Back from the fall outing to Kebler. I ran into Richie V (and many others!!) and while chatting and looking at a photo I snapped, he noticed that I had my color space set to sRGB rather than Adobe RGB. Now, my reasoning for this was that I thought RAW was RAW, and that no in camera processing was applied to these files. I thought that the color space settings, plus any of the other user defined settings, were only applied to jpeg files if you are shooting RAW + jpeg. So - I had my camera set this way specifically for my small jpegs that would be posted on the web.
Is the file initially tagged with a color space in camera for ID purposes, but then you can set the 'final' color space again when you actually process the file in ACR? The Canon instructions aren't really very detailed when it comes to this from what I looked at...
I have done some Google searches, but I only end up hitting forum posts here and there with opinion, nothing real definitive. So, I figured I would ask for some opinions that I actually trust - and one of you probably knows the true answer to this question...
Posted by Nat Coalson on October 1, 2007 at 12:07 PM
Michael-
If you capture in raw, the color space setting on your camera (as well as white balance) does not have an effect on the raw capture data; a raw capture does not have an inherent color space. However, it will be used to generate the JPG if you have that option enabled.
With raw images, you assign the color profile when you render the file from your raw convertor.
And the white balance setting is only saved as EXIF metadata.
So color space and white balance only come into play during raw conversion.
For the widest range of colors and most headroom for editing the rendered image, use 16-bit ProPhoto.
Thanks Nat - that is what I thought. I just looked at a RAW image in Canon Zoombrowser and in the details it shows the color space (sRGB) and it even shows the user defined settings for contrast, color and sharpening, etc...
Seems odd that they tag ALL files with this info if it is not applied?
Posted by Nat Coalson on October 1, 2007 at 12:48 PM
Michael - it might seem odd to have all that unnecessary info but I suspect the engineers decided to record all the EXIF data generated by the camera instead of being selective about it.
At least that way you would always have a record of all the settings at the time of capture, which could come in handy in the future when needing to search out specific kinds of captures.
But other software (besides Canon) may or may not show all that metadata on the raw file, assuming it to be irrelevant.
One other type of metadata that does show in Canon software but not others is the selected autofocus point.... I wish that was available in Lightroom...
Discussion
4 repliesIs the file initially tagged with a color space in camera for ID purposes, but then you can set the 'final' color space again when you actually process the file in ACR? The Canon instructions aren't really very detailed when it comes to this from what I looked at...
I have done some Google searches, but I only end up hitting forum posts here and there with opinion, nothing real definitive. So, I figured I would ask for some opinions that I actually trust - and one of you probably knows the true answer to this question...
If you capture in raw, the color space setting on your camera (as well as white balance) does not have an effect on the raw capture data; a raw capture does not have an inherent color space. However, it will be used to generate the JPG if you have that option enabled.
With raw images, you assign the color profile when you render the file from your raw convertor.
And the white balance setting is only saved as EXIF metadata.
So color space and white balance only come into play during raw conversion.
For the widest range of colors and most headroom for editing the rendered image, use 16-bit ProPhoto.
Seems odd that they tag ALL files with this info if it is not applied?
At least that way you would always have a record of all the settings at the time of capture, which could come in handy in the future when needing to search out specific kinds of captures.
But other software (besides Canon) may or may not show all that metadata on the raw file, assuming it to be irrelevant.
One other type of metadata that does show in Canon software but not others is the selected autofocus point.... I wish that was available in Lightroom...