Color space when exporting from RAW

[Marcin_S1]

Hello,

I am a new user of Lightroom and I find color spaces topic a bit confusing so far. My main question is: when exporting a photo, does Lightroom convert to a profile or assign a profile? Because there is no way to choose. I tried to export a photo with 3 different color spaces (sRGB, AdobeRGB and ICC profile from laboratory where I print my photos). After exporting them to JPEG it turned out that all of them look differently on my monitor - does it mean that Lightroom assigns a profile? If it was converting, shouldn't they have the same colours? What is more, after printing them in laboratory, results were completely different than I expected - the photo which had closest colours to what I saw in Lightroom was that in sRGB, but that with ICC of Lab was very different (much colder colours).

Where is the problem, or what aspect do I seem to misunderstand? Do I have wrong settings, should I use DNG to work with photos, should I export to TIFF, or I just have too weak monitor or wrongly calibrated one? Should I calibrate when viewing a picture in Lightroom or with the use of a photo exported to the ICC profile of Lab?

I would like to have a little bit of control over what I'm working on, depending on whether I want to publish it on a website or print. I know that my monitor can be a problem (I have an iiyama with IPS), but surely there has to be any way to make results of my work a bit closer to my expectations.

Just for information, my workflow doesn't require Photoshop, as I rather prefer to use only tools from Lightroom. I hope that my problem doesn't require the use of Photoshop.

I will be really greateful for your help - the general knowledge about colour spaces seems to be unsufficient when it comes to the usage of applications such as Lightroom.

Many thanks,

Marcin

[Guest]

I think you can choose when exporting to an external editor, under edit/preferences/external editing.

Kevan

[Marcin_S1]

Thanks!

Unfortunately, those are options do not seem useful for me - I'm not going to process photos again in other program, but want to have them prepared for print straight after processing in Lightroom.

Or maybe I don't know their exact destination.

Marcin

[dorin_nicolaescu]

My main question is: when exporting a photo, does Lightroom convert to a profile or assign a profile?

Both.

I tried to export a photo with 3 different color spaces (sRGB, AdobeRGB and ICC profile from laboratory where I print my photos). After exporting them to JPEG it turned out that all of them look differently on my monitor - does it mean that Lightroom assigns a profile?

No. It means your viewer is not color managed.

What is more, after printing them in laboratory, results were completely different than I expected - the photo which had closest colours to what I saw in Lightroom was that in sRGB, but that with ICC of Lab was very different (much colder colours).

Yes, labs mostly expect sRGB. Their custom profiles are often crappy.

Where is the problem, or what aspect do I seem to misunderstand? Do I have wrong settings, should I use DNG to work with photos, should I export to TIFF, or I just have too weak monitor or wrongly calibrated one? Should I calibrate when viewing a picture in Lightroom or with the use of a photo exported to the ICC profile of Lab?

You should calibrate your monitor with hardware calibrator, such as Spyder or huey.

[Marcin_S1]

Thank you for you helpful replies. Now I know a little bit more about it. But still, this is not completely clear to me.

My main question is: when exporting a photo, does Lightroom convert to a profile or assign a profile?

Both.

What you mean by both? How should I interpret it? I cannot choose "convert" or "assign", so how they both work together? What does it mean for me wanting to process photo and print in Lab?

I can only add, that those 3 photos which I exported to JPEG with 3 different colour spaces, they look different when viewing outside of Lightroom, ie. IrfanView. But when importing those JPEGs into Lightroom, differences are extremly slight. Is that because Lightroom operates in ProPhoto, which covers all colour spaces which I used, and other programs work in sRGB and those photos differently?

And the last question for now: will the hardware calibrator help in monitor which is, let's say, medium cost and medium quality? I mainly use it for preparing photos to put them on the website gallery, but would be nice if I could print better ones with a bit of certainty about what I will get from Lab.

Many thanks!!

Marcin

[CSS_Simon]

Marcin S wrote:

Thank you for you helpful replies. Now I know a little bit more about it. But still, this is not completely clear to me.

My main question is: when exporting a photo, does Lightroom convert to a profile or assign a profile?

Both.

What you mean by both? How should I interpret it? I cannot choose "convert" or "assign", so how they both work together? What does it mean for me wanting to process photo and print in Lab?

I can only add, that those 3 photos which I exported to JPEG with 3 different colour spaces, they look different when viewing outside of Lightroom, ie. IrfanView. But when importing those JPEGs into Lightroom, differences are extremly slight. Is that because Lightroom operates in ProPhoto, which covers all colour spaces which I used, and other programs work in sRGB and those photos differently?

