Why Use The Adobe RGB Colour Space

Adobe RBG Colour Space Background

Adobe RGB is a practical RGB colour space that was introduced in 1998 by Adobe Systems Inc.

When compared with sRGB, Adobe RGB has a greater range in some parts of the colour reproduction area, such as from blue to green. Adobe Photoshop can handle image data that has been stored according to the Adobe RGB color space plus, there are scanners and digital cameras that use the Adobe RGB colour space.

Monitors And Adobe RGB

When Adobe RGB is used for the image data, the monitors used to display these images also need to support the wide colour reproduction area of Adobe RGB. Why? Well when a monitor is able to reproduce colours according to the Adobe RGB colour space, it will be possible to display on the monitor the correct colour reproduction area of the data of an image taken by a photographer using a digital camera in Adobe RGB mode. Greater precision while editing images will also be possible. 

In the field of prepress, as you can see in diagram, Adobe RGB covers the colour reproduction area of the ISO-Coated colour space, which is one of the standard colour sets of the printing industry. Therefore, if the monitor can reproduce the Adobe RGB color space, colour corrections to the soft proof can be done with greater accuracy. Printing processes with a broader colour reproduction area than sRGB are also available.

When this kind of process is used, better image quality is expected and this is where monitors with a wider colour gamut become useful.