS Rebel XTi/400D) can be set to a Color Space that is either sRGB (the default) or AdobeRGB. As an experiment, I set it to AdobeRGB and processed a few photos (both JPGs and RAWs) through PSE5, which came out fine.
However, I noticed that the metadata for those photos shows "Untagged RGB" instead of AdobeRGB. This doesn't matter in my normal workflow, since I have set PSE5 to import untagged photos as AdobeRGB. But it might mess up other workflows.
I wonder if it is considered normal behavior for a camera to produce AdobeRGB photos that are not tagged as such, or if it is a peculiarity of this particular brand or model.
(It also occurred to me later that the color space tag set by the camera only matters when shooting JPG, not when shooting RAW. The Camera RAW converter always converts to the color space that I have set PSE5 to, regardless of how the photo is tagged.)

ED
Your post has prompted me to investigate as I have recently come across the same issue.
I have a Canon 20d and have set it to use AdobeRGB colour space. I recently noticed that a JPEG image file appears as untagged in the metadata in Elements 5 Organiser but when in the editor it confirms it has the AdobeRGB space as the "Image/Convert Colour profile" instruction only offers to convert to sRGB or Remove Profile options. Furthermore the print dialogue confirms the presence of the AdobeRGB colour space. This has not been applied since importing from the camera as I have set the colour management option to "Let Me Choose" for this test.
The camera instruction book says if AdobeRGB is set in the camera the file name will start with an underscore: _MG which they do and that the ICC profile "is not appended" which may explain its absence in the metadata.
As you suggested, RAW files do not appear to carry a colour space regardless of the camera setting although the file name still starts with _MG so perhaps it does? but on conversion using Adobe ACR with Elements, it attaches the colour space to the resulting file depending on the colour management setting and will use Adobe RGB if I set it to Always optimise for printing.
I hope this helps.
Andrew Bealing

Similar Messages

Color space from lightroom to flickr

Can anyone help me with this question....having developed raw images in lightroom, I then may publish some of them on my flickr account. When these images are exported directly from Lightroom to Flickr, are they automatically exported in sRGB?....especially considering that Lightroom is a ProPhoto RGB color managed application. I ask this because I know that people may look @ my images in non-color managed web browsers, like Internet Explorer, and if the images are exported in the ProPhoto RGB color space, the image colors will render poorly on that non-color managed web browser. Are they automatically exported in the web friendly sRGB?? Thanks for your comments:)

Perhaps you could help me with another question. I always shoot in raw and process using ProPhoto RGB throughout my entire workflow. However, 5 years ago, I shot in Jpeg. I couldn't tell you what colour space my camera was set to then. When editing those JPEGS in Lightroom, in what colour space should I apply to those images when I send them over to Photoshop? I know JPEGs already have a colour space applied, but the camera I used then is long gone and therefore can't remember if they were shot in sRGB or Adobe RGB. Also, whatever colour space I do use when exporting from Lightroom to Photoshop, I should set up Photoshop's working colour space to match the image's profile, correct? So, should I apply sRGB or Adobe RGB to my JPEGs when going from Lightroom to Photoshop?? Thanks:)

Change Aperture previews color space from Adobe98 to sRgb

Hi,
I'd like to change the default color space for the jpg previews that Aperture generates from the masters of my library.
I now have all my jpegs saved as Adobe98 but it's important for me to have them saved as sRGB because when third party apps and devices go to read them, they can't reproduce the right colors if they find the wrong color profile.
Thanks in advance for your help!

I don't know how many different ways to say that you cannot change the color space for previews. The files themselves have specific image data that corresponds to a specific color profile that is Adobe 1998 you cannot change the way Aperture generates these. Changing your system has nothing to do with it.
As for work-flow - If you need this to work and it doesn't then it never has so I really don't see how it is changing your work-flow that never existed?
RB
Ps. External devices like projectors work fine as long as your presentation software respects the source profile and has an output device profile - what kind of "device" are you using?
Message was edited by: rwboyer

