| | h1. About color management in Lightroom |
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| | Lightroom simplifies color management in your photographic workflow. You don't need to choose color settings or color profiles until you are ready to output your photos. To take advantage of Lightroom color management, you need to calibrate your computer monitor so that you are viewing accurate color. See [Calibrate and profile your monitor|Calibrate and profile your monitor - Basics]. |
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| | h3. Color spaces, color profiles, and tonal response curves |
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| | It's not necessary for you to understand how Lightroom manages color internally, but the following information may be useful in your workflow. |
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| | A color space describes a range or gamut of colors. