Nikon D200 User Manual
Page 23
Adobe RGB should never be used unless you really know what you're doing and do all
your printing yourself. If you use Adobe RGB you will have to remember to convert back to
sRGB for sending your prints out or sharing them, otherwise they look duller than sRGB!
Adobe RGB squeezes colors into a smaller range (makes them duller) before recording
them to your file. Special smart software is then needed to expand the colors back to
where they should be when opening the file.
If you have the right software to re-expand the colors you theoretically might have a
slightly broader range of colors. If at any point in the chain you don't have the right
software and haven't attached the AdobeRGB profile, you'll get duller colors as recorded!
Web browsers don't have, and print labs rarely have, the right software to read
AdobeRGB. This is why people who shoot it are so often disappointed. If a place has the
right software, but you forget to add AdobeRGB profiles to your files you'll get dull colors.
Adobe RGB may be able to represent a slightly larger range of colors, but no screen or
print material I've used can show this broader range, so why cause yourself all the trouble?
I've experimented with 100% saturated grads in these two color spaces and never seen
any broader range from Adobe RGB either on my screen or on SuperGloss Light jet prints.
Worse, if you're the sort of geek who wants to shoot AdobeRGB because you read about it
in a magazine, did you realize that because the colors are compressed into a smaller
range there is more chroma quantization noise when the file is opened again? Ha!
I know this stuff. Did you know I conceived the world's first dedicated digital colorspace
converter chip, the
k in 1990 when I worked at TRW LSI Products?
Image Quality
button. It chooses JPG, raw or both and the
JPG compression level.
Whether you use the QUAL button or this menu you're also changing your
button for details, and see examples of these settings at
my
Image Size
duplicat
in pixels. It does not directly choose the size of the file in bytes.
button for details, and see examples of these settings at
my
JPEG Compression
is an important but obscure menu choice. It chooses the algorithm
used. It works in addition to the BASIC, NORMAL and FINE choices, giving you six
different JPG settings for each image size!
PDF by Paul Deakin - 23 - © 2006 KenRockwell.com