Adobe RGB 1998 vs sRGB - which to shoot, edit & export as

[Daleg94]

I’m a photographer & have some issues with colours being inconsistent while editing in Photoshop & exporting

Here’s the process I go through

1. shoot with Adobe RGB 1998 in Raw
2. Import into Lightroom CC
3. Open in Photoshop with the Adobe RGB 1998 as the colour space & edit
4. Copy a flattened layer into a new .psd doc & convert the colour space to sRGB & export as sRGB

Here’s when I run into trouble - after exporting & viewing on my phone the image looks a lot duller & less saturated. What I end up having to do is edit based on what my phone looks like & adjust the saturation based on that not what’s on my screen which as you can imagine is a pain in the butt

Should I change my monitor colour space or any other settings to make it view accurately? is working in Adobe RGB 1998 & exporting as sRGB never going to work?

Gear Context: I’ve got a mid-2015 MBP which was calibrated with a ColorMunki & I’ve also got a BenQsw271 which I use as an external display (calibrated with the Xrite i1 Display Pro)

Note: I understand that 1998 is a larger gamut but I don’t print much, in saying that I may in the future & don’t want to lose the range

Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks!

Cheers,
Dale

[gener7]

I think the newer screens use the DCI-P3 gamut, although you can adjust screen modes in the Galaxy S9 to sRGB.

DisplayMate Samsung Galaxy S9 Color Gamuts

So convert to DCI P3 and see if that's a better match.

[davescm]

Hi

Your workflow is fine although when shooting raw the color space in camera only applies to the in camera jpeg used for previews. The raw file itself has no color space.

Your export as sRGB with an embedded profile will display correctly on a color managed system and somewhere near close on a standard sRGB monitor. The issue is with non color managed systems particularly those offering a wider range of colours. These could be displaying anything.

Your color managed system will be displaying correctly as long as you are using the profiles and have not adjusted any monitor controls since calibrating and profiling, which would invalidate the profile.

Your phone, be it iOS or Android is not color managed. Despite all the marketing blurb, and desputexsome having wide color space screens,  neither of these operating systems offer a color managed workflow. So trying to match a phone to a properly color managed system is an excessive in futility.

Dave

[Daleg94]

Hey Dave! thanks for your reply

Fair call on the raw files (I didn’t actually know the colour space related to the jpeg)

& yeah I understand the non-colour management of the phone - it’s been a pain but doesn’t seem like I can do much about that

Do you know what would be the best way to at least match the results between the BenQ & Macbook screens? - currently also having issues with both the MacBook & BenQ looking completely different (even when both are calibrated to sRGB)- BenQ colours are dull and MacBook are more saturated

[D Fosse]

wi1dtree  wrote

(even when both are calibrated to sRGB)- BenQ colours are dull and MacBook are more saturated

What do you mean by "calibrated to sRGB"? You don't calibrate displays "to" any color space. They don't have to match anything. Each monitor has its own native color space, and the whole idea of color management is that color spaces do not need to match. One is remapped into the other, thus preserving appearance.

The monitor profile is a description of the monitor's current and actual response, whatever that may be. It may be closer to sRGB, or it may be closer to Adobe RGB, or it may be something in between. But it will never be a match and it doesn't have to be.

From your description it sounds like both displays are using the same profile. That defeats the whole purpose of color management. Rerun both calibrations. Just let the software finish and then don't do anything. The software will set up the appropriate profile for each display on operating system level. Photoshop will then use the profile it gets from the OS, depending on which display the image is on.

[Daleg94]

Hey Dag - I'll clarify what I said (as you can probably tell I’m fairly new to this)

**calibrated to sRGB**

Even when both are calibrated (calibrated via the i1 display pro then untouched) & I'm working within a Photoshop Document that has the sRGB colour space they're both so different in saturation, contrast, colour etc that I'm really not sure which one to go by when it comes to exporting/ knowing which is an accurate representation of the image I’m editing

To double check myself I recalibrated again last night with the same results

[D Fosse]

In that case the application is using the wrong display profile for one or both displays.

This is reported from time to time, mostly in ACR, but also PS, Bridge and Lightroom. It's clearly a bug, but hard to say where it is.

Can you switch the assignment of primary and secondary display in the OS? (not sure how this works in macOS).

[Daleg94]

Hey Dag - just an update on the situation

After 9 emails & a couple of calls, I finally got through to BenQ support - they sent me a new version of the Palette Master program which I was using to calibrate...turns out it was a bug somewhere in their calibration software which was mucking things around

[D Fosse]

Ah...thanks for reporting back 🙂

[D Fosse]

This should normally work out of the box with no user intervention - as long as your monitor profile is good, and you're only using color managed software. As Dave said.

What could potentially go wrong is if monitor profiles for the two displays get mixed up by the system, and the wrong profile is used. This shouldn't happen and normally doesn't, but once in a blue moon does for unknown reasons. You have one standard gamut display (MBP) and one wide gamut display (BenQ). If the wrong profile is used you get a massive saturation shift (along with all the other problems).

A monitor profile has one basic requirement. it needs to describe the actual and current behavior of the display. It doesn't have to "match" anything else.

[davescm]

Hi Dag

I think the key words in the original post were : "What I end up having to do is edit based on what my phone looks like"

Altering an image on a calibrated and profiled system (his PC)  to try and match the view on a non calibrated, non-profiled, and non-color managed system (his phone)  is the wrong thing to do.

Accept the color managed view (PC) as correct and set the phone screen settings to get the phone screen as close as possible (it will never match)

Dave

[D Fosse]

Oops, you're absolutely right. I missed that.

The phone is a lost cause. Export to sRGB, done. Whatever the phone displays is how that particular phone displays sRGB. You just have to live with that. Another phone will display something else, there's no way to correct a file for a moving target like that.

Embed the sRGB profile just to cover all scenarios, but it won't make any difference here.