Digital Light & Color

Re Color Management : Color Management – Last Updated 18-Oct-2022

Choosing a Working Color Space
The following is a list of the color profiles included with Picture Window that you can use for
working color spaces:

Because the illustration in the help document and the Color Management settings include DCI-P3 (SMPTE-231-2), the help document could elaborate on the DCI-P3 color profile.

Some questions that the Color Management guide could help answering :

• If a camera is settable to both sRGB and Adobe RGB, is it advisable to set the camera to Adobe RGB ? Are there any disadvantages of doing so ?
• Does the camera setting for color space depend on having a monitor is capable of displaying Adobe RGB ? What if the monitor is capable of displaying DCI-P3 ?
• When is it advisable to use DCI-P3 as a working color profile ?
• If the monitor used is capable of displaying DCI-P3 but not Adobe RGB, what is the recommended setting for working color space ?

As far as I know, the in-camera color space setting does not affect raw files, just jpegs. It is presumably intended as a hint to the raw converter as to what color space to output when processing raw files, but in fact most raw converters let you select the output color profile anyway.

DCI-P3 is a motion picture standard. It largely overlaps with Adobe RGB so it doesn't make a really big difference which you use. If your monitor displays all or nearly all of DCI-P3 and somewhat less of Adobe RGB, you might want to use it as a working color space, but someday you may get a different monitor. Most of the colors that are in one and not the other are outside most printer gamuts. I set my monitor to Adobe RGB and use it as a working color space, but some people recommend using an even wider color space as a working color space which has different pros and cons. I don't obsess about it.