AdobeRGB Color Space Not Available

Using a Windows 7 operating sytem with PSE 10 and an Epson Artisan 1430.
Everything listed above is currently updated.
In PSE Color settings Always Optimize for Printing is selected.
When preparing to print AdobeRGB is indicated in the PSE printer driver in the Color Management window.
When I click Advanced and go to the Epson printer I choose ICM. In the Imput Profiles window the only color space available is sRGB. No AdobeRGB.
Searched for it through a combination of other settings, but no AdobeRGB. I have updated the printer driver and rebooted the computer, but still no luck.
Is this an issue with Epson or PSE?
Thank you for your time.
Copper

I looked at your attachment and get the same options. My question is
regarding the selections once I go to the Epson Printer Driver. There is
an advanced button in there where you select ICM and the colour space.
Initially I was thinking it was an Epson issue since it's in their printer
driver, but when I connect the printer to two separate computers both using
PSE 10, one gives me the option to choose sRGB or Adobe RGB and the other
computer only gives me sRGB.
The option to choose Adobe RGB exists in PSE's Colour Management area, but
it does not exist once I go into Epson's Printer driver where I would
choose other options such as Borderless / Gloss / High Speed etc.
Is there any reason you can think of why the Adobe RGB option would exist
in one computer, but not the other when I'm using the same version of PSE
in both, the same printer on both and all drivers - printer - graphics card
and PSE have been updated.
Thank you
DW

Color Space from RGB sRGB

Tried unchecking "Embed Color Profile" when saving a .psd to .jpg.
Still don't see the drop down menu for assignng color profile.
Where is the assign color profile to save or convert the color profile of image files?

Edit – Assign Profile
Edit – Convert to Profile
You might want to read up on the (very important) difference between the two if You haven’t yet.
Several threads in this forum concerning the matter exist.

After importing of color photos from cam some photos appear like BLACK RECTANGLE - WHY?

This happens sometimes and with several photos only

Some obscure bug in iPhoto. A bunch of reports over the last month or so. Best guess is something regarding the EXIF data. For most people doing any edit and reverting to the original is a work around. Hopefully the "bug" will be resolved in an update. While the work around is simple it is a pain if you have a lot of photos
LN

MPB 17" and what Adobe RGB color space coverage I might expect from it

Hello,
I am photographer and currently PC user. However, I plan to dive to the Mac’s world.
Before I become a Mac user, I have few questions.
Now I think about MacBook Pro 17”, i7 2.66MHz, 8GB RAM, 500 GB 7200rpm HDD and antiglare screen.
I plan to use additional monitor for photo editing.
I did search on google about *NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M* and *Adobe RGB color space* it covers, however, it gave me no results related to Mac. The only information about this card and Adobe colors I found is that Sony Vaio use this graphic card and in some forums, one say it covers 98% and in other 100% of Adobe color space which made me wonder what type of screen Vaio have.
- is MacBook Pro 17” good for photo editing?
- what % of AdobeRGB color space I might expect from it on my external screen or what % of sRGB colors space it delivers?
- Is it possible to calibrate Mac’s native screen and external one, use both at the time and have different profiles on each?
- Tell me anything that would stop me thinking about MBP for photo editing?
Thank you for your time reading this and hope to find the answers here.

You should consider posting your questions in the Pro Application section for Aperture. You will bump into more photographers there than you will here. But I will make an attempt at answers:
whats about Adobe color space?
No, the MBP screen will not encompass the Adobe Color Space. In fact, few desktop monitors are capable of this.
does the native MBP screen display full color range the video card is able to produce...
There really is no limit to the color extremes, which define a color space, as established by a graphics card. So your question is not a well formed question. An old ATI Rage card with 8-bit output would reveal the same color gamut as would the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M connected to the same display. The gamut is determined by the attached display, not the graphics card.
...or connecting external monitor to it’s mini display port would bring much wider color range to my eyes?
Yes, certainly the potential for that exists. Notebook screens are usually a compromise and can't be expected to compete with a high-end desktop display in many categories, including color gamut. But whether it would bring a "much wider color range to" your eyes is hard to say. It depends on what type of external display is in use.

