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Your camera is probably capable of capturing color images in a variety of different color bins called "spaces." These camera color spaces collect colors in one of several differently sized light containers labeled sRGB, AdobeRGB, and RAW.
Each container gathers slightly increased light varieties, similar to the way Crayola crayons are packaged and sold in increasingly comprehensive color collections; small, large and jumbo.
Camera color spaces offer photographers a variety of different sized boxes.
A debate in the photographic community usually arises over which color spaces to choose in the camera preferences. Some color spaces capture more hues and saturated colors than others. Images captured in one space may include more colors than another.
Each space is ideally suited for certain purposes, and the question of which camera color space to choose needs some exploration. In addition to the issue of capture, choosing a color space for post-production editing will depend on the final use of the image.
Your camera's color spaces affect not only the color data, but also the need for additional disk space. Larger color spaces provide more bit depth (we'll see that in a moment), which takes up more digital space on the memory card. Hence, the choice of which one to use also has practical importance.
What color space of the camera to use
There is no single perfect choice of color space, so let's examine which is best for specific situations.
Unless a photo's sole purpose is to be viewed as a high-resolution digital image, you may want to convert the file's original color space for a less demanding result. However, always keep in mind that whenever a file changes from a larger to a smaller color space (from RAW to AdobeRGB, or from AdobeRGB to sRGB), the color intensity and integrity of the image may decrease over time. process. Some imaging applications are less demanding than others.
While copies of digital files remain identical in size and shade to the original no matter how many times they've been copied, when a digital file mutates to a lower color space, it will always lose some critical color information. Camera color spaces in general, and device color spaces in particular, are all unique. Each serves a particular purpose.
It's a matter of depth
The difference between camera color spaces boils down to a matter called bit depth. Bit depth is a mathematical description of how many visible distinctions between shades of color different devices (a technical term for scanners, cameras, computer monitors, and printing presses) can recognize and reproduce. Unfortunately, not all devices can reproduce all colors equally (which is the main obstacle among all color problems).
Each device reads and reproduces color using a different process. While this seems like a fixable problem, there is a sad and unsolvable reality behind the problem. There are at least three different interpretations of color at play in each capture-display-print cycle.
First, cameras capture color by recording light intensities as electrical signals and interpreting these signals as colors. Each color is assigned a specific number.
Secondly, these numbers are then sent to your computer. Here, they're translated into another process that interprets those electrical signals into a process that turns on little lights (called pixels) on a backlit screen.
And thirdly, those pixels are then sent to a printing press which instructs those pixel values to spit little splashes of colored ink onto the paper.
It's a very complicated process that color scientists have been trying to make simple for years. Unfortunately, it's not that simple!
However, during this digital transition, several methods are employed that utilize various color spaces in order to transform colors from one device to another as accurately as possible. Sometimes color translations don't convey colors as accurately as we would like, which is why monitor colors sometimes don't match printer colors.
Science uses graphs like this one to plot the characteristics of camera color spaces. While these graphs are referred to as "theoretical" because they are not visible to the human eye, they represent what each "bucket" of color can capture versus what the eye can see.
The ultimate referee
The only complete color space that maps the full extent of what the human eye can see is what the scientific community calls the L*a*b* (inverted horseshoe diagram) space.
The human eye is the final arbiter in the color wars, and all device capabilities (camera, display, and printer) are defined by how they match the eye's master gamut. That's why this strange horseshoe shape is called a reference space. All other devices, be it camera, display or printer, can only recognize and use portions of this "reference space", and usually do not match each other.
Color is like a very diverse and dysfunctional family. Each device speaks a different dialect of a similar language. Each one produces colors that cannot be reproduced faithfully on other devices. Color is therefore a very messy topic.
Some devices can express color more fully than others. Unfortunately, no man-made device can reproduce all the colors that can be seen by humans. Also, colors captured by one device that fall outside the gamut (size of the Crayola box) of other devices are clipped, lost, or compressed during handoff. Those colors never come home.
This is the tragic truth about digital color reproduction. The trick to color reproduction is to keep as much of a common color as possible throughout the process. Fortunately, the human eye itself (and the brain) are very forgiving of accepting the limitations of non-human devices.
Color reproduction is a true application of the law of diminishing returns and the visual science of physics. Photographers understand this law quite well.
Very rarely can a camera actually capture all the colors and dynamics of an original scene. Furthermore, nature's range of colors extends even beyond the colors that the human eye can identify. Whenever a digital image is transposed from one form to another form, this transformation is an exchange of diminished value.
When an image is transferred from one device to another, those pixel values located outside the target device's color gamut always get lost in translation. The goal of color management and color spaces is to mitigate color loss and maintain as much of the appearance of the original as possible throughout the reproduction process.
RGB spaces (sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhoto RGB)
It all starts with the camera's color settings that are in place when you capture the scene. All cameras capture light through red, green and blue filters (RGB color space). While there are several RGB color spaces to choose from, each one has a slightly different color gamut.
Each color space (sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhoto RGB, etc.) provides a unique collection of color attributes, and each space meets specific display and reproduction requirements.
Gamuts are descriptions of the range of colors that a device can recognize, record, display, or print.
Shooting a vibrant and saturated scene with the camera requires a larger color space. Using a camera color space with a smaller gamut could significantly diminish the stark emotion of the scene. This is why most photography experts encourage photographers to set their cameras to capture images in AdobeRGB.
sRGB
Almost all digital cameras are factory set to capture colors using sRGB as the default color space for a plausible reason: most of the photos we take never get printed! At best, we see them on a computer monitor or on social media. Honestly, most of the images we capture never get beyond the initial glance at the camera's LCD screen. Capturing those images in a higher bit color space is a total waste of disk space.
sRGB was developed by HP, Microsoft (and others) in the early days of television to meet the color gamut needs of most televisions (early versions of computer monitors), and the standard was set a long time ago. The airwaves and internet browsers live on an sRGB diet. As such, the sRGB color space standardizes how images are still viewed on monitors and televisions.
Adobe RGB
If your image's ultimate destination is a monitor or display presence (presentations, the Internet, or television displays), this is probably the best choice for capturing images. However, if you're shooting for print on paper, both AdobeRGB 1998 and ProPhoto RGB contain a wider gamut of colors and are therefore better suited for preparing images for print.
RAW
In fact, the ideal bucket for capturing images actually exceeds the gamuts of all three of these camera color spaces. I'm talking of course about your camera's ability to capture images in RAW format. This is a format that overrides any defined color space.
RAW files capture color in the highest possible bit depth; up to 14 bits per color. RAW is not an acronym; it's more of a description, it means raw. It is the recording of all the limited color depth and uncompressed dynamic range of the original scene. Start in RAW and go down from there. it is the best choice
Camera Color Spaces: Conclusion
We edit images in the camera's ProPhoto RGB or AdobeRGB color spaces to maintain as much color space as needed. Images intended for photographic printing should be transposed in AdobeRGB, those intended for offset printing should be transposed in CMYK, while those intended for the Internet or slideshows must be reduced to sRGB.
Simple enough!
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