What is sRGB, Adobe RGB, Pro Photo RGB

Feb 19, 2019

Let's discuss the colour categories or spaces, I hope you must have noticed one important option in your camera body, Choose colour option sRGB or Adobe RGB, that is the moment make you confused, which colour option to be chosen, If choose sRGB then what will the major impact on the images If chosen Adobe RGB then what will the betterment in colours of the images. What is pro photo RGB, This colour space is available in post-processing software not in a camera body,  Quite a big confusion? Before we proceed to choose the better option, we must know both the options and then move forward. One important thing to know, There is a lot of misinformation floating on the internet world. It's a little complex to understand but not too difficult to understand.

Colour space (A set of colours or colour container)- colour space is just a specific range of colours that can be represented in a given photo. JPEG images contain maximum up to 16.7 million variations of the colours, Does not mean capture all the 16.7 million colours available. Different colour spaces allow you to use the maximum colour range to minimum colours range.

The way to understand, Let's go through the diagrams (Courtesy- Wikipedia, public domain.) and understand all the colour space

 
The human visual system can see all the colours. 
sRGB stands for Standard Red, Green, Blue Colours

sRGB is the default, smallest colour space and covers a very small portion of what human eyes can see easily. That's is the basic definition sRGB. You can fix this option in your camera body.

Adobe- RGB colour space

Adobe-RGB is the medium colour space and covers a better portion of what human eyes can see easily. It is developed by Adobe itself. Adobe RGB is a bit of the odd one out. You can fix this option in your camera body.  The result is not better as sRGB colour space.

Pro Photo RGB[/caption]

Pro Photo RGB- This colour space is new, developed by Kodak. Covers more portion of the colours. This option is available in post-processing software like Lightroom. adobe etc. ProPhoto RGB, the ideal working space to use in most cases. It avoids colour correction and clipping colours problems.

I hope these diagrams help you to understand the colour space available in the world of photography.

The most important challenge to understand, Which colour spaces to be used, Sometimes its a confusion. better shoot in different colour spaces and feel the difference and follow your choice to shoot. But most of the photographers used sRGB colour space and change the colour space as per the shooting requirement and avoid Adobe RGB to use. .I hope you start checking your colour space from now and gradually you can make out the difference and choose the better colour spaces as per the shooting requirement.

Most of the photographer has never ever tried to differentiate or read about this. But I suggest we must know before we proceed towards better photography. Understand the colour correction is totally based upon the colour spaces.

Keep experimenting and Have happy photography to you all.

Photographer and Blogger Prasenjeet Gautam (www.prasenjeetgautam.com) has captured the above image, Not the diagram (Diagram courtesy - Google)