Lessons

Lesson Info

Color Spaces

When I create a new document, one of the choices in here is also down here called color profile and if I click there jeez look at all these choices uh but in general it's mainly these choices and here that people actually use when they created document and so you've probably seen this before where you've seen srg b or you've seen adobe rgb or you've heard people debate about pro photo rgb, that kind of stuff just what the heck is that? And if I'm not overly familiar with it, what should I choose because when you create a new document, you gotta choose it they're also if you're in either light room or in camera raw and you try to open a raw file, then one of the choices that you have to remember at the bottom of your image where there's that line of text in the raw camera one of those choices is right here it's a space that's your color space and it's the same choice is when we have created new document and you just gotta know way which I sent it to so let's just talk briefly about what...

the heck does that mean and then give you some general guidelines I know that there will always be a debate about this setting it's similar to talking to film photographers what about what brand of film to shoot with you're not going to get everyone to agree that a particular brand and um type of film is best for everyone and it's the same thing here and also sometimes the discussions convey it to be rather esoteric and all this stuff where people get into all sorts of things. All I can say is if you understand what the menu is, you understand the details of it then great go off and figure out all those things, but if you don't understand the menu, you have no clue and all you're doing is here in all these discussions and it makes you more confused because nobody seems to agree I want to give you my opinion, but just so you know it's my opinion it's just like me telling you what brand of film to shoot with there's no absolute right answer there's just some general guidelines that might be useful and if anybody disagrees with anything I say find disagreements looks like go by different brand of film good with me and so in general behind the scenes your images are all men out of red, green and blue. The reason why your images are made out of red, green and blue is because technically that's what your eyes are sensitive to in your eyes there are receptors for three colors of light no it's red, green and blue you don't have to think about it because your eyes automatically perceive what you see as being a combination of red green blue, but if you just want to see it and photoshopped to see that anything that you see here could be made out of red, green and blue here I have circles of red, green, blue and I have them set up so they act like light. Imagine it's a dark room and these air spotlights on guy have a red spotlighted green one or the blue one. Well, I find move these around and overlap, just like with a spotlight on if you were seen it on stage, but often they have red, green and blue spotlight, and what they'll do is moving around the stage to make it look all dramatic. And then when someone comes out, they have all the lights, the beams come together and when they all come together just where they come together, you see white light any time you see white light, it's, red, green and blue in equal amounts and that's how you get white, but you'll see that on stage. Sometimes they go who I'll fancy all colors, and then somebody comes out, they'll put the lights together, and if it's red, green, blue light comes together, makes white, huh? So you can take any image you ever make in using a special technique you can separate it into red green blue where you could move the pieces around and so I've done that here with with this so I can just pull these apart that's something we're not going to cover here because that's not a fundamental thing as far as how to pull your image apart but any image any picture I could do this with and you'd see behind the scenes it's really made out of red, green and blue so that little men menu that we use all it does is it says what color of red green in blue is your image made out of are they pastel versions of red, green and blue? Are they so vivid that they burn your eyes when you look at it like some modern clothing these days it looks like it needs batteries you know like florence and colors whatever um that kind of stuff but that's all that menu does is it says what color of red, green and blue are we making our documents out of? Is it an overly vivid version of red, green and blue or is it a mellow version of red, green and blue? And what it does in general is it defines what are the most colorful colors you could make what's the limitation of how colorful things could become that's what that menu controls now for average photographs for a picture of a person's face with a tree behind them that setting does not matter whatsoever it on ly matters when you get really vivid colors that are going to start pushing up against the limits of what the image is capable of having do you remember when I had an image of a bunch of I think there were colorful little lanterns in shop we were using it I think yesterday to adjust color and when I brought up saturation there was a red lamp when I brought it up to high suddenly the details started going away well that's when I was pushing the edge of the color and I went so far that I tried to make something more colorful than what was possible know if you remember that or not that's the same image right here when I had this image open I think we zoomed up on this red area right here and you could see detail in it I can see detail in it right now can you? But when I go over here and choose human saturation and I bring up saturation at a certain point in here you will no longer see is fine of detail you see it start to go away in the middle that means I'm pushing it beyond the color space of chosen meaning that if I define my image out of pastel colored red green and blue and I try to push it beyond what's capable in the pastel color range it's going to start losing detail like that it's no it's known a saturation clipping and it's when you get that showing up that changing your color space could be useful using a different color space could be useful but if you never have that problem then the setting you're using is perfectly fine you wouldn't notice any difference in general but if you work with really colorful images pictures of flowers they're overly vivid pictures of these things whatever it is and you find that when you push up the saturation you seem to run into