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- In this section:
Suggestions for Photographers
Color Management
A fascinating (and mercifully brief) discussion of Color Management for Photographers can be found at Digital Outback Photo:
We'll grossly oversimplify their excellent essay here:
Shoot Raw! Your camera's Raw photo format has tremendously more "editability" than .jpg -format files. If you don't need to edit your photos, send us your camera's Raw-format files, or use Adobe's Digital Negative (.dng) format.
If you edit your images prior to sending them to us, (i.e., the files are no longer raw), use ProPhoto RGB as your Photoshop working color space. In Photoshop, choose Edit==>Color Settings, and in the Working Spaces RGB section, choose ProPhoto RGB. We stress that this should only be done on Raw files that you open in Bridge or Lightroom with subsequent editing in Photoshop. Raw files are devoid of an assigned color profile, so, while editing, assigning the widest-gamut profile possible (ProPhoto RGB) makes sense. ProPhoto RGB also happens to be the native color space of Adobe Camera Raw.
However, if you shoot in any non-raw format, you want Photoshop to preserve the embedded profile assigned by your camera. You can ensure this happens in Photoshop by choosing Edit==>Color Settings, and in the Color Management Policies RGB section, select Preserve Embedded Profile.
Note that the settings in the above 2 paragraphs can co-exist just fine in Photoshop; you can set them both at the same time, and Photoshop will make the right decision based on the file extension it's about to open.
Following ProPhoto RGB, the second-most desirable space is 16-bit Adobe RGB, which has a slightly narrower gamut, which probably won't be an issue in most cases.
The 8-bit sRGB space (normally reserved for Web Images) will sometimes yield acceptable results, but often not if brilliant colors are involved, so avoid 8-bit photos whenever possible.
File Formats
There are no restrictions to the file formats you can Upload or ship to us.
When we receive your image files, we check their bit-width and Color Space. We’ve set our Photoshop settings this way:
RGB Working Space: ProPhoto RGB. Raw photos (which have no profile) sent to us will have the ProPhoto RGB profile embedded in them.
Color Management Policy: Preserve Embedded Profile. If your photos have an embedded profile, Photoshop will respect it.
We can work with these Raw Camera File types:
| Extension | Format |
| .DNG |
Adobe Digital Negative |
| .CR2 | Canon |
| .CRW | Canon |
| .NEF |
Nikon |
| .PEF |
Pentax, Samsung |
| .ORF |
Olympus |
| .MRW |
Minolta |
| .RAF | Fuji |
| .SRF |
Sony |
| .RAW |
Panasonic |
| .X3F |
Sigma |
Additionally, we can handle these finished photo types:
| Extension | Format |
| .TIF |
Standard Graphics Format |
| .PSD | Photoshop Layered file format |
| .PSB | Photoshop Very Large File format |
| .JPG | Avoid sending these 8-bit files if possible |
16-bit .tif, .psd, or .psb files are best to send. Avoid 8-bit photos whenever possible.