Photoshop not seeing export color space setting in Lightroom 4

MY LR or PS programs are not acting as expected.
When my Lightroom 4 is set to export to Photoshop in either the sRGB color space or the AdobeRGB color space, and Photoshop is set for the sRGB space, Photoshop gives a color mismatch error in both cases, saying the image is an AdobeRGB embedded image. However, if the color space in PS is set for AdobeRGB, even if the export setting in Lightroom is sRGB, there is no mismatch error.
Apparently, PS sees every image as embedded with AdobeRGB.
I have a Sony NEX6 camera. I have taken pictures in the camera sRGB color space and the AdobeRGB space, which I used for this test. Since I shoot in RAW, this should not matter, so I don’t think it is the issue, and, in fact, I get the same result no matter which color space the camera is in.
If LR export and PS color space are the same, why should there be a mismatch, and why is PS not seeing the sRGB space? Might there be a setting in Lightroom or Photoshop that I am missing?

howdego wrote:
I am, however, trying to decide on the right color space to use, which is how I noticed this problem. I rarely make prints of my photos. I make bluray movies using Proshow Producer. I recently got a new monitor and Samsung LED HDTV, and found that my photo videos did not display right and I am trying to find out why. I found the normal viewing settings of the TV have too much color and sharpness, so I established another group of settings for photos, which helped. However, I am still not satisfied.
These are two separate but related issues.
1) It's almost impossible to get accurate Color and Luminance level rendering inside LR if you don't use a hardware monitor calibrator to adjust your computer monitor.
2) LCD TV's use settings to "enhance" color, brightness, and contrast that is usually very, very inacuuarte. But this is what most non-photography people seem to like so TV manufacturers crank up the "default settings." I also have an older 52" Samsung TV (LN-T5265F) that I've manually adjusted for more accurate color. Try using the 'Movie' mode, which is the most accurate mode and turn the Backlight setting down. Here are the settings I use with my Samsung TV. I assume your Samsung TV's controls are similar:
Setup Screens
HDMI 1 (Cable Box) & Coax (Cable)
HDMI 2 (Panasonic Blu-Ray Player)
PICTURE - 1
Movie
Standard
Dynamic
Movie
Standard
Dynamic
Contrast
82
82
82
82
82
82
Brightness
43
45
45
43
45
45
Sharpness
25
25
35
15
15
25
Color
42
45
45
44
45
45
Tint
77 R
77 R
84 R
77 R
77 R
84 R
Backlight
5
6
7
5
5
6
PICTURE - 2
Color Tone
Normal
Normal
Normal
Normal
Normal
Normal
Detailed Settings
Black Adjust
Off
NA
NA
Off
NA
NA
Dynamic Contrast
Low
NA
NA
Low
NA
NA
Gamma
-1
NA
NA
-1
NA
NA
Color Space
Auto
NA
NA
Auto
NA
NA
White Balance
R-Offset
13
NA
NA
13
NA
NA
G-Offset
15
NA
NA
15
NA
NA
B-Offset
17
NA
NA
17
NA
NA
R-Gain
15
NA
NA
15
NA
NA
G-Gain
12
NA
NA
12
NA
NA
B-Gain
17
NA
NA
17
NA
NA
My Color Control
Pink
15
NA
NA
15
NA
NA
Green
15
NA
NA
15
NA
NA
Blue
15
NA
NA
15
NA
NA
White
15
NA
NA
15
NA
NA
Edge Ehnacement
On
NA
NA
On
NA
NA
xvYCC
Off
NA
NA
Off
NA
NA
Digital NR
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Active Color
Off(NA)
Off(NA)
Off
Off(NA)
Off(NA)
Off
Dnie
Off(NA)
Off
Off
Off(NA)
Off
Off
SETUP - Screen 2
Energy Saving
Off
Off
Off
Off
Off
Off
SETUP - Screen 3
HDMI Black Level
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Low
Film Mode
Off(NA)
Off(NA)
Off(NA)
Off(NA)
Off(NA)
Off(NA)
howdego wrote:
So it occurred to me that some colors might be wrong, or too saturated, because I am not seeing them on my monitor as they will appear on the HDTV. I am thinking that since sRGB is my final color space, I would try to do everything in the sRGB space, including setting my monitor to sRGB (I have a Dell 2413 which supports adobeRGB too). I was inn the process of trying this when I found the issue at hand. Might you have any thoughts about this color space choice
If you have a wide-gamut monitor you are better off using it in Adobe RGB mode with a monitor calibrator. But then the monitor will not look correct in non-color managed applications:
http://www.gballard.net/photoshop/srgb_wide_gamut.html
You can circumvent this issue by using your monitor in sRGB mode, but I'd still suggest you use a hardware monitor calibrator. Either way it is imortatnt that you have a proper monitor profile assigned in Windows or OS X Color Management. The monitor manufacturer provides these, but they don't always work well with LR for numerous reasons.
To insure the best image quality you should do all of your editing in PS using 16 bit TIFF with ProPhoto RGB profile format until you are ready to Export. For use with ProShow you can use TIFFs or JPEGs, but use sRGB color profile to avoid any color management issue. JPEGs are fine and a LR Quality higher than 80 (10 in PS) is a waste of disk space for slideshow images.
In short you've got a lot of "variables" between the uncalibrated monitor and out-of-the-box non-adjusted TV. The former requires a good hardware calibrator aad the latter a good "eye" to adjust it.

