The availability of color space in RAW, TIFF and JPEG files

This is useful if your new to DSLR photography.
This is Nikon response on my question in the discussion: View photo metadata
I'm assuming that you know that Adobe RGB shows about 50% and sRGB 35% of CIELAB color space.
In a DSLR camera like the Nikon D800 you can select a color space (Adobe RGB or sRGB) in the shooting menu.
In Adobe Lightroom 4.3 the RAW metadata shows no color space info. Therefore I asked why not?
In the (Dutch) Nikon D800 manual on page 84 (about RAW) and 274 (about color space) and Nikon FAQ website there is no descripton about the color space availability/behavior in RAW, JPEG and TIFF files.
In the book "Mastering the Nikon D800 by Darrel Young" on page 125 - 126 is written: "If you shoot in RAW format a lot, you may want to consider using Adobe RGB....."
All experts on this forum answered: color space does not apply/affect the RAW data file or RAW files have no color space.
The respone of Nikon Europe Support (Robert Vermeulen) was: In Nikon D800 NEF RAW files both color spaces (Adobe RGB and sRGB) are always physically available. In JPEG and TIFF files only the in the shooting menu selected color space is physically available. So the forum experts gave the correct answer!
Of course you can convert afterwards a JPEG or TIFF file with sRGB color space to Adobe RGB but you don't get more colors.
When you install the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack or FastPictureViewer Codec Pack they only show color space metadata for JPEG and TIFF files and nothing for RAW because color space "doesn't exist". I thought the codec packs removed the color space metadata for my RAW files.
Adobe Lightroom also can not show color space for RAW files because that "doesn't exist".

Van-Paul wrote:
The respone of Nikon Europe Support (Robert Vermeulen) was: In Nikon D800 NEF RAW files both color spaces (Adobe RGB and sRGB) are physically available. In JPEG and TIFF files only the in the shooting menu selected color space is physically available.
I still think this is an evasive answer that doesn't really pinpoint the exact chain of events that take place. They are:
1. The raw file contains the naked data captured by the sensor. This is just a very dark grayscale image.
2. In the raw converter it is encoded into a working color space to process the information. In Lightroom this is known as "Melissa RGB", or linear gamma Prophoto. It is also demosaiced to bring back the color information.
3. From Lightroom it can be exported to one of the familiar color spaces like sRGB or Adobe RGB. This is, in principle at least, a normal profile conversion.
These three steps are what the camera does to produce a jpeg. So the basic steps are the same, the camera is just doing it automatically (and usually butchering the image in the process...).
This Darrell Young is, I'm sure, an excellent photographer, but in this he is seriously confused and just propagating a common myth. Anyway, thanks for bringing up this discussion, hope you didn't object too much to the tone of the answers... Our only concern here was to get this right and with no room for misunderstanding.

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What Color Space to choose for viewing jpegs on a monitor

After reading many webpages and watching many tutorial videos about which color space to use, I get odd results. I understand that sRGB is more for web applications, and that Adobe RGB 1998 has a wider gamut, and that ProPhoto has the widest gamut of colors, particularly helpful with printing.
However, in LR 4, when I export to jpeg as sRGB, Adobe RGB, and ProPhoto, the differences are very noticeable. sRGB looks the most vibrant, Adobe RGB looks flat, and ProPhoto looks dark with a greenish cast. I expected ProPhoto to look best, or is that only for printing, and I have to process differently?
What am I misunderstanding here? TIA.

It depends on three factors:
1. The monitor - normal, which means with a gamut close to sRGB, or "wide gamut" with a gamut that approaches Adobe RGB (and today there are plenty of medium priced "wide gamut" monitors).
2. The viewing application and whether it is color managed. In a nutshell, color management translates the image color numbers to eqivalent color numbers in the monitor's color space.
3. Whether the monitor is calibrated and profiled. In order for color management to work properly the application must know what the image's color space is (embedded profile) and what the monitor's space is (monitor profile). Any display on the monitor is always in the monitor space, but in order for the display to be accurate the translation must be made.
If all three conditions are fulfilled, alll images, no matter what their spaces are, will be displayed more or less the same because they have all been translated to the same display space. I say "more or less" because if the image is in a wide space that needs to be compressed to fit in the monitor space, there may be slight differences in the way colors that are out-of-gamut for the monitor are rendered, but the differences are slight.
Without those three factors, only images in the space closest to your monitor's native space will be properly displayed. So if you have a "normal" monitor, choose sRGB and if you have a "wide gamut" monitor, go with Adobe RGB, but keep in mind that other people with "normal" monitors and without color managed browsers/viewers will not see it properly.

