Camera Raw Settings: "Display P3" Color Space. Shouldnt this be Prophoto RGB?

[Hmmokthen]

hi,

Just noticed in settings that the color space for camera raw is "display p3". Shouldn't this be like Lightroom and be in Prophoto RGB?

This also raises the 2nd question, if photoshop is opening files from LR and converting them to the working color space of adobe rgb, then would it also be converting the camera raw color space to adobe rgb? (in which case the camera raw colorspace setting is irrelevant). thanks

[D Fosse]

It doesn't need to be anything. It can be whatever you want. The whole point of a color managed workflow is that color spaces don't need to match anything. It frees you up to use whatever color space is best suited for the purpose.

Photoshop opens the image in whatever color space you set in ACR. That's what "preserve embedded profiles" means. The embedded profile will always override the PS working space. This is how modern color management is intended to work.

Especially among Lightroom users there is a misunderstanding that you need to set everything to ProPhoto. That's probably because ProPhoto is the default setting - but IMO it's not a good default. Default settings should always be safe settings for beginners. Advanced users know what they want and how to get it anyway.

ProPhoto is quite risky, and in the hands of inexperienced users it can increase the risk of uncontrollable gamut clipping and artifacts, and a poor final result. These things are often easier to control earlier in the process. I think the default should be sRGB as a safe setting, and then you can change it to whatever you want.

Display P3 and Image P3 are identical. P3 is originally a cinema standard for digital projectors, with no particular relevance for display technology and still photography. It's basically a variety of Adobe RGB with slightly shifted primaries, and an irregular sRGB tone curve instead of Adobe RGBs regular gamma curve.

[Hmmokthen]

thanks for the reply. I agree with your thoughts on prophoto; what i meant was rather-- isnt camera raw in photoshop very similar to lightroom, so for the purpose of consistency shouldn't it be in the same colour space that I had been working on in LR? (Prophoto RGB).

[D Fosse]

That's my whole point. It doesn't need to be consistent. It doesn't need to be ProPhoto anywhere. ACR and Lightroom don't need to match, and neither needs to match the Photoshop working space.

You choose what color space you want to work in, and that's how it opens in Photoshop.

Since Lightroom and ACR's internal working color space uses ProPhoto primaries, there is a misconception that you need to open as ProPhoto into Photoshop. But these have no relevance to each other. They are unrelated and separate color spaces.

[Shangara Singh]

 You can set Photoshop color settings in such a way it converts silently to current color working space:

 

[D Fosse]

You can, but you normally shouldn't. It goes against how modern color management is supposed to work.

This setting can cause irreparable damage. A color space conversion should never be done on a wholesale automatic basis. It should be done to individual files if and when needed, and the result closely monitored to make sure no unintended clipping is occurring.

This setting might make sense for a web developer who knows they will never use anything other than sRGB. Other than that, it's mostly asking for trouble.