Colour management work flow have I got this right?

[Mark D Segal]

OK, so you are confirming what Martin said. Regarding the RGB numbers, I'm not sure what you are trying to demonstrate. Normally those numbers are meaningless unless you know the gamut with which to scale them, not the other way around.

[sandymc]

OK, so you are confirming what Martin said. Regarding the RGB numbers, I'm not sure what you are trying to demonstrate. Normally those numbers are meaningless unless you know the gamut with which to scale them, not the other way around.

Ok, good, looks like we're actually in agreement then. I was just concerned about the "srGB" and "gamma 1" - both of those can't be true simultaneously, and it sounded a bit like that was what was being claimed. Apologies if I misunderstood what was being said.

Sandy

[Andy Yuill]

Thanks for all the information in the replies, I have to admit that some of it went over my head slightly, however the analogies of the cookie cutter and the ever decreasing spiral struck home.  I also share the view that this is all about the vision and mastery of the tools is important in order to achieve that vision.

Going back to the ever decreasing spiral analogy... my camera is set to encode the captured images as AdobeRGB (Canon 40D) is it then not a step up, an increasing spiral (or a stretching out of the cookie dough) to then display the images in lightrooms version of ProPhoto RGB?

Another part of the puzzle that concerns me from a technical view point is the increased posterisation that occurs when the same number of bits is used to encode a greater range of colours.  In practice is this a reasonable justification for shooting in the same colour space as your final output?   Although, I print in sRGB today, there is no telling what I could use in the future, so perhaps this should read as shooting in a colour space most suitable for the image you are taking?

I will have a play with the gamut warning feature this evening and see what that teaches me.

Thanks


Andy

[digitaldog]

Going back to the ever decreasing spiral analogy... my camera is set to encode the captured images as AdobeRGB (Canon 40D) is it then not a step up, an increasing spiral (or a stretching out of the cookie dough) to then display the images in lightrooms version of ProPhoto RGB?

Only if you're shooting JPEGs. If you're shooting Raw, the encoding color space is something you specify at rendering from the Raw converter.

[teddillard]

Only if you're shooting JPEGs. If you're shooting Raw, the encoding color space is something you specify at rendering from the Raw converter.

right right... the RAW's the RAW- it does not have any editing "color space".  (This statement is gonna open up a can of worms, I'm pretty sure...  heh.)

The setting on the camera only serves to generate the preview thumbnail or, as Andrew says, a JPEG if you're shooting that.  It's still helpful to set the camera that way, though, because the histogram (the single most important tool of digital imaging, IMO) on the camera is generated based on those settings.

Glad you like the cookie cutter...  ha!