Post Processing queries.

[motorcycho]

I have had a big doubt lately,
I started clicking Photos in RAW format,for reasons being its easier to control the white balance and exposure, rest all can be taken care of on the CS3.

But there is a big issue with how the pics look!!!
I use Fast stone image viewer to go through the pics, CS3 for post processing.and often after the post processing n conversion into jpeg the pics look completely different in all the softwares!! like,
as on fast stone-they look OK,
CS3-they look good, as in sharper n realistic colours,
Windows picture viewer-they look dull and not so sharp,
and even with light room (where they look the best!)
they pics look different after the post processing!!

My question is, now which software to follow??

And as stated by vicky in the other thread,about the colour space,which one is a better option?? sRGB or Adobe RGB? my usage just goes up to uploading the pics on the web, nothing much apart from that.

[KrishnenduKes]

Query Approved

About the RGB, I was once adviced by a good photographer to always use AdobeRGB and not sRGB. The rest I will leave the experts like Vickash and Ps and maybe Sunny do the talking.

[nelson_sanjoy]

Yes I feel people use Adobe RGB more since it from the same place as PS CS3.

[synn]

Adobe RGB has a wider gamut, so it's better to take pics in this color space. However, your final output should be converted to sRGB for compatibility issues. Several softwares such as the windows picture viewer and internet browsers don't correctly interpret adobe RGB.

[powerslave]

Adobe RGB has a wider gamut, so it's better to take pics in this color space. However, your final output should be converted to sRGB for compatibility issues. Several softwares such as the windows picture viewer and internet browsers don't correctly interpret adobe RGB.

Taking pictures in aRGB is better is a blanket statement. I'm no expert but as long as you're not printing or know what you're doing, sRGB is your best bet.

[synn]

It's not really a blanket statement. sRGB is supposed to be a universal color format, which means it has to compromise on the number of colors it supports. Adobe RGB was crafted with the graphic artist in mind and hence has a wider gamut. If you're someone who is very picky about dynamic range and especially if you're into HDRs, Adobe RGB will help you save files with the maximum color info saved in them.

[powerslave]

It may be a superior color space, but it doesn't necessarily have to be " better to take pics in this color space". That's all.

[synn]

Like I said, it all depends on how picky you are about your dynamic range. The first rule of creative arts is that there are no rules. This is the theory of it, but it is entirely up to the artist whether or not to implement it. :)

[veereshai]

Taking pictures in aRGB is better is a blanket statement. I'm no expert but as long as you're not printing or know what you're doing, sRGB is your best bet.

I would personally advice anyone to shoot in AdobeRGB because of the wider gamut. And at the pace at which technology is progressing, we are going to have devices which can make use of adobe RGB color space (I guess Firefox 3 already has an option of viewing a picture in various spaces). And coming to printing (uses CMYK), it has even lesser number of colors than RGB and that sucks. Coz what you see on your screen is not what you get when prints are done.

One of the few people I admire advised me, shoot in Adobe RGB and conversion to sRGB should be the last option. And that's what I have been doing ever since.


EDIT:
Synn, Isn't dynamic range to do with light than color? So, how does dynamic range fit into color space?

Powerslave, to a very large extent it is better to stick to Adobe RGB since the colors would be closer to what you would have seen in the first place. But, to be honest, unless you get the numeric values (the hex values) out from these pictures for analysis, they pretty much look the same.