Advice Wanted Colour profiles and JPEG settings

I edit in AdobeRGB whatever it's called, 98 or something? :). Only change on export as last step, yes
aRGB is the safest of the wide gamut, equal axis colour spaces.

Always assuming that your monitor and graphics card are calibrated, and capable of displaying 100% of the aRGB colour space.

My main w/s monitor is a Dell UP2516D, which has a 14 bit colour lookup table, a 12 bit panel and will display 100% of aRGB. Ditto my graphics card.

Colour can get very complex very quickly!
Pretty nifty for something that doesn't actually exist!
Wavelength exists, but colour is merely how we interpret wavelength.
 
Ok, so I've done an experiment, which I find quite interesting.
Leaving all other settings exactly the same, I outputted one image in two colour profiles.
First one my usual sRGB and the 2nd one using ProPhoto.

They look *identical* to my eyes. Except for one notable change : the ProPhoto one is 358KB while the sRGB one is 413KB
 
What bit depth, Irene?
A 16 bit file should be about double the size of an 8 bit file.
Also, output both to TIFF files, without compression. JPEG compression can cover up all sorts of things

ProPhotoRGB and aRGB (and other wide gamut colour spaces) should be used as 16 bit only.

You can remap a 16 bit file to 8 bit, but not the other way.

What you see will also depend on your monitor, graphics card and connecting cable.

Colour really is tricky.
 
Having previously tied myself in knots with this stuff, if I may chip in?

If you shoot RAW, it doesn't matter what space is set on the camera, that's set in the RAW converter on your PC/Mac. Edit in 16 bit.

Output colour space is dependent upon what you are going to do with your image.

Some inkjet printers will print Adobe RGB gamut. Most commercial labs/in store printers require SRGB.

Use the soft proof options in editing software to get used to how your colours are likely to shift on export to SRGB JPEG, or take note of the preview functionality when exporting from something like Photoshop. In Photoshop, make sure you turn soft proofing off again before you continue editing :)

If you are editing and printing at home you will ideally have a calibrated monitor. Take some time out occasionally to view your posts or Flickr files on an uncalibrated device (phone/ipad) with display set to factory defaults - because that's how the vast majority of your viewers are going to see your images.
 
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