Casey Liss

We choose the color space because the raw is really just the values from the sensor and more or less it's raw form after whatever it's called debayering or whatever that thing is where they process the sensors into a bunch of RGB values.

So, like I said, my cameras are set to Adobe RGB, and I'm shooting in JPEG and RAW to two separate cards. But I mostly just deal with the JPEGs. And the idea behind this, what Leo was talking about, is like number of bits per sample. How many bits do you take per sample in this thing? Obviously, if you have 8 bits, you can only have values from 0 to 55.

So, like I said, my cameras are set to Adobe RGB, and I'm shooting in JPEG and RAW to two separate cards. But I mostly just deal with the JPEGs. And the idea behind this, what Leo was talking about, is like number of bits per sample. How many bits do you take per sample in this thing? Obviously, if you have 8 bits, you can only have values from 0 to 55.

If you have 12 or 14 bits, you can get many more values, right? So if you're taking a picture of something like a sky gradient or whatever,

If you have 12 or 14 bits, you can get many more values, right? So if you're taking a picture of something like a sky gradient or whatever,

uh within a you know one inch strip of the thing or whatever or within some strip of the sky you might have uh in the thing off the sensor you might have five different colors blue slightly darker blue slightly darker blue like five different blues right that's in a 12-bit space because you've got a room you've got a room for however many values 12 bits is like it's you know thousands and thousands of different colors you can fit in there right but when you write it to a jpeg they have to take all those thousands of different colors and compress them down to fit in eight bits and that's only 256

uh within a you know one inch strip of the thing or whatever or within some strip of the sky you might have uh in the thing off the sensor you might have five different colors blue slightly darker blue slightly darker blue like five different blues right that's in a 12-bit space because you've got a room you've got a room for however many values 12 bits is like it's you know thousands and thousands of different colors you can fit in there right but when you write it to a jpeg they have to take all those thousands of different colors and compress them down to fit in eight bits and that's only 256

you know, levels for the R, the G, and the B, right? And in an 8-bit thing, those five different blues might map down to a single blue. So what was previously a strip that had five different colors, like a smooth gradient, that same strip now has one color because you can compress it down to 8-bit.

you know, levels for the R, the G, and the B, right? And in an 8-bit thing, those five different blues might map down to a single blue. So what was previously a strip that had five different colors, like a smooth gradient, that same strip now has one color because you can compress it down to 8-bit.

and that is the the danger of possibly seeing banding where you know instead of a smooth gradient where every single line is just a slightly different color blue than the previous one now you see blue number one for half an inch blue number two for half an inch and that's that's banding where you can see these distinct bands of color i have to say i've been shooting adobe rgb for years and years on all my sony cameras and i have never ever ever seen this

and that is the the danger of possibly seeing banding where you know instead of a smooth gradient where every single line is just a slightly different color blue than the previous one now you see blue number one for half an inch blue number two for half an inch and that's that's banding where you can see these distinct bands of color i have to say i've been shooting adobe rgb for years and years on all my sony cameras and i have never ever ever seen this

Right. But it is technically a danger for the reason that I just described. Maybe I'm not shooting enough big gradient skies. Maybe I don't know, like maybe they aren't 8-bit JPEGs on all these cameras. We'll put a link in the show notes to an article by Daniel Lunn about sRGB versus Adobe RGB versus photo RGB that says here are all the different situations where you might want to use sRGB.

Right. But it is technically a danger for the reason that I just described. Maybe I'm not shooting enough big gradient skies. Maybe I don't know, like maybe they aren't 8-bit JPEGs on all these cameras. We'll put a link in the show notes to an article by Daniel Lunn about sRGB versus Adobe RGB versus photo RGB that says here are all the different situations where you might want to use sRGB.

Here's where you might want to use Adobe RGB. Here's when you might want to use pro photo RGB. Right. So I think that provides a reasonably balanced view of, like, the different scenarios where you want each one. The reason I'm personally using Adobe RGB is because when I was first playing with this setting, I took the same exact picture in Adobe RGB and sRGB.

Here's where you might want to use Adobe RGB. Here's when you might want to use pro photo RGB. Right. So I think that provides a reasonably balanced view of, like, the different scenarios where you want each one. The reason I'm personally using Adobe RGB is because when I was first playing with this setting, I took the same exact picture in Adobe RGB and sRGB.

It was just a picture of, like, something in my house that was red. And I brought the pictures back to my computer, and I blind A-B tested them to see if I could tell which one of these is Adobe RGB and which one is sRGB. And holy cow, you could tell.

It was just a picture of, like, something in my house that was red. And I brought the pictures back to my computer, and I blind A-B tested them to see if I could tell which one of these is Adobe RGB and which one is sRGB. And holy cow, you could tell.

Again, taking a picture of a red thing in the house, maybe that's not representative, but the Adobe RGB one was much more red and closer to what I saw with my own eyes when looking at it. So I'm like, well, that's it. I'm done with Adobe RGB. I mean, it makes sense. Adobe RGB covers more of the color space than sRGB does. But I wondered, like, is that something you can even see?

Again, taking a picture of a red thing in the house, maybe that's not representative, but the Adobe RGB one was much more red and closer to what I saw with my own eyes when looking at it. So I'm like, well, that's it. I'm done with Adobe RGB. I mean, it makes sense. Adobe RGB covers more of the color space than sRGB does. But I wondered, like, is that something you can even see?

And my answer was yes. I could tell the difference in a blind test of which was which. And I liked the Adobe RGB one better. So be aware that when saving Adobe RGB to JPEG and you have smooth gradients, maybe banding is an issue. But I personally haven't seen it, and I'm sticking with Adobe RGB.