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 p.1 #20 · Best practices for using a MacBook Pro Display for Photo Editing??? | |
Zenon Char wrote:
From that link.
Lightroom is internally color-managed, so as long as your monitor is properly calibrated, the only times you need to worry about color spaces are when you’re outputting the photos to other programs. This may be passing the data to Photoshop for further editing, passing the data to a printer driver for printing, or exporting the photos for other purposes, such as email or web.
Many years ago when I was still using PS only Andrew Rodney (the digital dog) said to use the widest game possible because you never know what how much more a printer can actually go beyond the specs. He then said to use the convert to profile command when done editing, which I did.
Like I said I don't have expertise nor the demands pros have when it comes to this. I remember when I first got into LrC over 10 years ago a well known local photographer who built name and could make a living on stock photos used and printed everything via Lightroom.
I believe what you are saying. Just trying to make it fit with what I've read.
...Show more →
If I can help with that...
The problem with allowing LR to display in ProPhoto is that you're allowing it to display in a gamut range bigger than any monitor can show (I'll guess within our lifetimes), bigger than any printer can ever cope with and likely bigger than most of our eyes can see.
I'm going to disagree with Mr Rodney, because bigger is not always better. We capture a Raw file to future proof, but that needs to be processed for actual use. That requires we bring it into a useable format, which mean choosing a colourspace and gamut.
If we choose a gamut range bigger than we can handle, then we're working with colours that we just can't see - so we're working blind. And for what...? Maybe in 100 years someone might make a monitor that might be able to cope...? (Which is unlikely as it just won't be financially viable).
And here's the thing - bigger isn't always better because the colours that Mr Rodney is so desperately trying to retain (that he can't see on his monitor or print on his printer), are only the extreme colours. Things like skin and 99% of what we see on average are happily contained in an sRGB gamut range.
I did tests on a few hundred images to see if I gained anything when working with a larger gamut - Adobe RGB (aRGB). I compared with the same images as sRGB which is smaller. I was surprised to find that only a handful of images benefitted - and these were typically ones where there was strong coloured lighting and one notable set where the subject was wearing an intensely strong red dress.
Contrary to what many of us hope, our printers usually struggle with a gamut of aRGB. The printer company I use (GraphiStudio) do have a lovely printer that will handle aRGB on a commercial scale - but it costs over $3,000,000 Certainly my inkjet printer isn't trustworthy to aRGB and I love my printer.
Of course web use requires sRGB anyway, so if we work in a larger gamut range, we're compromising later anyway by squishing that gamut down after we've spent all those ours finessing and fiddling. I prefer to work towards getting the max out of an image within the limitations of delivery - so 99% of the time I process and work entirely in an sRGB workspace. And my images don't suffer for it - but I do at least know exactly what it will print like or be viewed on the web.
Now if we're making conversions later (like to CMYK) it does pay to work in an aRGB gamut because the shape of the CMYK gamut is different than the aRGB or sRGB range. And if you have some extreme colours (and know you can deliver them), then working in aRGB can be a benefit. (Like that red dress where I had Graphistudio use a special paper and their £3,000,000 printer to get the results.
But either way, ProPhoto is absolutely HUGE. Far bigger than any device can cope with. You're not future proofing with his gamut, you're just hindering yourself. (And remember - JPEG is only 8-bit so ver not suited to such a gamut. Heck, I get nervous using aRGB with an 8-bit file type).
You are right that LR is internally colour managed. It uses ProPhoto as an internal space to make its calculations. But then you still need to view it, and left unchecked, LR will happily attempt to show you a huge gamut - bigger than your monitor can see. And then when you output, even if you convert to a smaller gamut, you may end up with a few surprises when those colours that you didn't see get squished into view. So we'd have to soft proof, or easier we just tell LR to show in a particular colourspace by default by setting preferences.
I use Capture One (its colours are more accurate), and it has a very easy way of setting the colourspace to view everything in.
My monitor is a lovely Eizo CG319X which can cope with aRGB, but I still work in sRGB throughout in almost every circumstance.
But if you take anything away from all of this, it's that bigger is not always better. 
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