that point where the details starts going away in the most colorful areas only then should you consider that you might want to learn about this thing called color spaces and you might want to choose a setting that we better for that particular kind of image but for an average picture picture I'd taken this room of anything in this room not gonna matter whatsoever because nothing in this room is anywhere close to the limit of the most colorful things we could make within most files to make any sense at all so let's look a little bit more in depth at it and then I'll give you some guidance on it this shape is a standard shape people that talk about color use it represents the most colorful colors your eyes are capable of scene it's not actually showing you the most colorful colors your eyes are capable scene because this computer screen isn't capable of it, you can see something more vividly red than what that screen could show by far because this screen can't shows things as vividly red is your eyes are capable of but that's what this represents then when you pick a color space, all you're doing is you're picking the color of red, green and blue your pictures made out of in that forms a triangle in here and let's see what the differences are between the most popular choices. First there would be s rgb this would be the color of red you're and they just made out of this is the color of green this is the color of blue connect the dots between the three and you can't go beyond that. I can't create anything more vivid than that, but remember, this is not actually showing you the colors don't look at it and think, oh, I can't make that green knowe this represents the most vivid green your eyes capable of perceiving and your computer screen can never show you that your printer can't even print that it's just it represents it. So when I will see this shape, just glance at what that looks like a pretty limited range, but this isn't really showing me the full range that we're talking about we're referring to anyway that's s r g b then there are two other choices that are very common this is s rgb another one would be adobe rgb so what adobe rgb does is it allows you to have more vivid science more vivid greens in more vivid yellows because that's how it expands out there and then there's another one that you'll hear a lot of debate about and that's pro photo this is how big pro photo is it can create colors that your eye is incapable of scene they're perceiving the difference between it in something less colorful because it goes beyond the shape right you might think bigger is better it's not bigger is not necessarily better but the smallest ones in here is s rgb the medium one is adobe rgb and the large one of pro photo and just so what means I can create more vivid colors because I can push him out there so what that means is if I'm in srg b and I bring up that saturation slider the second I hit this way wall of the edge of this little triangle and try to push it out to a more vivid color I started losing the detail like we saw in that little red lamp with the detail started going away and it means hey in that particular instance if I had a bigger triangle I might have been able to push it further before the details started going away something that makes any sense to you or not, but that's what it does now, how the heck do I choose between those? Because you would think the biggest one would allow you have the most? Well, what if your printer in your screen can't display colors that air that vivid out there? It be useful to be able to see how much my printer in my screen could show me? Well, I have some for printers. Unfortunately, I don't have them for the most modern printers because a software used to create this I no longer have access to, and I haven't purchased a new version as far as I remember it's inexpensive software, I think it's called color think, and I did this on a friend's machine when I had access to it, and I just haven't had access to it since more modern printers air out, so I'm going to choose an older printer. Here is a printer using premium paper. More modern printers that have more colors of ink in it with a lot would have a shape larger than that, but anyway, let's say this is the range of colors your printer is capable printing on some more modern printers. This shape would be a little larger, and so the main thing too take from this that I would try to take away from it is the following let's, turn off a few of these and just look at srg b s rgb is the most common color space used and it limits your printing if you print out a desktop printer because your desktop printer is capable of putting a very vivid green button srg bialy can get to here I can't get it out there to the most vivid green like printers capable off also can't get to the most vivid yellow can't get to the most vivid kind of magenta ish color and I'm limiting the range that aiken print because my image can't contain those colors just can't go out and get that vivid so s rgb is not the most versatile color space to be in, but it is what's needed for certain things it's needed for the internet at the internet assumes your images in that space and if it's not your images sometimes look weird online but we can solve that easily whatever you save anything to be used on the internet just go over here and instead of using savers say that you say for webb because in safer webb is a choice it's right over here called convert to s rgb it's turned on by default just make sure it's on the internet assumes on many programs that that's turned on and if you don't have that check box turned on the colors could look different when you view things on the internet so we can solve that? Fine we can. We don't have to work and have surgery all the time. Just turn that on when we save for the internet, you safer web to save it, and we're okay. So let's, get away from s rgb and go to adobe rgb a lot of people end up once they start learning about color spaces, they start off with that surgery when they didn't know what the thing meant, and then they progressed to adobe rgb. Now adobe rgb is a pretty good compromise look at it, it encompasses most of what this particular printer was capable of printing. We're losing just a tiny bit in the yellows, a tiny bit in the sand, a tiny bit in the magenta but not a dramatic amount, right weaken in our file. We can have most of the colors we can print, so adobe rgb is the setting that I would suggest for most people that print on their own desktop printer, because you can get a wider range of colors autumn, then I would not casually suggest pro photo