[geofftelforduk]

Hi there,

Just wondering what colour space I should set on my Canon 20D.

Reasons/explanations would be much appreciate!

Thanks

[mr jones]

i have mine set to adobe RGB






dunno why though, someone suggested it was better so i set it and i havent actually looked into it

[severnsource]

For an easy life leave it in sRGB. This is understood by most display / image manipulation / printing devices.

If you are a perfectionist and want a wider colour gamut use AdobeRGB. The downside is that in order to get reasonably acurate colour rendition you have to use products that understand AdobeRGB, which seem to be the Adobe range.

[tgl]

Originally Posted by severnsource

For an easy life leave it in sRGB. This is understood by most display / image manipulation / printing devices.

If you are a perfectionist and want a wider colour gamut use AdobeRGB. The downside is that in order to get reasonably acurate colour rendition you have to use products that understand AdobeRGB, which seem to be the Adobe range.

And if you want the hard life, and assuming you are wanting to use your own printer to print pictures, then I suggest you use Profile Prism which generates an icm file for your printer and camera. The software and gamut setting sheets are available from http://www.ddisoftware.com => Profile Prism link on the left-hand side.

"All colors are not created equal".
No this isnt a quote from Animal Farm!

ICC profiles or colour space can only be truely accurate if the monitor and output device have been calibrated. (Unfortunately, whole books have been written on this science!) However, assuming all things being equal and you have done a basic Adobe Gamma profile which will replace the sRGB default for the monitor, you will be on the right track. (Monitor calibration hardware costs around (£100).
Whats is the right track? Ideally setting some of the hardware to use the same profile seems a good idea? Yep it is.
Set the D20 to the AdobeRGB profile in camera. If your photo editing software supports it, set that to AdobeRGB too.
If you have a decent printer and buy professional ink jet paper, the best manufacturers often supply custom profiles for use with the printer/paper.
You can have your printer profiles made seperately too. That costs around £80 for the custom profiles. (You print some test sheets, send them away and they send you a profile for your printer.)

Now the why?
Colour spaces are representations of how a device defines colour (PCS). Device being camera, monitor, scanner etc. The Adobe RGB profile has a larger gamut (colour space) than sRGB. That means it can represent effectively a wider range of colour and tones. Furthermore, the printer profile gamut, is even wider. i.e. printers can output far better range than the camera or monitor can.
Dont worry that the monitor, using sRGB, will limit the process it wont. The monitor views only. The AdobeRGB profile will be used by the printer driver profile to convert it correctly for printing.
So it makes sense to have to have the same profiles where applicable.
Because the devices are different, Monitors emit light, Paper reflect light, no one profile can be used as the gamuts are far to different to be similar. Technically its impossible and mathmatically impracticle.

This works for RAW too. In your software for handling RAW, after you set the metering and other preferences, just set it to use the AdobeRGB profile.

You can throw all this away if you buy the cheap inks. They often arent the same colours or quality as the manufacturer inks. (Of course, unless you calibrate the printer with the cheap inks).

For a home set up, that is you are not outputting for professional purposes or clients, just set the devices to AdobeRGB and use the standard printer profile with decent paper.