Photo editing setup advice (Adobe RGB vs. sRGB)

mhedges · March 2019

I'm about to order a basic computer setup for photo editing, and I'm pretty confused about if it's worth it to get an Adobe RGB capable monitor vs. a much cheaper (but still fairly high end) sRGB monitor. I do get prints made occasionally, but I don't do the actual printing myself. Do external printing services even use Adobe RGB? Or would I have to do the printing myself to make use of that?

What color space do you folks use?

PB_PM · March 2019

What kind of budget do you have for a monitor? There are plenty of very good IPS 24-27" panels with 100% sRGB or greater for under $500 these days.

I would get a monitor with at the very least 100% sRGB. Unless you are using a high end printing service with high end printers using Adobe RGB is likely a waste of time.

mhedges · March 2019

Thanks. I was hoping to keep the monitor under $500. Someone recommended a Benq adobe RGB monitor which was about $600 and I'm trying to decide if its worth it for me. I'm thinking probably not right now.

Ton14 · March 2019

I have the Benq 27" • 2560x1440 (Quad HD) • 60Hz • IPS • 5ms, with hardware calibration. This one is € 679.- here, but there is already a new one. 100 sRGB and 98% Adobe RGB, very good monitor.

PB_PM · March 2019

Yes, Benq has some good lower cost options with the same panel as higher price big name brands (LG/Asus for example). I have the Benq GW2765HT, the panel is old tech now (launch price was over $500 in 2013), but it is easy to find for under $400 (same specs). The price of 1440p IPS monitors have dropped a lot since 4k monitors came out, which is a good thing since, IMO, 1440p is the sweep spot for 27-32" monitors. 34" and up is when you want to go 4k.

The only problem is the controls are not the greatest, nor ideal for dual screen setups, and they are known for having bad capacitors that cause flicker or short blackouts. Mine suffers from the latter. That said, if you don't have hardware calibration equipment there are ICC profiles on TFT Central to get you better colour accuracy, since out of the box it is a little on the blue side.

Ton14 · March 2019

Oh the model I have is Benq 2700PT and I calibrate once per 2 month with the Spider 5, I saw it was 99% Adobe RGB. In my workflow everything is set to the Adobe 1998 profile, at the end I convert the photo to sRGB JPG's, because only dedicated printshops here in Holland can print with the Adobe RGB 1998 profile, you have to send JPG's only to most printshops and then Adobe RGB is useless.

I had a EIZO screen, very good warranty.

At home I print maximum A3 to my Epson expression photo XP-960 via Lightroom.

mhedges · March 2019

Ton14 said:
Oh the model I have is Benq 2700PT and I calibrate once per 2 month with the Spider 5, I saw it was 99% Adobe RGB. In my workflow everything is set to the Adobe 1998 profile, at the end I convert the photo to sRGB JPG's, because only dedicated printshops here in Holland can print with the Adobe RGB 1998 profile, you have to send JPG's only to most printshops and then Adobe RGB is useless.

I had a EIZO screen, very good warranty.

At home I print maximum A3 to my Epson expression photo XP-960 via Lightroom.

So can I ask why you work in Adobe RGB just to convert to sRGB at the end? Do you gain anything doing it that way?

ggbutcher · March 2019

mhedges said:

So can I ask why you work in Adobe RGB just to convert to sRGB at the end? Do you gain anything doing it that way?

It's more like, 'you don't lose anything early.' Your camera has a spectral response producing colors that outstrip the capabilities of any output medium, and that will not be changing soon. You might consider editing in the camera profile if your raw converter lets you, but things might not go well as camera profiles are also way off in their alignment to what we consider to be "white". So, that's what working profiles are about: an intermediate color profile that retains wide color gamut, but is "well-behaved" for post-processing. Then, when you go to output for display/print, you convert to the gamut capabilities of the destination, or to whatever the print shop tells you...

I've spent the last 2 years writing color management into my hack software, and it took a lot of research and experimentation to come up with what's distilled into the above paragraph. In fact, I just wrote an article for pixls.us on this very topic, it's posted for community editing right now.

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/article-color-management-in-raw-processing/11521

Ton14 · March 2019

Thank you @ggbutcher .

I have a print shop that can handle Adobe RGB and I can also send a .PSD file to them. However, 90% of the print shops only accept sRGB, so I have to convert the photo.

Of course you can set your whole workflow to sRGB, but in Photoshop you miss a lot of the colour reach, sRGB is smaller.

For me this is the major problem, I do everything, good monitor, calibration etc., but when somebody look at the end result on a cheap old office screen ...., goodbye photo. The brightsite is that most look at photo's on phones and tablets with oled screens and so.

mhedges · March 2019

Thanks @ggbutcher and @Ton14

Ton14 · March 2019

There is nothing as subjective as color.