And the last question for now: will the hardware calibrator help in monitor which is, let's say, medium cost and medium quality? I mainly use it for preparing photos to put them on the website gallery, but would be nice if I could print better ones with a bit of certainty about what I will get from Lab.

Many thanks!!

Marcin

When you export a photo from LR, it converts to the colour space you select (e.g. sRGB) and embeds the appropriate profile in the exported file. 

If your monitor were calibrated and profiled, and you view with a colour-managed viewer then images should look pretty much identical no matter which colour space you export in.  (W7 Photo viewer is colour managed, the XP equivalent isn't, Mac s/w generally is.  IE and Chrome aren't properly colour managed, Firefox is for all images, Safari is for images with embedded profiles.  Other viewers vary.)  With colour-managed viewers, the only difference should be with very highly saturated colours outside sRGB colour space (and then only if your monitor can display those colours). 

LR is colour managed.  If the monitor isn't calibrated/profiled then I think LR assumes the monitor has a colour space equivalent to sRGB (which is generally roughly right but won't be accurate).  Internally LR uses ProPhoto RGB colour space in develop module, but uses Adobe RGB in Library, and previews are stored in Adobe RGB.  However, the colour space LR uses won't explain why other viewers show things differently.  It's simply that LR is colour managed (which means it converts to/from the image colour space), and I guess the other viewers you're using aren't; they just throw RGB data at the screen without converting. 

Is it worth calibrating and profiling your monitor?  Quite possibly.  Does the colour and brightness vary with viewing angle as you move your head from side to side?  If so, it may be TN technology, and perhaps not worth profiling.  If it looks reasonably stable with different viewing angle then probably yes. 

[Marcin_S1]

Many thanks.

I understand that photos vary when printing in Lab, because Lab machine embeds profiles? What is more, when it comes to web publishing, people using Safari or Firefox will have the best view of my image?

I use IIYAMA monitor with IPS - I know it is the basic IPS, but I can notice that colours and contrast don't change significantly when viewing from a bit different angles - unless it is entirely black screen - then is changes a lot (from dark to much lighter colour). But I assume this is not a problem when working with photos, which contain many colours. So I will think about calibrating device or service.

Anyway, why Labs offer ICC profiles, when sRGB turns out to produce better result (closer to what could be seen on monitor)? I have read that printing photo with sRGB profile on machine which has its own profile destroys a photo, so the use of machine's profile is always better than sRGB. Is it completely true? My expierience so far suggest something different...

Sorry if I duplicate questions which appeared on the forum before - if yes, just suggest other topic. I will be grateful for any explanation!

Marcin

[TheDigitalDog]

Marcin S wrote:

Anyway, why Labs offer ICC profiles, when sRGB turns out to produce better result (closer to what could be seen on monitor)?

They don’t and shouldn’t. There is no such thing as an sRGB printer. The sRGB color space is based on a theoretical emissive CRT display of the early 1990’s. I’ve never, ever seen an output profile that defines a print process that looks anything like sRGB and for good reason.

Labs should supply output profiles used to transform sRGB or any RGB working space to the output space. Then you could soft proof the results, pick a rendering intent etc. When labs say  “give us sRGB” it is because they have decide to setup a workflow that benefits them in terms of pushing lots of files through the system. Not a workflow that produces the best options for their customers.

Further, many of us are working with extended gamut displays. Those closer to are exceeding Adobe RGB (1998) gamut. So the idea that sRGB turns out better and is closer to the display doesn’t wash, especially if you look at the color gamut of these printers from good profiles: They often exceed the gamut of sRGB, sometimes greatly.

[Marcin_S1]

So, what workflow would you suggest me in order to get prined photos from Lab which meet my expectations (given that my display is calibrated well - as for average quality monitor)? I mean, by using only Lightroom and working with photos made in RAW.

Maybe I just should remember in what ways photo from Lab differs, and just change those features in a photo in order to get what I want. This is also a solution, but of course not the best one.

I will be grateful for any kind of suggetion regarding workflow.

[macuser88]

Check out this article from Canon's Digital Learning Center on Color Spaces.

"In the photo industry, there are three RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color spaces that we use: (ProPhoto RGB, Adobe RGB (1998), and RGB, and we can think of them as being large, medium, and small, respectively.   

Most current DSLRs and even point-and-shoot cameras support Adobe RGB and SRGB, which is often the camera's default color space. On a RAW workflow, these settings are irrelevant, but they are an important consideration when shooting JPGs."

http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/print_workflow_colorspace_article.shtml

Hope this helps you.

[TheDigitalDog]

This may clear up a few of your questions:

http://www.ppmag.com/reviews/200701_rodneycm.pdf