Script for color space conversion RGB to CMYK - URGENT Help Wanted

Excuse my ignorance with the basic nature of this question, I don't use InDesign, but I do have a pressing problem regarding it.
My book publisher has just emailed to say that my photography book has been set for the printers in InDesign and the photographs have AdobeRGB color space (which was what I was aksed to send.) The printer needs the images to be in CMYK. The publisher said that he was "pretty sure Adobe Acrobat converts the InDesign files to CMYK" and that he has sent the printer RGB images in the past and they "came out OK". He said that if this will not work, he needs to convert all of the images separately to CMYK.
Can you help with the following:
1. Is he right about the above - can Adobe Acrobat convert the files?
2. Can anyone offer me a script that will convert all of the images in InDesign to CMYK? or will he need to change them individually?
Thanks for any suggestions with this urgent request.
Stephen

1. Acrobat can convert.
2. No need for a script, if the printer needs CMYK, you can export a CMYK pdf.
3. To get the highest quality conversions, you might want to do it in Photoshop.
4. If the images are color managed and the printer has a modern work-flow a color managed RGB PDFX-4 pdf is probably the best way to go...
Harbs

Color space and profiles clarifications

Does FCPX consider the embedded color profile of my clips ?
What is the default color space of FCPX projects ? (if any)
Can I select a specific color profile for my projects ?
My clips (according to after effect_cs6>interpret footage>color management) have this color profile embedded: HDTV (Rec. 709) Y'CbCr, but if I check out the same clip once transcoded to prores422 by FCPX there is no color profile anymore. What's goin on ?
I come from the photography world and we consider color profiles very important, what should I know about them when working with video ?
Thanks a lot

Thanks TOm, what do you mean internally ? In AE I can select a color space from a long list for my projects while FCPX discard the color profiles from the imported clips... how can it even manage them ?
Thanks

Why does Lightroom (and Photoshop) use AdobeRGB and/or ProPhoto RGB as default color spaces, when most monitors are standard gamut (sRGB) and cannot display the benefits of those wider gamuts?

I've asked this in a couple other places online as I try to wrap my head around color management, but the answer continues to elude me. That, or I've had it explained and I just didn't comprehend. So I continue. My confusion is this: everywhere it seems, experts and gurus and teachers and generally good, kind people of knowledge claim the benefits (in most instances, though not all) of working in AdobeRGB and ProPhoto RGB. And yet nobody seems to mention that the majority of people - including presumably many of those championing the wider gamut color spaces - are working on standard gamut displays. And to my mind, this is a huge oversight. What it means is, at best, those working this way are seeing nothing different than photos edited/output in sRGB, because [fortunately] the photos they took didn't include colors that exceeded sRGB's real estate. But at worst, they're editing blind, and probably messing up their work. That landscape they shot with all those lush greens that sRGB can't handle? Well, if they're working in AdobeRGB on a standard gamut display, they can't see those greens either. So, as I understand it, the color managed software is going to algorithmically reign in that wild green and bring it down to sRGB's turf (and this I believe is where relative and perceptual rendering intents come into play), and give them the best approximation, within the display's gamut capabilities. But now this person is editing thinking they're in AdobeRGB, thinking that green is AdobeRGB's green, but it's not. So any changes they make to this image, they're making to an image that's displaying to their eyes as sRGB, even if the color space is, technically, AdobeRGB. So they save, output this image as an AdobeRGB file, unaware that [they] altered it seeing inaccurate color. The person who opens this file on a wide gamut monitor, in the appropriate (wide gamut) color space, is now going to see this image "accurately" for the first time. Only it was edited by someone who hadn't seen it accurately. So who know what it looks like. And if the person who edited it is there, they'd be like, "wait, that's not what I sent you!"
Am I wrong? I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. I shoot everything RAW, and I someday would love to see these photos opened up in a nice, big color space. And since they're RAW, I will, and probably not too far in the future. But right now I export everything to sRGB, because - internet standards aside - I don't know anybody who I'd share my photos with, who has a wide gamut monitor. I mean, as far as I know, most standard gamut monitors can't even display 100% sRGB! I just bought a really nice QHD display marketed toward design and photography professionals, and I don't think it's 100. I thought of getting the wide gamut version, but was advised to stay away because so much of my day-to-day usage would be with things that didn't utilize those gamuts, and generally speaking, my colors would be off. So I went with the standard gamut, like 99% of everybody else.
So what should I do? As it is, I have my Photoshop color space set to sRGB. I just read that Lightroom as its default uses ProPhoto in the Develop module, and AdobeRGB in the Library (for previews and such).
Thanks for any help!
Michael

