Lightroom & Photoshop Workflow - Color Space & Bit Depth

Written by Gregory Cazillo Friday, January 06, 2012 10:30

I found the email!  When I recorded this I couldn't find the email but here it is!

Hi Greg, I always watch your videos for improving my photography skills as an amateur.

I was wondering what color profiles you use (both in your cameras and when you export the RAW files to TIF or JPG), SRGB or Adobe RGB? (I noticed there's a great debate over the forums about this).

Your videos are great and very very useful!

Many thanks and keep up the good work.

Diego

So here it is Diego!  I prefer to use Prophoto RGB for all editing in Adobe Photoshop along with 16 bit PSD files.  That gives me the maximum amount of data to work with.  As I mentioned in the video photo editing is a destructive process, removing data and pushing pixels around every adjustment you make.  You are much better off starting with the maximum amount of data (RAW file) then moving it to a container which is just as large (PSD, Prophoto RGB, 16 bit) to edit from.  That way you will lose the minimum amount of data while still having plenty to completely fill the final container (jpeg file, sRGB, 8 bit) for print or the web.  Check out the video for the full explanation!