A study in colour - Part 6 - viewing different colour spaces on screen - an experiment

Five different colour spaces viewed on screen with similar points compared - an experiment.

Purpose:  To view the results of looking at a common image on screen with different colour spaces.

Materials:  A jpeg image with widely varying colours and a PC computer running Photoshop CC (26)

Method:  Take a jpeg from a raw photo showing a wide variety of intense colours.  Apply different colour spaces to the image and compare swatches from the same area.  Colour spaces used, pallets include as it was originally converted from a raw file, Adobe RGB, sRGB, CMYK, and for the Epson P800 set to premium luster paper.

Results:  The 5 images above with labels indicate the selected areas of the common image used to compare colour spaces.  A colour swatch was collected using the eye dropper tool and the resulting colour was then deposited in a rectangular box table seen above.  Looking with the eye, the colours are very similar.  Closer inspection using Photoshop's colour wheel indicates that there are subtle differences between the values.


Discussion:  The values for each of the colours was not identical, but were very close within rows.  I suspect that the actual values varied more because the exact spot on the image (pixel) was not selected and so variation could have occurred from that.  Another issue is the screen's ability to display colours as the monitor itself may not have been as sensitive to subtle colour changes.  Finally, I suspect that the way I altered the colour profiles may have interfered with the outcome.  To obtain proper results, a better plan would have been to mark each point where a selection would be made and to create each image separately from the original file instead of using the open image to repeat the change.

Finally, I should have picked colours closer to the gamut's edge for each colour space.  That way any change in the gamut would be more noticeable.

Conclusion:  I do not think my experiment about different colour spaces showed very much as there were numerous issues that prevented significant results from appearing.  However, it also shows that many colour spaces could be close enough that the casual observer may not be able to distinguish between them.  If I printed the above image I wonder if I would get different results.  I would need a colourometer to verify this.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com


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