parthiban Posted September 17, 2014 Report Share Posted September 17, 2014 I've been having some problems with Photoshop recently where I'd edit the RAW files out of my camera, and they'd look fine on screen, but then after a batch export to JPEG they looked completely different. Finally got to the bottom of it, and realised it was because the colour mode had somehow switched from sRGB to Adobe RGB. This has now fixed the problem, however I've been trying to understand what the actual difference was and a lot of the sites explaining it go way over my head - is there a simple explanation for this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted September 18, 2014 Report Share Posted September 18, 2014 Do you know what the S stands for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted September 18, 2014 Report Share Posted September 18, 2014 The s stands for standard. The majority of people will only ever need sRGB otherwise you will get issues like you found. Adobe RGB is more for professional printing where the images won't be displayed on screen. This page explains it well - http://petapixel.com/2009/09/17/why-you-should-probably-use-srgb/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parthiban Posted September 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2014 Thanks for that, that's a simpler explanation than the other ones I found! I still don't completely understand it though, if Adobe RGB has a wider range of colours, why does it look less saturated and washed out? Surely it would be able to display richer and truer colours? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted September 18, 2014 Report Share Posted September 18, 2014 Yeah good point Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted September 18, 2014 Report Share Posted September 18, 2014 The majority of browsers, programmes and apps etc are designed to interpret colours using sRGB. If they have been saved as Adobe RGB then it will simply ignore that colour space and show the image in the sRGB equivalent, hence the colours looked less saturated. If you were to print an image saved using an Adobe RGB colour space on a printer setup for it then the colours will show correctly. This is why alot of pro's get their equipment calibrated so what they see on screen is printed the same. It's very easy to get photos on screen look different in print for the basic home user. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parthiban Posted September 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 19, 2014 Thanks, that does actually make sense. Although it's still a bit confusing that you open the picture, edit it in PS and it looks fine, then you convert that to a JPEG and reopen the file in PS and it looks completely different! Either way I'm glad it's now resolved - I have a backlog of RAWs to edit that were on hold until I got to the bottom of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted September 22, 2014 Report Share Posted September 22, 2014 Are you using Adobe Camera RAW to process your NEF files, what is your usual work process? As soon as I got my camera I set the colour space to sRGB, however I just realised yesterday that this applies only when the camera saves the photo as a jpg. The RAW files don't contain any colour space so you can set your own. I thought I had changed it to sRGB in Camera RAW but it seems I've processed all my photos using Adobe RGB! The reason it never twigged is cos I've not had any issues with varying colours, which is abit strange. If I look at the Exif of the jpgs I save some say Adobe RGB for the colour space some just say RGB, which is even more confusing. In Camera Raw if you click the blue link near the bottom you can set the preferences here, which is what I thought I had done, unless it's reset itself. I'm going to have a play with an image when I get time in the different colour spaces and see if they differ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parthiban Posted September 22, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 22, 2014 It's only now the pictures looked wrong, but fair point I'm not sure what setting I've been using previously, will need to check my old photos as well! Yes I use Camera Raw, and it was using that blue link at the bottom of the window that I've now changed to sRGB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.