Okay. Going bigger is better, do so when you can (in 16-bit). Darn, those TIFs are big though. So, ideally, one really doesn't want to take the picture to Photoshop until one has to, right? Because as long as it's in LR, it's going to be a comparatively small file (a dozen or two MBs vs say 150 as a TIF). And doesn't LR's develop module use the same 'engine' or something, as ACR plug-in? So if your adjustments are basic, able to be done in either LR Develop, or PS ACR, all things being equal, choose to stay in LR?
ssprengel Apr 28, 2015 9:40 PM
PS RGB Workspace: ProPhotoRGB and I convert any 8-bit documents to 16-bit before doing any adjustments.
Why does one convert 8-bit pics to 16-bit? Not sure if this is an apt comparison, but it seems to me that that's kind of like upscaling, in video. Which I've always taken to mean adding redundant information to a file so that it 'fits' the larger canvas, but to no material improvement. In the case of video, I think I'd rather watch a 1080p movie on an HD (1080) screen (here I go again with my pixel-to-pixel prejudice), than watch a 1080p movie on a 4K TV, upscaled. But I'm ready to be wrong here, too. Maybe there would be no discernible difference? Maybe even though the source material were 1080p, I could still sit closer to the 4K TV, because of the smaller and more densely packed array of pixels. Or maybe I only get that benefit when it's a 4K picture on a 4K screen? Anyway, this is probably a different can of worms. I'm assuming that in the case of photo editing, converting from 8 to 16-bit allows one more room to work before bad things start to happen?
I'm recent to Lightroom and still in the process of organizing from Aperture. Being forced to "this is your life" through all the years (I don't recommend!), I realize probably all of my pictures older than 7 years ago are jpeg, and probably low-fi at that. I'm wondering how I should handle them, if and when I do. I'm noting your settings, ssprengel.
ssprengel Apr 28, 2015 9:40 PM
I save my PS intermediate or final master copy of my work as a 16-bit TIF still in the ProPhotoRGB, and only when I'm ready to share the image do I convert to sRGB then 8-bits, in that order, then do File / Save As: Format=JPG.
Part of the same question, I guess - why convert back to 8-bits? Is it for the recipient? Do some machines not read 16-bit? Something else?
For those of you working in these larger color spaces and not working with a wide gamut display, I'd love to know if there are any reasons you choose not to. Because I guess my biggest concern in all of this has been tied to what we're potentially losing by not seeing the breadth of the color space we work in represented while making value adjustments to our images. Based on what several have said here, it seems that the instances when our displays are unable to represent something as intended are infrequent, and when they do arise, they're usually not extreme.
Simon G E Garrett Apr 29, 2015 4:57 AM
With 8 bits, there are 256 possible values. If you use those 8 bits to cover a wider range of colours, then the difference between two adjacent values - between 100 and 101, say - is a larger difference in colour. With ProPhoto RGB in 8-bits there is a chance that this is visible, so a smooth colour wedge might look like a staircase. Hence ProPhoto RGB files might need to be kept as 16-bit TIFs, which of course are much, much bigger than 8-bit jpegs.
Over the course of my 'studies' I came across a side-by-side comparison of either two color spaces and how they handled value gradations, or 8-bit vs 16-bit in the same color space. One was a very smooth gradient, and the other was more like a series of columns, or as you say, a staircase. Maybe it was comparing sRGB with AdobeRGB, both as 8-bit. And how they handled the same "section" of value change. They're both working with 256 choices, right? So there might be some instances where, in 8-bit, the (numerically) same segment of values is smoother in sRGB than in AdobeRGB, no? Because of the example Simon illustrated above?
Oh, also -- in my Lumix LX100 the options for color space are sRGB or AdobeRGB. Am I correct to say that when I'm shooting RAW, these are irrelevant or ignored? I know there are instances (certain camera effects) where the camera forces the shot as a jpeg, and usually in that instance I believe it will be forced sRGB.
Thanks again. I think it's time to change some settings..