Color space conversion problem when importing JPEG's

Hi,
I'm currently playing with the trial version of LR. While importing JPEG's with different color spaces (sRGB and Adobe RGB) to LR I've noticed a strange effect: There is a small but noticable difference in color, depending if the JPEG was previously saved in AdobeRGB, or sRGB. All the images I've tested so far should not contain critical colors that exceed normal sRGB. When opened in CS2 both versions of a JPEG, AdobeRGB and sRGB, typically look perceptually identical, no matter if I leave the sRGB image to sRGB, or convert it to the working space (AdobeRGB). Also my color-managed image viewer behaves as it should. So I don't think it's a matter of the different color spaces.
Looking at the imported images in LR I would say that the AdobeRGB image is correctly converted while the sRGB image suffers from a slight reddish cast, most noticable in skin tones. The effect is not as strong as if I would load the sRGB image into CS2 and skip color conversion to my working space (AdobeRGB).
The sRGB versions of the JPEG's were obtained from the AdobeRGB JPEG's using CS2 for conversion.
Anyone else here experienced a similar problem? Is this a bug in the xRGB-to-ProPhotoRGB conversion of LR, or a feature?
/Steffen

Hi Uli,
thanks for pointing me to your thread. I followed the discussion with great interest. Actually, I think the effect I am describing here is of different nature and a LOT stronger, at least for the type of images I've tested.
I did some more experiments yesterday with interesting results:
1) When I export a processed RAW from LR to JPEG or PSD, no matter what Color Space (I tested AdobeRGB, sRGB and ProphotoRGB), and re-import those JPEG/PSD's to LR, they look absolutely identical to the RAW I started with. Also, at first glance, they look similar when opened in CS2, but only because I tested with color images. I can indeed see small differences when testing with B/W, as you described in your "Color management bug" thread.
2) When I change the color space of an PSD or JPEG inside CS2 (I used the default setting 'relative colorimetric') and save it to JPEG and then import this JPEG to LR, colors are far off. The strength of this mostly reddish color cast depends on the color space of the imported JPEG, strongest for Prophoto, less strong for Adobe and sRGB. Interestingly, when I convert the color space inside CS2 and save the result to PSD, it will display correctly when imported in LR. Another interesting side effect: the thumbnails of LR-exported JPEG's in the "Open" dialogs of CS2 and LR (I guess those are not color-managed) show the typical color-flatness for the Adobe and even more the ProPhoto version. For the CS2-converted JPEG's, all thumbnails look just a colorful as the thumbnail of the sRGB version.
3) Such an image which doesn't display correctly in LR will keep its color cast when exported again to a JPEG (not sure about PSD). So something goes wrong with the color conversion during the import of such CS2-converted images.
My explanation so far is that CS2 uses a slightly different way of coding the colorspace information in the metadata of JPEG's which somehow prevents LR to recognise the color space correctly.
Can you confirm this behaviour?
Steffen

Whats the best way to transfer all my pic and vid files from Mac Air to back up drive to free up space on hard disk?

whats the best way to transfer all my pic and vid files from Mac Air to back up drive to free up space on hard disk?

Get a third drive if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, set it not to exclude that drive, and drag the files to it. If you're moving an iTunes or iPhoto library, launch the application with the Option key held down and choose the moved library.
(118789)

Working with tiff and jpeg?

1. ACR saves changes made to a raw image into the sidecar file, though what is it doing with the tiff or jpeg file that is changed? Where is this saved?
2.what features do you not have if you open tiff or jpeg in ACR? It seems to do everything the same.
Thanks.

The settings are saved as xmp metadata inside the jpeg/tiff. Note that while the settings are saved (and show up in Bridge), the settings are not actually applied until you actually process the images. So other 3rd party viewers won't see the changes. The embedded metadata is done safely and will not impact the file. The xmp metadata is also stored inside of DNG files as well. Only proprietary raw files force the use of sidecar files because ACR/Adobe treats them as read only files (it's not "safe" to write metadata in proprietary raw files since the formats are not documented).
As to limitations, since jpeg/tiff files are already rendered into a color space and gamma, those files are not "linear" and you will be limited in the amount of highlight recovery that can be done. Additionally, since the rendered files already have a white point the white balance is somewhat limited as well. Also, there are limitations to the Lens Corrections because ACR can't apply lens correction built for raw files in jpeg/tiff files. You can still use the manual corrections...

