Relevant example for ppRGB vs adobeRGB

I realized after the last post that I need to give a real world example. The example that I am going to give is from the recent shot below:

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I took this into Photoshop in 16-bit ppRGB and softproofed it to the profile of my local costco's Noritsu and to adobeRGB. In both cases, I show the gamut warning (in grey).

Here is the soft proof for adobeRGB (click for large version):


As you can see a lot is out of gamut in the mountain area that is lit by the rising sun. Especially the green of the trees is far out.

Now take a look at the same for the local costcos:


Far less is out of gamut. Especially the green/yellow of the lit trees is not at all out of gamut, while it was in adobeRGB. This clearly shows that in real world images, you lose colors that even not so wide gamut machines can print if you use adobeRGB as a working space. Of course, there are not really any displays that can actually display these colors...

Why use prophotoRGB instead of adobeRGB as a working color space?

Lightroom uses a variant of prophotoRGB as its internal colorspace and when you export to photoshop, it defaults to prophotoRGB. One could argue that this is overkill and adobeRGB should be wide enough. However, typical DSLRs can easily capture color outside of adobeRGB. "What does that matter if you cannot print those colors?", you might ask. The answer is that as soon as your printer has more inks than just CMYK, you can reproduce colors outside of adobeRGB! This can be easily shown when comparing profiles in Apple's excellent and free colorsync utility app. Even worse, you do not need a good printer to reproduce these colors, if you send your images to Costco's, Adorama, smugmug, and such for printing, you could be using their profiles for conversion and you would be able to reproduce color outside of adobeRGB. Don't believe me, here is the proof:



The wireframe in this graph is adobeRGB, the solid, colored volume is the glossy profile from my local costcos. As you can see the costco profile indicates that their Noritsu in this case can generate color outside of adobeRGB! Now compare this with the same figure for prophotoRGB:



As you see the entire range of colors that costcos printers can reproduce is enclosed.
Of course if you are working in less than 16 bits (everything in LR is 16 bit, so that is not anything to worry about), ppRGB might not be a good choice as you blow up the difference between 2 color values too much and you might get posterization. Fortunately, basically everything in Photoshop is 16 bits nowadays. So for prints from costco, a good workflow is to export to 16-bit ppRGB tiffs/psds, convert to the right profile in photoshop and then convert to 8-bit and save as a jpeg.

Effect of aperture on depth of field

I recently did a silly little test that every photography book tells you to do as practice, but for some reason I had never done. The test is to show the effect of aperture on depth-of-field. The more open the lens (smaller f-stop), the shallower the depth of field is and conversely, the smaller the lens opening, the larger the depth-of-field. Also focal length plays into the equation. Here is a simple calculator that shows you the depth-of-field for a certain f-stop/focal length combination. Strange that I never actually did it as I use the effect all the time in my photography to for example isolate people from their backgrounds. It is the number one thing that makes people think you are a professional, so it is a good idea to know how to use it. Here is an example of a prime Nikkor 50 mm/1.8 lens on a DX Nikon DSLR:

f/1.8


As you see, the depth-of-field is extremely narrow and does not even extend throughout one leaf.

f/2.8

At 2.8 the depth-of-field is much less narrow and several leafs are in focus.

f/5.6

At 5.6 most of the field is in focus, but the extremes are still blurry.

And finally, f/11

Basically everything is in focus. If you go much further on a small sensor (DX) DSLR, you will loose resolution due to diffraction. In the last image, at f/22 this is the case, but fortunately, you will never see this at websizes, you will even have trouble seeing it in largish prints.

f/22:


Again, simple, but I thought an effective demonstration.

Lastly, a demonstration of the effect in a simple portrait:

Bride getting ready:

As you can see only her right eye is in focus. Her left eye is already out.

Smugmug

I started setting up a site to sell photographs from weddingshoots. After lots and lots of research, I started using smugmug.com. They have incredibly nice galleries and a very easy to use ordering system for your clients. So far, I love them. If you sign up, use code O4fziJ8xijDDw in the referral field. Saves me and you money. Check out my page too!

Arvada art studio tour

I live in a small suburb town between Denver and Boulder called Arvada. Every year a studio tour by local artists is organized. As you might expect the level wildly varies. We visited some interesting photographers here too. The first ones that struck my fancy were Charlie and Susie Brown. They make some extraordinary pictures. A lot of them are vertically or horizontally digitally stitched panoramas that show a really good eye. I loved the vertical panormas. Very impressive work. Their presentation was absolutely lovely. I loved that lots of the work was done on the 6 MP Canon 10D, more proof that your camera doesn't matter. Check out their website for sure. I also saw some work by Ron Rathbun that was interesting. Ron is a more traditional photographer that shoots exclusively Velvia slide film. His wife makes western style watercolors. Wonderful people and wonderful artworks. Check out their website. I will be sure to participate in this fun event too next year.