File format in Topaz Denoise

[Gerald Ratcliff]

My next question. Which is the best colour profile to use when saving the file? I have been using sRGB which sometimes darkens the saved image.

 

[DRwyoming]

My next question. Which is the best colour profile to use when saving the file? I have been using sRGB which sometimes darkens the saved image.

sRGB is a very safe color space in that it is the web and email viewing standard and the gamut described by sRGB is easy for many devices and many printing process to reproduce. The downside of saving files or editing files in sRGB is you limit the extremes of your red, green and blue colors and combinations of them so sometimes an image can be captured or processed to have a bit more saturated reds, greens or blues that fall outside of the sRGB space but were actually captured in the image so it can be a tiny bit limiting in some cases for print work.

But if you do work in a wide gamut space like Adobe RGB 1998 or ProPhoto RGB then there's a risk that colors and shades that look great on a high end, wide gamut, monitor can't actually be reproduced when you try to print it. Also, images destined for web viewing should always be saved as sRGB files as that's the web and email viewing standard and if you view a photo saved in a wide gamut color space with an sRGB viewer the image will look dark and muddy as the individual RGB colors are not interpreted correctly.

In general I'd say if you're not working with calibrated monitors and processing images for print using color controlled processes and doing things like soft or hard proofing images using calibrated color profiles then I'd advise just shooting, editing and saving images in sRGB as it minimizes the risk of creating images that can't actually be reproduced in print or on general purpose monitors. But if you go that route it's probably best to shoot sRGB in camera and keep to that standard in your post processing. And if you do choose to shoot and edit in a wide gamut space like Adobe RGB then it's a good idea to work with calibrated monitors and do things like soft proofing and gamut checks when sending an image out to be printed and to always make sure you convert them to sRGB for web use.

You can think of wide gamut color spaces as having a much bigger box of crayons capable of rendering a wider range of colors but the sRGB space represents a set of colors that most people's monitors and non-color managed apps like web browsers can actually reproduce.

 

[Gerald Ratcliff]

That is a very comprehensive reply! Thank you for taking the trouble to write that much.

 

[Maurie]

FWIW
My workflow is RAW (Z7 or D810) into Lightroom Classic with Lens Correction and Chromatic Abboration correction enabled as a preset on import, LRC converts the NEF into a DNG on import.

First step, Basic adjustments, and being an old-school darkroom hand I typically I do all tone adjustments in B&W, then reintoduce colour for calibration, grading, HSL adjustment/corrections, then local adjustments, transform, crop/parralex etc all as a DNG file. I don't touch sharpening or NR at this stage.

Second I export to Topaz DeNoise which converts the file to a 300mpx TIFF, process for noise then back to LRC (still a TIFF); if required export to Topaz Gigapixel for sizing-up then back to LRC (still TIFF).

Third I export to Photoshop, Aurora, Luminar as required for creative work all as a TIFF. Back to LRC for sharpening if required, adding watermark etc on export to whatever file type is required by end use.

By doing it this way I'm getting the benefit of RAW processing for the vitals, then the DeNoise as the first step in TIFF ensures that I not emphasising noise in the resizing and creative processes that follow.

The TIFF files at 300mp are large, but my 16" MBP handles it all fine, and it has only the 2.3 GHz Intel i9 and 16gB of RAM so you don't need massive computing power. I also have two 27" screens, two LaCie external drives, a Wacom and Loupedeck+ all hanging off this lil' Mac!

 

[Replytoken]

sRGB is a very safe color space in that it is the web and email viewing standard and the gamut described by sRGB is easy for many devices and many printing process to reproduce. The downside of saving files or editing files in sRGB is you limit the extremes of your red, green and blue colors and combinations of them so sometimes an image can be captured or processed to have a bit more saturated reds, greens or blues that fall outside of the sRGB space but were actually captured in the image so it can be a tiny bit limiting in some cases for print work.

But if you do work in a wide gamut space like Adobe RGB 1998 or ProPhoto RGB then there's a risk that colors and shades that look great on a high end, wide gamut, monitor can't actually be reproduced when you try to print it. Also, images destined for web viewing should always be saved as sRGB files as that's the web and email viewing standard and if you view a photo saved in a wide gamut color space with an sRGB viewer the image will look dark and muddy as the individual RGB colors are not interpreted correctly.

In general I'd say if you're not working with calibrated monitors and processing images for print using color controlled processes and doing things like soft or hard proofing images using calibrated color profiles then I'd advise just shooting, editing and saving images in sRGB as it minimizes the risk of creating images that can't actually be reproduced in print or on general purpose monitors. But if you go that route it's probably best to shoot sRGB in camera and keep to that standard in your post processing. And if you do choose to shoot and edit in a wide gamut space like Adobe RGB then it's a good idea to work with calibrated monitors and do things like soft proofing and gamut checks when sending an image out to be printed and to always make sure you convert them to sRGB for web use.

You can think of wide gamut color spaces as having a much bigger box of crayons capable of rendering a wider range of colors but the sRGB space represents a set of colors that most people's monitors and non-color managed apps like web browsers can actually reproduce.

With a few follow-up suggestions. When saving a file from any program for future editing, try to save it as a 16-bit tiff is possible. This will result in more data saved than saving it as an 8-bit tiff. And, again if you are wanting to edit the image and it was raw to begin with, try to save it in a large color space like Pro Photo or Adobe RGB if you have software that will honor the color space. But, when done and ready to share the image, sRGB is usually called for unless you are working with a lab than can work in Adobe RGB.

But it is not recommended saving 8-bit images in 16-bit format or sRGB files in larger color spaces. You generally start as large as you can and then work your way down. Trying to move up does not yield benefits; it can mostly lead to problems later on.

And to the issue discussed above, some program can do a lossless re-save of a jpeg file is not changes to the image have occurred (with the possible exception of a crop).

--Ken