Lightroom won't open TIFF or JPEG files to CS5

Recently upgraded to a new iMac. This morning when I tried to open a TIFF file from Lightroom 3.4.1 into Photoshop CS5 I got a message saying: Lightroom was unable to prepare the selected file at /Volumes/Drobo1/Photos/2011/02-14-2011 Yellowstone/Yellowstone-0641-Edit.tif for editing.
It will not be opened.
The only way Lightroom will open a TIFF or JPEG image to CS5 is if I tell it to open a copy of the image with Lightroom Adjustments. If I say I want to edit the original or a copy, it won't do it.
If I go into CS5 and open the TIFF there, it works fine, so the problem doesn't seem to be with CS5.
Lightroom WILL open RAW files into CS5 without any error message.
I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.8, which was upgraded yesterday and am wondering if that's the problem since I could open TIFFs on the new computer before.
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Do you have full permissions to the DROBO folder the files are in? I'm a Windows person so I can't tell you how to check this, but upgrading a OS and then things not working might be related to permissions where the files were created with a profile on the previous OS.

Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files ignored when unchecked

In the Catalog Settings under the Metadata tab, I have unchecked the option 'Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF and PSD files'.
I then selected a JPEG photograph in the Library module and chose Metadata/Save Metatdata to File. I wanted to save the metadata that I had added (keywords, IPTC, rating, etc), but not the develop settings.
I then imported the jpeg back into another catalog. The metadata I had added was there as expected, but so are the develop settings. This I did not expect or want.
Have I got something wrong here? My understanding is that turning off the 'Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF and PSD files' option means that develop settings are not written to the xmp area in non raw files such as jpegs.
Looks like a bug to me.
Tony

Hello all,
I have investigated this problem further and now have the answer. It is not that the option "Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files" is ignored, but it appears that the LR catalog is not properly updated when this option is turned off.
Here are steps to test and illustrate the problem:
1. Create a new folder and place a copy of an original jpeg image (original from camera) in the new folder. Make sure you keep the original safe and only work on copies.
2. Create a new catalog in Lightroom 2.3.
3. Import the jpeg image from the new folder.
4. Add some metadata (keywords, ratings, title, caption, IPTC data, etc).
5. Make some Develop adjustments to the image.
6. Open "Catalogue Settings" from the Edit menu and check (enable) the option "Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files". Uncheck (disable) the "Automatically write changes into XMP" option.
7. Select "Save Metadata to File".
8. Delete the jpeg image from the Library module, then re-import it.
9. Copy the original image back to the new folder, replacing the updated jpeg (once again, the jpeg image now contains no metadata from Lightroom). At this stage, Lightroom fails to recognize that the metadata in the LR catalog doesn’t match the metadata content in the jpeg file. I would have though that it should.
10. Open "Catalogue Settings" from the Edit menu and uncheck (turn off) the option "Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files".
11. Reset the Develop settings.
12. You now need to make a change to the metadata like increase or decrease the rating (otherwise LR won’t save any metadata to the jpeg file - LR is being too smart and thinks it’s already up to date, so does nothing when you do the next step).
12. Select "Save Metadata to File".
13. Delete the jpeg image from the Library module again, then re-import it again.
14. Look at the develop settings (that you specifically did not want saved within the jpeg file in step 10).
Although the Develop settings were Reset in step 11, you have ended up with the original Develop settings from step 5. It is true that LR has not saved the reset develop settings, but it also hasn’t removed the old develop settings that are still stored in the catalog. This must be considered a bug (oversight). Note that it has also saved an Import snapshot as well.
For the more technically minded (and the LR developers if you are listening), the field "xmp" in the table "Adobe_AdditionalMetadata" is not updated (old camera raw settings and snapshot settings are left behind) when the "Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files" option is unchecked (disabled) and it seems that this is the data that is written to the jpeg file when you select "Save Metadata to File". Note that the state of "Automatically write changes into XMP" has not effect on this process - I tried it on and off.
Hope that this might be of some help to others one day.
Tony

What does "Include develop settings metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files" do?

I am wondering what the option "Include develop settings metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files" found in catalog settings/metadata does? what happens if you uncheck it?