because you really need to be educated about what you're doing because you can push color so far that they're so beyond what's printable where that you won't be able to see that. Additional saturation. Because your printer can't make something that colorful, you're going to be beyond what your screen is capable of showing you, you're going to be on a lot of things if you push the saturation hard in that color space. Um, so I'm not trying to talk people out of pro photo I'm saying on ly people that really know what this means and have educated themselves about it should have it there. So I would try to talk you out of casual use of pro photo adobe rgb, though I think it's fine to use, just make sure if you save something for the internet, you safer web when you do it, you have that check box turned on uncalled convertirse, rgb. And then the other thing is, if all you ever do with your pictures is, put him online and send them out to service bureaus that print your photos for you. They come back looking like photographic prints, most of those service bureaus that output your images and they come back like photographic prints. They want your images to be an s rgb. That's what they prefer you could talk to him and say, hey, what do you want my images to be most of the mostly have started to be so if that's all you do is you say if it goes on my website and I send it off to get prints back from a particular service bureau, that s rgb would be fine if you have your own printer though on your desk you can get more vivid colors by using adobe rgb so s rgb for some folks if you just don't want to think about it s r j b is not going to harm your image the only time you're going to notice it is if you pump up saturation so far that you bump into the most colorful color you could make there which is not on all that many photos then it's on lee then that you would gain by going to adobe rgb and on lee again when you bump into it and adobe rgb where it would be useful to go up to pro photo and so I just want to give you a general sense for that some people should be on a surgeon be and don't feel bad about being a surgeon because even though other people talk about the other spaces, adobe rgb is pretty safe alternative to that in pro photo on lee if you get pretty darn educated about it that's my opinion about color spaces I switched myself I have my own printer on my desk between adobe rgb and pro photo those were the two I end up going between it really depends on what I'm trying to do in mainly that contents of my picture if the contents of my picture does not contain overly vivid colors then it doesn't matter it's only when I pushed the colors to their limit where they start losing detail when I hit the edge of the color space where it would be an advantage going bigger so it's up to you it's just like talking about what kind of film you shoot with though everyone's going toe disagree on what to use and all that kind of stuff so um hopefully it gives you some sense what's the disadvantage of professors it file size or something like that one no it's not file size it's when I make an adjustment in pro photo first off it's hard to make a subtle adjustment the sliders that you used to make adjustments make larger changes because the slider that you're moving let's say it has a number related to it so if you want to tell somebody else setting your using there's a number that move changes when you move the slaughter most of those numbers have a limitation of either zero to one hundred percent or zero to two fifty five those air the number ranges they usually have and if you're in pro photo moving in just one digit up moving it from fifty to fifty one is actually a pretty big change in the moving in s rgb from fifty to fifty one is actually a small change in the image you can have more subtle changes in adjustments when you're in the smaller color spaces so just going bigger isn't always better and if you push the saturation you can push it easily beyond the range that's printable it's not that it's not printable it's like it's not going to look as vivid is the file thinks it is it's going to have to shift it to the most vivid color printable and when you do that it's a little less than ideal so I would say on ly think about pro photo if you work with very vividly colored pictures when you bring up the saturation you notice it losing detail or if you look in the info panel and you put your mouse on it you see the numbers in the info palette where they say rgb either hitting zero or to fifty five on a colorful area if you do that remove your mouse over a colorful area it's hitting either zero or two fifty five it means you're at the limit and going bigger might help but if you're not getting that then there's there's not an advantage being up there in my opinion other questions I'm sure there are debates and yeah, wow, all sorts of stuff we're gonna take it there, ok? From phil birdie who asked what about changes working space versus color space and out put color to a lab every time I go into photo shot from light room, it asked about embedded or working? What do I need to say? Ok? Embedded spaces, working spaces, all this kind of stuff. Any time you see the word working space, what it means is there's a preference and photoshopped. Let me show it to you if I go to the edit menu and I show all my menu items there's a color settings in here, there's a lot of settings, but you can ignore mall except for one this is rgb, and all this means is when I make a brand new document by going to the file menu and choosing new what color of red, green and blue is it made out of it means when I make a new document, we gotta pick something this is right here is choosing the default this is what's known as you're working space, so this is where you're choosing your like your default setting so some people want to start to be if all you do is the internet and you send out your images to service peerless where they bring back a print yes sir to be fine if you got a printer on your desk you might want instead go for adobe rgb and if your color geeky already know what you're doing here and I shouldn't need to tell you you might decide to go to pro photo but only if you really know why you're there in white south pole in how to utilize it so right there this is your rgb working space look okay now photo shop bugs me like you would not believe in certain areas it is so anal about settings that it's mind blowing that it makes things so much more difficult than it ever needs to be you open a picture now that someone else gave you you copy something out of it and you try to paste it into a document