Imaging Working Group

Hi IWG, 

I hope that your summer is off to a good start! 

Here's my question for you this month: 

Considering that most of my clients in wall painting conservation (stakeholders/property managers) don't actually have the capability to view the full color space that Adobe RGB (1998) and broader color spaces produce, should I just use sRGB for the majority of my processed images? Or is there a reason to output Adobe RGB (1998) (or others) even if it isn't viewed properly?

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Wendy Rose
Alexandria VA
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Hi Wendy,

 This is a very interesting question. By the same token you could ask why bother to color calibrate your image captures if most people are going to view those images on uncalibrated, unreliable monitors? I would say that the quality, calibration status, and color gamut of the viewers screens are unknowable and uncontrollable variables so they should not be taken into account. As a cultural heritage image maker you should be concerned with what is under your control, which is encoding the most accurate color and tonal data into your image files as possible. For consistency, it's best to settle on a single RGB space to be the color space that you always output primary images into and stick with it. As long as the space is embedded with the image file, almost all apps in common use now will read and honor that embedded color space. Most new screens (Computer, phone and tablet) are P3 gamut (which is similar to Adobe 98) and I think soon enough sRGB will be a thing of the past. 

The other side of this is that in cultural heritage most of the objects that we work with are made up of only colors that will all fit within the sRGB color space, so even if you are exporting to Adobe or ProPhoto RGB, all or almost all of the colors in the image are reproducible on sRGB gamut screens. 

I think that the calibration status of screens is much more of an issue than color gamut. I calibrate a lot of monitors at the Met and the factory settings are almost always way too bright, contrasty and saturated to give an accurate rendering of a digital image file.

-Chris

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Chris Heins
Imaging Specialist
Metropolitan Museum of Art
chris.heins@metmuseum.org
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Hi Chris, 

 Thanks so much for this great thoughtful response! Yeah without calibrated screens I suppose it all generally isn't been viewed properly. However, since the color accuracy (in my experience) is mostly being used by conservators to understand change over time, if two images have the same color space and are both being viewed on the same uncalibrated monitor together, the differences should still be apparent, even if not viewed accurately.

 Are you generally using Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB as your standard?

Cheers!

 Wendy

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Wendy Rose
Alexandria VA
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-28-2024 12:27
From: Christopher Heins
Subject: Monthly imaging question - June

Hi Wendy,

 This is a very interesting question. By the same token you could ask why bother to color calibrate your image captures if most people are going to view those images on uncalibrated, unreliable monitors? I would say that the quality, calibration status, and color gamut of the viewers screens are unknowable and uncontrollable variables so they should not be taken into account. As a cultural heritage image maker you should be concerned with what is under your control, which is encoding the most accurate color and tonal data into your image files as possible. For consistency, it's best to settle on a single RGB space to be the color space that you always output primary images into and stick with it. As long as the space is embedded with the image file, almost all apps in common use now will read and honor that embedded color space. Most new screens (Computer, phone and tablet) are P3 gamut (which is similar to Adobe 98) and I think soon enough sRGB will be a thing of the past. 

The other side of this is that in cultural heritage most of the objects that we work with are made up of only colors that will all fit within the sRGB color space, so even if you are exporting to Adobe or ProPhoto RGB, all or almost all of the colors in the image are reproducible on sRGB gamut screens. 

I think that the calibration status of screens is much more of an issue than color gamut. I calibrate a lot of monitors at the Met and the factory settings are almost always way too bright, contrasty and saturated to give an accurate rendering of a digital image file.

-Chris

------------------------------
Chris Heins
Imaging Specialist
Metropolitan Museum of Art
chris.heins@metmuseum.org
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 7/1/2024 8:27:00 AM
From: Wendy Rose
Subject: RE: Monthly imaging question - June

Hi Chris, 

 Thanks so much for this great thoughtful response! Yeah without calibrated screens I suppose it all generally isn't been viewed properly. However, since the color accuracy (in my experience) is mostly being used by conservators to understand change over time, if two images have the same color space and are both being viewed on the same uncalibrated monitor together, the differences should still be apparent, even if not viewed accurately.

 Are you generally using Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB as your standard?

Cheers!

 Wendy

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Wendy Rose
Alexandria VA
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