Bob12312321 wrote:
also when this is unchecked will lightroom still save keyword changes to raw(nef) files? thank you!
Metadata ("real" metadata like keyowords nor develop adjustments) are never saved into non-DNG Raw files (like .nef, .cr2) directly. With these files, there is always a so called sidecar file (with the extension .xmp) created to hold the XMP information.
And yes, if the option is unchecked, LR will save the keywords to the XMP sidecars, when you perform "Write Metadata to File" or have the autowrite option active.
Beat

Viewing both RAW and JPEG files in iPhoto

If I use the new Apple SD card reader to download image files from my camera, it is my understanding that by default it brings over both the RAW and JPEG versions of the same images to the iPad Mini (since my camera is taking both types with each image).
Will these then show up as two separate images in iPhoto? The reason I'm asking is because if I have to bring over the RAW files, I want some way of then deleting them off my iPad because they take up to much HD space.
No one I've talked to at Apple seems to know if there's a way to bring over just the JPEG files I want when using the SD card reader, which seems like a huge oversight in functionality to me.
Thanks, David.

LarryHN:
1) your suggestion will not work for the issue I'm describing: if I have both Raw and Jpeg files of the same image on my SD card, the iPad sort of lumps these together, so when I view the contents of my SD card it shows as one image/file, and if I select it and download it, it brings over both the Raw and Jpeg versions of the image, which is what I am trying to avoid and why I started the tread in the first place.
2) I spoke with sales people at two Apple stores and one person with their online sale, and none of them could addrss my issue. The online sales person said she might have to put me through to their tech people to resolve this or at least get the full, correct info. None of them were janitors.
I did find a workaround which I think will work:
Download the files over to my iPad, then use an app like Photo Manager Pro to be able to view the files by type, then select the Raw files and delete them from my iPad. This will work I hope, but seems like a lot of extra work for a device that's supposed to be user friendly--I think Apple missed the boat on this one, opting for making things 'simple' instead of functional for photographers.

Trouble importing tiffs and jpegs

I was importing an image into lightroom in 3 different formats: psd, tiff, and jpeg. I got an error message with the tiff and jpeg stating that the image was already in lightroom. The images all had the same name but were different formats. Does lightroom not recognize that the formats are different and therefore different images, or can it only import 1 format of an image? thanks

LR See's the Others as side cars to the one imported. You can put each type into another folder/directory and they will import. The you can put them all in the same folder from with LR.
This behavior is likely to change, because some many have complained about it. It was not supposed to happen between these three file types, but was impimented for RAW +JPEG pairs, as the JPEG was cnsidered a 'preview' sidecar and JPEGs based on prcessing the RAW could be easily exported at anytime. After much bru-ah-ah, this appears that it will change.
Don
Don Ricklin, MacBook 1.83Ghz Duo 2 Core running 10.4.9 & Win XP, Pentax *ist D
http://donricklin.blogspot.com/

I have uploaded raw and jpeg files directly from my camera to my iPad (latest version) I have processed them in snapseed and want now to transfer back to my pc for further processing. How can I do this will a flash drive work?

I have processed my raw and jpeg files on my iPad using Snapseed . What format are they saved in on the iPad and how do I transfer them back to my pc where I use photoshop elements. Can I use just an ordinary flaws drive with the USB adaptor? Thanks any help would be appreciated.
Lynne

The camera connection kit can only be used to import photo/video files form a camera, SD card or USB flash drive. You can't import other types of files. You can't export any type of files using the camera connection kit.
Importing Personal Photos and videos from your iOS device to your computer.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083
 Cheers, Tom

TIFF and JPG Files Are Black?

I have posted this question twice before but didn’t get it resolved. I really need to get some help on this.
I have some old projects that I use in the classroom while I am teaching. They are TIFF images and often have sound clips with them. I create slideshows and then convert them to tracks. This has been working really well.
Suddenly, all TIFF or JPG files are black. Old files in old projects and new ones I import are all black. PICT files are okay and I am doing new projects using them, but I cannot go back and edit old projects because all of the TIFFs are black.
Can anyone figure out why this happened and how to resolve the issue?
Thanks!
Mike

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Importing,photos,from,a,scanner.,,when,I,import,from,my,epson,exp-860,scanner,and,go,to,de velop,in,lightproof,,only,photos,imported,as,JPEG,have,a,active,,WEB,adjustment.,,tiff,and ,JPEG,have,a,grayed,out,WEB,Adjustment. Is this normal?

Importing,photos,from,a,scanner.,,when,I,import,from,my,epson,exp-860,scanner,and,go,to,de velop,in,lightproof,,only,photos,imported,as,JPEG,have,a,active,,WEB,adjustment.,,tiff,and ,JPEG,have,a,grayed,out,WEB,Adjustment. Is this normal?

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What problem?
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(Sent from my magic glass.)

The availability of color space in RAW, TIFF and JPEG files

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