On Nov 9, 2004, at 2:31 AM, matthew ward wrote:
On 8 Nov 2004, at 12:28, Paul Ellis wrote: Why is there a need for a standard colour space?
Well you could if you wanted work in your capture devices space but there are reasons not to. The most important one is that Device spaces are not generally very well behaved. A working space (such as Adobe RGB 1998) will be neutral when r=g=b, this is not always the case with a device space, and this relationship can very at different tones. This means you could sample a point in a file which is in your capture devices space where r=g=b and find that it isn't neutral..
The idea behind working spaces is also to try and introduce some degree of standardisation to a pretty messy buisiness. All of the are compromises to some degree, ARGB clips some (not many) colours that can be printed offset... but at the same time if an ARGB file has it's profile ignored (happens all the time) and is assumed to be srgb then converted your colours will go flat and washed out. O.K lets all use satanic rgb (srgb) you say.. pretty close to the gamut of a swop profile but what if you want to produce an art print or a lightjet? You have thrown away a ton of useful colour... O.K then lets go with a really really wide space like Prophoto... The client may like what's on screen but if you don't have it soft proofed they are in for a fright when it converts to CMYK Oh and you can't see all the colours on your monitor anyway..
O.K My suggestions based on what you do: (and I'm no expert so feel free to ignore)
Web designer: srgb
Catalogue shooter: colourmatch rgb
General advertising smudger: Adobe 1998 rgb
Fine art chappie; prophotorgb (or eci or Bruce) just don't send out in these spaces.
Oh and if you MUST supply rgb and the muppet receiving it has no idea what they are doing...send 'em srgb.
I'm not sure if any of that helps but I'm not going to re-read it because it probably doesn't make sense and my client is glaring at me.
Nick-T Long live ProPlumb!
Nick Tresidder Photography http://www.nick-t.com
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