that you've made yourself and a warning comes up and it goes old the embedded profile mismatch it's not the same as the profile for this document in general when you see those warnings clip don't show again and click ok because all that dialog box means is the person that made this document uses a different setting than you and we're just going to make it look right when you pasted in we're going to deal with the technical part behind the scenes so if you ever see the mismatch dialog box when you're pasting say don't show again and click ok and don't worry about it it means the person that gave you that file such their files up differently let's say they use srg b I use adobe rgb it will convert it over in a way that makes it look identical when it's pasted in and everything will work fine it's just warning you about it. So if you don't want to get those warnings, go to the edit menu when you go to color settings down here, it says, hey here's, our policies right here, color management policies what should we do in here? It says mismatch profile, miss mash, what should we dio should we ask when openings we ask when you pasted? Should we bug you every time you can imagine if you're a colored geek, turn all these things on and love all those warnings you get constantly? If you're a normal human nontechnical visual person, turn these things that how off the on ly one you might want to keep on is the bottom one missing profiles would mean I'm opening picture, and it doesn't have a profile attached to it, which means I don't know what it's supposed to look like. I don't know if it's supposed to be made out of vivid red, green and blue or mellow red, green and blue, so I'm gonna just show it somehow that's the only one it might leave off and therefore I know that hey, the colors might look wrong might not look right if that warning comes up appear for color management policies. This means what should I do if I open a picture? That's tagged with adobe rgb, but I use something else. Usually when I make new files, what should I d'oh and I would leave all of these set to preserve all that means is leave the picture and whatever mode it started in don't mess with it. So if you said all of these to preserve profiles and you turn off all these check boxes except for the bottom ones, you will get the fewest warnings on occasion, though even with turning this junk off, it'll still warn you, but whatever warning it is, we'll have a don't show again, checkbox and it's only once you're going to see it again. If you turn on, don't show again and click ok and don't worry about it it's gonna handle it when you copy and paste between documents and it's it's not going to mess things up so that's what I do now, so they're saying the wording they used working space versus embedded working space is simply your default setting for if you create a new document it's the setting I showed you a second ago embedded means what's attached to the picture you're currently opening, so all it means is the person that gave you this picture uses a different setting than me who cares? It'll just open the picture you can use it just fine if you copy from that taste in your document, it'll warn you say don't show again click ok it'll paste it'll look perfectly fine when it goes in because it will do a mathematical conversion that keeps that looking consistent in right so I would turn off most of that junk unless you're a color geek if your color geeky already got it all on, you already know it all means, but they put in so many warnings they make photo shop intimidating when it doesn't have to be okay, so then I'll just say that there are the questions are streaming in, but I just like everyone at home to know that right before the break in was like maybe we'll throw color space in their will on and she's like you know what can a word you're opening? Ok that's, another three day workshop but the fact that you can have such simple, understandable explanations by just throwing this in there then is pretty amazing yeah, well, I mean it's important it's a fundamental thing is over a popular one other detail about it people you see how your way and that is remember there was one check box I said you could leave on and that's when something's missing and that means the file doesn't contain a profile and that means it knows how much red, green and blue to use in various areas of the damage but it doesn't know what color of red green and blue it should be using which means it doesn't know how to display the image properly so if you ever get one that says missing it'll give you a little pop up menu that lets you choose what you think it should be. The problem is there's not usually a preview but so if you ever get one this is missing just click ok and do the following let me get a picture open imagine I open this image when I did it said missing profile and you're like oh thing it um just click ok on the warning doesn't matter what you choose in there and do this choose a sign profile it was missing you're gonna give it one on ly time I use the sign profile is when what's there is missing not there or it's wrong and it's almost never wrong so they'd have go out of their way to make it wrong and all you're going to do here is choose from this menu and you're going to choose the three choices that everybody uses which is s rgb that dopey rgb in pro photo you're just going to switch between him and look at the picture you're guessing at which one to use but you're guessing with visual feedback watch the picture you see a change and then choose the next one see a change and then she's the next one and that's obviously the wrong setting, I think because it looks on natural right? So then I tried dobie and like now that could be and then I try s it's one of those two is my guess s would be the right one. I don't know the answer because whoever gave me the file didn't include the profile. It makes it so I have to guess. And so I just visually guess I say that one uh were that one? Maybe this one and click ok in to avoid it. Other people having that problem any time you save a picture you ever save a picture leave this track box turn on if you turn it off, the picture is not gonna look right to whoever it is you give it to I mean it's in the save as dialog box right now, if you turn that on, they'll never get a missing dialog box. Whoever gave you the picture that didn't have a profile have that check box turned off and it made it so you had to guess in the image might not look quite right. But you're making a visual guests. And hopefully, you guessed right there. Look good. But leave that checkbox turned on always.