Camera Raw vs Lightroom Color Spaces

I photographed RAW image of a Gregtag color target with my Nikon D300 and opened it in camera raw in the ProPhoto Color space and adjusted the develop sliders so that the tone squares on the bottom row matched the ProPhoto values, (e.g approx 238,189,144,103,66,37) and ran the Robert Fors calibration script.
So far so good. I have read that all one needs to do is use the same settings in Lightroom. But when I opened the exact same RAW file in Lightroom and use the exact same develop and calibration settings that I used in ACR, it gives different values for the tone squares. And in fact the values are almost exactly the values for Adobe RGB (e.g. approx 242,200,159,121,84,53). And when I open that file in Photoshop from Lightroom using the ProPhoto color space option the value stay at the same Adobe RGB levels within the ProPhoto color space.
What am I missing/doing wrong?

the values in lightroom are not based on prophotoRGB, but on a prophotoRGB-derived space with the same primaries but with a sRGB tone curve. Since adobeRGB has almost the same tonecurve as sRGB, your values came out close. Bottomline is that the values do not correspond to the ppRGB values in ACR.

DreamColor Monitor from PC via VGA: Color-Space & Settings?

Context:
Premiere CC on a WIndows 7 laptop with an external DreamColor monitor connected via VGA port (for convenience rather than bit depth).
What color space is appropriate in the DreamColor settings, i.e. what is the VGA likely to be supplying? DreamColor's config options are: [ Full | AdobeRGB | Rec.601 | sRGB | Rec.709 | DCI P3 Emulation ]. I'm guessing sRGB, but is that reasonable e.g. is it the Adobe kind?

Several questions spring to mind ... first, are you calibrating this with an actual "real" calibration tool, such as the i1Display units, anything? Because ... if the answer is no ... well, the output isn't set to any particular "there" before you even start, is it?
Next ... what are you going to be outputting for? B-cast TV? Critical web use? Your own YouTube/Vimeo channel for the heck of it? Family records? Whatever is going to be the "heaviest" output (meaning demands on color space) sets the minimum from what your choices can offer. Critical web work or such, you would either want the Adobe RGB or the Rec.709 I would think. For just fun stuff, the sRGB would work ok.
Fwiw ... Adobe RGB is a wider color space than "standard" sRGB. Rec.601 & Rec.709 are "broadcast" standards that include specialized base/gain/gamma settings. Rec.709 is the newer and far more common one of the two ... and it sets "black" as at value (in 8-bit terms) of 16 and "white" at 235. Data outside those values are used for technical purposes within the "system". Some modern video cams record in Rec.709, btw.

Duller colors from Camera Raw to Photoshop: why?

Hello!
I'm opening my Canon 70D RAW files with Camera Raw 8.4.1. After this step, I open the corrected file in Photoshop CC. At this point colors have changed, everything is duller and less contrasted.
See image.
Camera Raw color management: Adobe RGB, 16Bit.
Photoshop color management: RGB: Adobe RGB (prepress Europe 3)
Also, no color proofing is active.
How can I correct this issue?

