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I am asking because I am wondering what's the pros for buying those wide gamut monitors if the best option is export everything in SRGB would be the better option for digital viewing, if viewing under the same SRGB monitor, embedding the correct ICC profile processed under a wide gamut space will still show a more desaturated image than exporting it in the SRGB space I don't understand what's the need for those prophoto/ARGB working space in LRC are for.
By @chik02402004
It depends on who th
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So in simple terms, IF one is using a colour managed system/app to view the photo with ARGB profile tagged, the colour will be correctly displayed even on an SRGB monitor,
Let's stop right there.
A common metaphor is a window. Imagine that you're in a room, looking out a window (sRGB) you can only see what the window allows, however there is a wider/larger world (Adobe RGB) outside the window that you can't see as the walls block the view of the wider world. The window is only showing a smaller area, the wider area is clipped/cut off from view.
Simple matrix based working space profiles such as sRGB and Adobe RGB don't contain perceptual rendering tables allowing compression of colour from a larger space to a smaller space, colours outside the "window" are clipped/lost. There are special perceptual table based versions of sRGB.
I am asking because I am wondering what's the pros for buying those wide gamut monitors if the best option is export everything in SRGB would be the better option for digital viewing, if viewing under the same SRGB monitor, embedding the correct ICC profile processed under a wide gamut space will still show a more desaturated image than exporting it in the SRGB space I don't understand what's the need for those prophoto/ARGB working space in LRC are for.
By @chik02402004
It depends on who the audience is. If the photos are expected to be viewed on older computer displays on systems or applications that don’t support color management and profiles, then sRGB is definitely the safe route.
But if most of your viewers are known to use recent displays run by an OS and apps that support color management, then exporting in a wider color space can look better. For example, Apple hardware is at the point where every new desktop display, laptop, phone, and tablet they sell today is both color-managed and wide gamut (P3). If someone with a current Apple display opens a wide gamut image with a profile, it should look as intended. On Windows, more web browsers support profiles now. (I think) all Samsung mobile devices have been wide gamut for a while, although color management support can vary. Most new TVs are wide gamut (P3 again), so if you connect one to a Mac or PC it can be color-managed. The point is that new devices from everybody have been trending toward wide gamut and increasing support for color management, so the old world of “mostly sRGB and not color managed” is slowly fading out.
For printing, more printing services today accept non-sRGB files as long as there is a profile attached. For example, the website for the popular printing service Bay Photo says that sending them Adobe RGB with an embedded profile is acceptable. This is useful when the image will be printed on a printer that has an ink set that extends its gamut beyond sRGB…now you can take advantage of that.
Also, in the last line you said “prophoto/ARGB working space.” When you say working space, that’s different than the question earlier in that paragraph about exporting. Working space is what you edit in, and the reason for editing in ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB is so that you don’t permanently clip out colors that you might want for future wider gamut output. For example, 25 years ago I edited images in an sRGB working space. The colors in those images can‘t ever go beyond that. Later inkjet printers were able to reproduce wider gamuts, but those old sRGB images couldn’t take advantage of them.
A few years later I started editing in Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB. When inkjet printers got even better and phones started coming with wide gamut displays, the colors in all those images could finally be seen by more people because the original wider gamut had been preserved, not permanenly thrown out by editing in sRGB.
An analogy: If you listen to recorded music, the original master recordings are made, edited, and stored at a far higher technical level of quality than the recording you get. This is so they can be mixed down to any media you might buy it on (MP3, CD, vinyl, cassette…). If they had started out saying “Most people will listen to it at 8 bits, 128Kb/sec” and recorded and edited it exactly that way, it would not have the quality to stand up to editing or be reproduced on better-sounding formats.
So in the end this is not just a Photoshop question. Regardless of the tools you use, in all professional media (photos, audio, video), you capture, edit, and archive your original at the highest quality you can afford, and mix that down to the different lower standards of each medium in which you expect to deliver the content.
... but since most users will use something not colour managed, export it as SRGB JPG/PNG will be a safer/better bet?
By @chik02402004
Yes, that's the basic idea.
An Adobe RGB file viewed in sRGB without conversion to sRGB will look less saturated compared to a version which has been converted to sRGB.
Why would you tag a jpeg with ARGB?
Jpegs should always be sRGB, because the sRGB gamma curve is better suited to an 8 bit image for general viewing.
The ARGB colour space is irrelevant in todays photo workflow, and really should be ignored.
Colour spaces in Lightroom are FIXED at Linear ProPhoto in the background, and Melissa RGB in the front GUI. You can NOT change them.
Only exports from LrC/ACR can be changed to a smaller colour space.
So, in LrC/ACR you ARE working in ProPhoto. If you move an image over to Ps from LrC, Ps needs to be set to ProPhoto as the working space, but you need to switch the Grey Gamma to 1.8 an set that as the default.
Working this way, if you save the image in Ps, it looks the same when you view it in LrC, because it's in the LrC working space.
Once you finish the image processing, simply export it as a jpeg, converting to sRGB as the output space, and the ACE colour engine will do the conversion for you. The result will be a jpeg in sRGB that looks the same as it did in LrC or Ps.
Just forget about ARGB as a working space. As a measure of calbrated monitor colour space it's fine, but you monitor profile has nothing to do with Adobe Internal CM - unless you are softproofing for print.
So, in LrC/ACR you ARE working in ProPhoto. If you move an image over to Ps from LrC, Ps needs to be set to ProPhoto as the working space, but you need to switch the Grey Gamma to 1.8 an set that as the default.
By @Wildlife_in_Pixels
No, this is patently wrong. Internally, Lightroom uses a custom color space with PP primaries and a linear tone curve. This is not the same as ProPhoto RGB.
It has no relevance for output from LrC. You can send from Lightroom to Photoshop in any color space you like, ProPhoto, sRGB, whatever, and it will be correctly treated in Photoshop because it is a color managed application. There is no particular need to use ProPhoto, and Photoshop certainly doesn't need to be set to ProPhoto as working space. This is a common misunderstanding. An embedded color profile, which it has out of LrC, will override the working space.
The "edit in Photoshop" color space is set in Lightroom Classic Preferences. Again, it does not need to be ProPhoto.
Adobe RGB is still the industry standard in commercial offset printing like books and magazines. Adobe RGB is what is expected everywhere.
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