sRGB vs Adobe RGB, understand somewhat, trying hard to figure it out...

Hi folks,

I'm sorry for this somewhat stupid question, but I'm so perplexed. I've been reading up on colorspace now that I just setup a smugmug account. I've run into a few problems. When I uploaded my photos, they were in Adobe RGB (because that's the default I guess?), and when I looked at the thumbnails, some were very washed out. The original looked fine, though. I learned this was because I am using Safari, which is the only browser (I think) that doesn't strip color space info. I've come to the conlcusion that I need to get everything to sRGB for the web, as well as for printing, and so I researched that a bit.

Basically, I've come to the conclusion that Adobe RGB is a great color space, but HP and Microsoft (I think) needed to make a dumbed down color space for monitors that couldn't handle it. This is where sRGB comes into play. My question is, since sRGB is the averaged, dumb downed version, do I adjust my photos in that or in Adobe?

Basically should my workflow have me converting to sRGB before or after I adjust levels, etc? And shoot I now be shooting in sRGB?

I apologize for all the questions. I am so immensely confused, and now I finally understand why there are so many huge books out there on colorspace.

Thanks everyone in advance, I really appreciate it.

 

OK, now it's starting to make sense to me. I'm still running into some problems, though. I've got it so I convert to sRGB as my last step before saving my copies that I want for smugmug. I then upload the photos and take a look at them. The thumbnails and smaller sized versions are still off in color from the original. I know this is because I am using Safari, but I was under the impression that switching the original to sRGB would correct this.

For example, in this gallery, http://mf44.smugmug.com/gallery/777855 all the photos look washed out to me until I open the original sized photo. But for everyone of these, I went to Edit: Assign Profile in CS2, and made sure the radial for Working Profile was selected and it said sRGB. Is this right? When I go to the "Profile" radial and select Adobe RGB from the drop down my image gets super saturated, so I assumed I was doing the right thing.

Is smugmug doing something when I upload? I really want to make sure this is curable before my one week trial expires.

Thanks again!

 

Iliah, thank you so much! That's it!

Thanks, everyone, for all the help, this has been a huge benefit to me.