This is a problem with your display profile. The conversion from source profile to display profile is not the same in these two cases, so a bad display profile can show up this way.
ACR converts from its internal working space, linear ProPhoto. Adobe RGB is just the export color space here, so irrelevant. Photoshop OTOH converts from Adobe RGB.
Recalibrate, and examine your calibrator's settings. V4 profiles and LUT-based profiles have caused problems for some, so try v2 and matrix-based if you have these options. You can also test by substituting a known good profile, which would be sRGB for a standard display, or Adobe RGB for a wide gamut one.

Color space when exporting from RAW

Hello,
I am a new user of Lightroom and I find color spaces topic a bit confusing so far. My main question is: when exporting a photo, does Lightroom convert to a profile or assign a profile? Because there is no way to choose. I tried to export a photo with 3 different color spaces (sRGB, AdobeRGB and ICC profile from laboratory where I print my photos). After exporting them to JPEG it turned out that all of them look differently on my monitor - does it mean that Lightroom assigns a profile? If it was converting, shouldn't they have the same colours? What is more, after printing them in laboratory, results were completely different than I expected - the photo which had closest colours to what I saw in Lightroom was that in sRGB, but that with ICC of Lab was very different (much colder colours).
Where is the problem, or what aspect do I seem to misunderstand? Do I have wrong settings, should I use DNG to work with photos, should I export to TIFF, or I just have too weak monitor or wrongly calibrated one? Should I calibrate when viewing a picture in Lightroom or with the use of a photo exported to the ICC profile of Lab?
I would like to have a little bit of control over what I'm working on, depending on whether I want to publish it on a website or print. I know that my monitor can be a problem (I have an iiyama with IPS), but surely there has to be any way to make results of my work a bit closer to my expectations.
Just for information, my workflow doesn't require Photoshop, as I rather prefer to use only tools from Lightroom. I hope that my problem doesn't require the use of Photoshop.
I will be really greateful for your help - the general knowledge about colour spaces seems to be unsufficient when it comes to the usage of applications such as Lightroom.
Many thanks,
Marcin

Marcin S wrote:
Thank you for you helpful replies. Now I know a little bit more about it. But still, this is not completely clear to me.
My main question is: when exporting a photo, does Lightroom convert to a profile or assign a profile?
Both.
What you mean by both? How should I interpret it? I cannot choose "convert" or "assign", so how they both work together? What does it mean for me wanting to process photo and print in Lab?
I can only add, that those 3 photos which I exported to JPEG with 3 different colour spaces, they look different when viewing outside of Lightroom, ie. IrfanView. But when importing those JPEGs into Lightroom, differences are extremly slight. Is that because Lightroom operates in ProPhoto, which covers all colour spaces which I used, and other programs work in sRGB and those photos differently?
And the last question for now: will the hardware calibrator help in monitor which is, let's say, medium cost and medium quality? I mainly use it for preparing photos to put them on the website gallery, but would be nice if I could print better ones with a bit of certainty about what I will get from Lab.
Many thanks!!
Marcin
When you export a photo from LR, it converts to the colour space you select (e.g. sRGB) and embeds the appropriate profile in the exported file.
If your monitor were calibrated and profiled, and you view with a colour-managed viewer then images should look pretty much identical no matter which colour space you export in. (W7 Photo viewer is colour managed, the XP equivalent isn't, Mac s/w generally is. IE and Chrome aren't properly colour managed, Firefox is for all images, Safari is for images with embedded profiles. Other viewers vary.) With colour-managed viewers, the only difference should be with very highly saturated colours outside sRGB colour space (and then only if your monitor can display those colours).
LR is colour managed. If the monitor isn't calibrated/profiled then I think LR assumes the monitor has a colour space equivalent to sRGB (which is generally roughly right but won't be accurate). Internally LR uses ProPhoto RGB colour space in develop module, but uses Adobe RGB in Library, and previews are stored in Adobe RGB. However, the colour space LR uses won't explain why other viewers show things differently. It's simply that LR is colour managed (which means it converts to/from the image colour space), and I guess the other viewers you're using aren't; they just throw RGB data at the screen without converting.
Is it worth calibrating and profiling your monitor? Quite possibly. Does the colour and brightness vary with viewing angle as you move your head from side to side? If so, it may be TN technology, and perhaps not worth profiling. If it looks reasonably stable with different viewing angle then probably yes.

AdobeRGB color space from camera

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