This can't be explained easily. It's a setting in your camera among other things. AdobeRGB allows for a wider colorspace than sRGB, and therefore allows richer colors. The sRGB colorspace was designed for low quality monitors that are virtually extinct. Basically this means you're stupid if you're using sRGB and many sources will tell you so...
Why use sRGB anyway?
- Most printing labs, even the professional printing labs (which often use the high quality Fuji Frontier printers), currently only support the sRGB color space. This means when they receive an AdobeRGB image they will convert it to sRGB for you. This is why you may be able to achieve a higher quality when you print the image yourself on an inktjet printer.
- Almost everyone that views your images on a PC will have a viewer that only supports sRGB. The colors of your images will look dull when they have the AdobeRGB colorspace and are viewed with such a viewer.
- I find that the difference in quality between sRGB and AdobeRGB is really smaller than some people suggest and most people will never notice or even care.
When things go wrong
The images below do NOT compare the difference in quality between sRGB and AdobeRGB. It merely demonstrates what happens when an AdobeRGB image is viewed in a browser or other application that cannot handle color management. You will see the colors are much less rich.
Tagged with sRGB profile
Tagged with AdobeRGB profile (thus displayed incorrectly now)The bottom image is the original and the top image was created by converting it to sRGB using Photoshop CS2.
I cannot demonstrate the true difference between AdobeRGB and sRGB visually, because your browser cannot display AdobeRGB. This excellent PDF document by Canon demonstrates the differences and explains it in further detail.
I cannot demonstrate the true difference between AdobeRGB and sRGB visually, because your browser cannot display AdobeRGB. This excellent PDF document by Canon demonstrates the differences and explains it in further detail.
Canon and AdobeRGB
Canon DSLR cameras allows you to choose between the two in the menu, as do all DSLRs. The default is always set to sRGB. Strangely, if you're in the icons mode on a Canon camera you can only "choose" sRGB. I guess Canon assumes that advanced photographers that want to use AdobeRGB never use these icon-programs anyway, which is probably true.
Image viewers
Viewers that support Color Management (and therefore AdobeRGB):
- Photoshop (duh...)
- Photo Mechanic
- the new ACDSee Pro (although I think the colors are slightly off). Other versions of this application suggest that they support Color Management which is not correct.
- Adobe Reader. Color Management is fully integrated in this application, which is why it has now become the defacto standard for image distribution in the graphical industry.
RAW and AdobeRGB
If you're shooting RAW you don't have to choose up-front between the colorspaces. When you're processing RAW you can save as sRGB or AdobeRGB afterwards. Isn't that great.
The future
The new version of Windows (Vista) has a new color management panel (it can already be downloaded now for XP). This will probably mean that Windows will now be able to display AdobeRGB correctly. Apple has always had this btw.
More
In my links article I've listed several links that explain color management.
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