YCbCr color space and RGB

[mbalensiefer]

I have TIFFs in the YCbCr color space.
Apparently, Y′CbCr is not an absolute color space; rather it is a way of encoding RGB information.
These will be displayed on an RGB monitor. Will converting these images to RGB lose any color information?

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Your TIFF is already an RGB image. It might be a still from a video that is chroma sampled.

Y'CbCr has no place in the TIFF specification. Y'CbCr is the currency of video land - in TIFF land they don't speak that language. RGB is a color model. Y'CbCr is a chroma sampling and video encoding specification (compression for video) that is a digital byproduct of other similar analog specs, like YPbPr, etc.

Neither of them are color spaces.

If your TIFF came from a video shot on an HD camera, it is probably in the Rec. 709/sRGB color space (same thing, almost). If it came from a PAL SD camera, it is in the PAL color space. If it came from an NTSC SD camera, it is in the NTSC color space. If it came from a RAW camera (like the Alexa, F65 or Red), then it might have its own proprietary color space (like Red or the F65) or maybe it's like a still camera RAW file (ArriRAW) which doesn't have a color space yet. Also, higher-end video cameras have LUTs, special-gammas and S-Logs that make things complicated.

To answer your question: The file won't lose information - but you might have already lost information in your TIFF conversion. Need more specific information for a better answer.

[chrismurphy]

It's a good answer!

[deejjjaaaa]

Y'CbCr has no place in the TIFF specification.

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/tiff/TIFF6.pdf

it has a place there as TIFF extension, as well as CMYK, LAB, etc

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

You are correct. Thanks for pointing it out.