Stop Worrying About Colour Spaces …
Unless You’re Actually Printing
T
here’s a lot of assumed knowledge and misinformation when it comes to best practices for colour spaces. It’s one of those perennial low-key arguments the nerdier members of the church of photography engage in, the spirited championing of one colour-space over another.
sRGB versus Adobe RGB versus ProPhoto RGB versus P3, charts, triangle diagrams, panic on the streets of London and YouTube comments brimming with misplaced confidence and nonsense.
And you do have to wonder why folks get so worked up about it when most of those images they’re worrying about end up on social platforms like Instagram or Bluesky anyway, where they get destroyed by compression algorithms that turn masterpieces into mash.
If you’re new to photography and wondering if this is something you need to concern yourself with, or if you’re an experienced photographer who never bothered to find out, here’s the skinny on colour spaces.
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Also published in RAW & Unfiltered on Substack.
