ProPhoto

[Adrian David]

Hello to all of you!

After reading an article on Thom Hogan's site, http://www.bythom.com/qadcolor.htm ,I tought to myself, why not...? It stated that, it is the best option to set your color space in your RAW converter, as PRO Photo, because the sensor of a DSLR can resolve more than AdobeRGB color space! After the conversion you use RGB in Photoshop when opening the .PSD or .TIFF image. What I have observed dooing this, is that your histogram, in ACR, get tighter.The extremities, under-exposed and supra-exposed parts are coming closer to the middle of the histogram, and you can extract more information from those parts. The first results, after doing so, were very encouraging, and I will use this setting in my work-flow.
Please tell me what do you think about this, and if you have ever used this settings in PP your RAW files.If you never used this settings, please try them and let me (us) know what are your conclusions.
Thank you very much!

[Charles Glatzer]

I convert RAW to ProPhoto and use this for my workflow in CS4, corrected working files are saved as PSD in ProPhoto, converting to TIFF or JPEG and other profiles as warranted for web and print.

Best,

Chas

[Adrian David]

Thank you Charles, for your answer!

[Ray Rozema]

Is this applicable for Nikon? A while back Arash suggested that for Nikon images conversion should be done using NX2 because of proprietary restrictions. Comments welcome.

Thanks Ray

[Roger Clark]

Hello to all of you!

After reading an article on Thom Hogan's site, http://www.bythom.com/qadcolor.htm ,I tought to myself, why not...? It stated that, it is the best option to set your color space in your RAW converter, as PRO Photo, because the sensor of a DSLR can resolve more than AdobeRGB color space!

Adrian,

I looked around for reviews of color space and it isn't clear if all DSLRs actually have a larger color space than AdobeRGB. For example, this page shows the D70 to have about Adobe RGB:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/page11.asp


After the conversion you use RGB in Photoshop when opening the .PSD or .TIFF image. What I have observed dooing this, is that your histogram, in ACR, get tighter.The extremities, under-exposed and supra-exposed parts are coming closer to the middle of the histogram, and you can extract more information from those parts. The first results, after doing so, were very encouraging, and I will use this setting in my work-flow.
Please tell me what do you think about this, and if you have ever used this settings in PP your RAW files.If you never used this settings, please try them and let me (us) know what are your conclusions.
Thank you very much!

Check this page on ProPhoto:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml

The argument that technology advances, so why not use ProPhoto so your images will be ready for the better printer capabilities seems odd to me. Figure 3b illustrates the problem: ProPhoto green and blue is outside the range of human vision. But if the argument is be ready for the future, why not use LAB? LAB covers the entire human vision color gamut.

Note that to use the wider gamut, you really should do all work in 16-bit because otherwise you might get some posterization.

Another note. The color gamut of a camera is more than simply 12 or 14 bits. It has to do with the shape of the spectral response function and how closely that matches that of our eyes. That is no easy feat because the eye is complex, non linear and some colors depend on subtracting from other colors. Colors also depend on how large the subjects appear to our eyes. For example, see the two different response functions on this page:
http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/human-eye/
The 1931 version is the one in wide use but the other has a different gamut. And gamut will also change with light intensity. For example, in dim light you can see fewer colors. So whether or not you could see the difference between AdobeRGB and ProPhoto even if your printer/monitor had the gamut depends on the detail withing the image, how larger it is in your field of view, what colors are next to it, and how bright the light is where you are viewing it (or how bright the LCD is if on a monitor).

Personally, I just use AdobeRGB.

Roger

[Adrian David]

Is this applicable for Nikon? A while back Arash suggested that for Nikon images conversion should be done using NX2 because of proprietary restrictions. Comments welcome.

Thanks Ray

Ray, it doesn't matter what software you're using for RAW conversion for this, to work. You can set ProPhoto color-space in capture NX.

[Adrian David]

Tank you Roger for your answer!
What I have written above, was based only on what I've read on Thom Hogan's site and on the experiments I've done.That's why I've asked here for your opinions. I am using a Nikon D300, and the settings in ACR are 16bit, 300ppi and now, ProPhoto color-space (before it was AdobeRGB) For me it looks that I am getting more details from the problem zones with dark shadows or highlights, as well as less blown color channels. If you have a perfect exposure, you may not need anything of that...:).After processing in ACR and saving the file as .PSD, I am opening it in CS4 in RGB color-space.Maybe I am doing it wrong, but my visual impression was that the images are looking better.I want to get the best possible IQ from the RAW files and I am experimenting new techniques to achieve that...As I've said, I may be wrong, that's why I want to get opinions from those that are more skilled than me in PP.I am only at the beginning...:o