Digital Prints

ColorMatch RGB
Originally designed for Radius
PressView monitors, this is another good
working space for the photographerartist.
The color gamut is smaller than
for Adobe RGB but larger than the other
working spaces on this list. ColorMatch
RGB is well-accepted by the color industry,
so most people know how to handle
it. It has been considered the best choice
if you plan to do a lot of CMYK commercial
printing, although Adobe RGB
is gaining ground for this usage.
AppleRGB
This is a holdover from the old Apple 13" Trinitron monitor days. It’s gamut is only slightly
larger than sRGB. Not recommended for print.
sRGB
Even though this is the default
working-space setting for
Photoshop and other hardware
and software manufacturers,
including those making digital
cameras, this is probably not the
best choice for a color working
space. It’s mainly for people
working with web images, and it
should be avoided by those hoping
to output their files to the
broadest range of print devices.
The color gamut is small, and
many deep, saturated colors,
especially greens, blues, and some
yellows, may be clipped or discarded,
depending on the output
device. As print provider John Castronovo puts it, “Always working in sRGB can be like
having training wheels on a bike—safe but limiting.”
CMYK
CMYK is another device-dependent color space (actually a series of device-dependent color
spaces with infinite possible variations). CMYK is short for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and
Black (“K” for Key), which are the four subtractive process-printing colors. Why four instead
of three? In theory, (and taking another peek at Figure 4.3), CMY should be enough to make
all the colors, but real-world inks aren’t pure, and the extra black component is needed to
add the snap or depth to the printed image and to solve other print-specific problems.
Chapter 4 ■ Understanding and Managing Color 123
Figure 4.8 The four currently
recommended RGB working spaces in
Photoshop (version 7 and 8 or CS).
The relative gamuts of the four major
RGB working spaces. Keep in mind
that these only represent one view of
the 3D color spaces.
Graphing by CHROMiX ColorThink