As an example, women see colors better (different) due to a a simple hardware issue, women have much more color cones in their eyes than men, don't argue with your wife about color, you loose (well most men, lol).

I had a cataract operation and my right eye is 100%, but my left has not yet been done yet, so if I want to see the world a little bit sunnier, I close my right eye.

This are reasons for me to calibrate and set everything in the same profile (Adobe RGB in my case), at least I always have the same starting point. I also use the colorchecker passport a lot for the same reason.

Well, then you are set, you think, ...... No !!

Your battle with all the software starts here, Lightroom, Capture one, DxO Lab, Luminar, On1, RAW convertors etc.. very thick books have been written for instance, Capture one is better than Lightroom.

Install Lightroom for the first time and check the "detail tab" not all sliders are at 0, WHAT ?? Import the RAW file in Capture one and it looks better than in Lightroom, especially when I set all sliders to 0 in Lightroom,
But with a couple of very little tweaks I made a Lightroom profile, where the RAW file was the same as in Capture one, I had to do it this way, because the import in Capture one is as it is, they do things under the hood that you can not change.

It took too much time for me to test all the different software so I stopped with that. The reason for me to choose Lightroom is, it is cheap (€ 140.- a year), I can set everything to 0 in sync with my starting point and can make my own dedicated camera profiles.

I print direct from Lightroom to my A3 printer and check the colors, of course the prints are darker, there is no bright light behind it, but the colors are the same as my screen and if not ... the fun is, I a'm the only one who knows, the ultimate color subjectivity.

For the web I need small files, the reason to convert the photo's to .JPG and in sRGB, because .JPG's are flat files.

ggbutcher · March 2019

Ton14 said:
There is nothing as subjective as color.

As an example, women see colors better (different) due to a a simple hardware issue, women have much more color cones in their eyes than men, don't argue with your wife about color, you loose (well most men, lol).

I had a cataract operation and my right eye is 100%, but my left has not yet been done yet, so if I want to see the world a little bit sunnier, I close my right eye.

This are reasons for me to calibrate and set everything in the same profile (Adobe RGB in my case), at least I always have the same starting point. I also use the colorchecker passport a lot for the same reason.

Well, then you are set, you think, ...... No !!

Your battle with all the software starts here, Lightroom, Capture one, DxO Lab, Luminar, On1, RAW convertors etc.. very thick books have been written for instance, Capture one is better than Lightroom.

Install Lightroom for the first time and check the "detail tab" not all sliders are at 0, WHAT ?? Import the RAW file in Capture one and it looks better than in Lightroom, especially when I set all sliders to 0 in Lightroom,
But with a couple of very little tweaks I made a Lightroom profile, where the RAW file was the same as in Capture one, I had to do it this way, because the import in Capture one is as it is, they do things under the hood that you can not change.

It took too much time for me to test all the different software so I stopped with that. The reason for me to choose Lightroom is, it is cheap (€ 140.- a year), I can set everything to 0 in sync with my starting point and can make my own dedicated camera profiles.

I print direct from Lightroom to my A3 printer and check the colors, of course the prints are darker, there is no bright light behind it, but the colors are the same as my screen and if not ... the fun is, I a'm the only one who knows, the ultimate color subjectivity.

For the web I need small files, the reason to convert the photo's to .JPG and in sRGB, because .JPG's are flat files.

I also found the software to be vexing. I like to know specifically what's going on, and the mainstream offerings, both commercial and open-source, have a compulsion to abstract parts of the process from folk who are just trying to make images. So, being a programmer-tinkerer, I wrote my own. Not something I recommend to the general populace, although over at darktable there came a portrait photographer who was not happy with the behavior, taught himself C++ and the ins-outs of image processing and wrote a module that they just incorporated in 2.6 - hat's off to him!

Anyway, the experience has been significant to my understanding of digital imaging, and I now have a set of tools that let me shoot raw in all circumstances, even family snapshots. And with those tools in-hand, I'm looking forward to the spring season to get out and start imaging again, with newfound understanding...

mhedges · March 2019

Again, thanks. I think for the amount of printing I do (a couple canvas prints every couple of months), and since I do fairly basic edits just in the Nikon software it makes more sense to get a decent 32" 1440P sRGB monitor.

mhedges · March 2019

OK everything is ordered. I did wind up getting the Benq 27" photo monitor after all. I cheaped out a bit on the PC (a Dell 7010 refurb) but hopefully it will be good enough. I don't need anything lightning fast.

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Photo editing setup advice (Adobe RGB vs. sRGB)

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