MPI305

Colour Spaces – What’s right for me? September 1, 2006

One of the things that I can do to help my printing problem is to select the right colour space for the job. The two more common colour spaces are RGB and of course the printing industry standard CMYK.  

RGB   

• RGB is the dominant colour space for digital artists.
• It is the default space for most digital cameras and scanners.
• And is the preferred colour space for inkjet printers. Some inkjet printers actually prefer RGB files rather than CMYK. If you send a CMYK file to an inkjet printer that printer will then covert that to RGB for printing.

I’m not sure that by sending an RGB file you would get better results from an inkjet printer rather than printing a from CMYK. Perhaps this is something that I can test as I have an Inkjet printer at home.   

The most recommended RGB working spaces are:

sRGB

This is the default setting in Photoshop and other devices such as digital cameras. This colour working space is better for working with images/graphics inteded for the web, as it was designed to simulate the average uncalibrated monitor. This is a good mode if you don’t really understand colour management because the colours will look pretty much the same on colour managed and non-colour managed applications.  David Harradine explains that “…to see what your Photoshop images will really look like on the web convert them to sRGB—it’s like the CMYK of the web.” The downside to sRGB is that it is not reccomended for printing. Why? The gamut is small, you need a larger workspace to get better results from an output device. And Deep saturated colours maybe clipped or discarded.

Apple RGB

This is another colour working space that is recommended for web and not for print. It has a slightly larger gamut than the previous sRGB.

Adobe RGB ( 1998 )

Has one of the the largest colour spaces. Its gamut covers the range of CMYK devices (Inkjets, digital photo printers).

ColorMatch RGB

A good All purpose colour working space for photographers and digital artists. It has a smaller gamut than Adobe RGB and is considered to be the best/first choice if you are doing a lot of CMYK commercial printing, Adobe RGB being the second choice.

Harradine, D, Understanding Colour Management, part 3, electronic version, http://www.whack.com.au/pdf/ColourMangement_Part3.pdf