Q re: ProPhoto RGB working space

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sankos
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Q re: ProPhoto RGB working space

Post by sankos »

PSE Colour Working Space is limited to sRGB and Adobe RGB only (as per the Elements XXL documentation). I'd like to convert my raw files to 16-bit, ProPhoto RGB tiffs. In order to do that I set MetaRaw Color Space settings to ProPhoto RGB and change the PSE Color Settings to ProPhoto RGB Working Space and the Color Management Policies to "Convert to Working RGB" -- this results in a file I can work with. BUT I'd like to make sure that I'm not losing any colours along the way in the conversion pipeline, i.e. is it a "pure" ProPhoto RGB file? Or do I get a file the profile of which was first sRGB and only then converted to ProPhoto RGB (which would make this solution useless)?

HaraldHeim
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Re: Q re: ProPhoto RGB working space

Post by HaraldHeim »

Photoshop Elements (without ElementsXXL) only allows conversions to sRGB and AdobeRGB, but supports all other RGB color spaces, e.g. when you open a ProPhoto RGB file. ElementsXXL lets you convert between all RGB color profiles anyway.

Setting MetaRaw Converter to ProPhoto RGB does not have any effect, because Adobe Camera Raw only outputs sRGB and AdobeRGB in Photoshop Elements. So you can only open sRGB or AdobeRGB images via Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop Elements.

Your settings will make Adobe Camera Raw produce an sRGB image, which is then converted to ProPhoto RGB. To preserve more colors, you should set the Color Settings to "Adobe RGB" as the RGB Working Space. Then after the image is opened you can manually convert it to ProPhoto RGB via Image > Convert Color Profile > Convert To Profile.

If you want to work with real ProPhoto RGB images, your only choice is to convert your raw files to TIFF or PSD outside of Photoshop Elements (e.g. in Lightroom or in one of our PhotoWiz standalones) and then open them in Photoshop Elements.

On the other hand, do you really need ProPhoto RGB? Most devices only display or print sRGB and maximally Adobe RGB. So you will probably never see all ProPhoto RGB colors anyway.

sankos
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Re: Q re: ProPhoto RGB working space

Post by sankos »

Thank you. It's a bummer that PSE ACR is limited this way as well. I'll stick to the Adobe RGB profile for MetaRaw then.

As to why I'd like to work in the ProPhoto RGB space -- my wide-gamut monitor exceeds the Adobe RGB gamut in the shades of blue (it's smaller than it in the magentas), so that could be one reason. The other is simply maximizing on input so that I can avoid issues like banding and posterization on output. But as you say, I can use LR, CO or RT for this kind of output, when it counts.

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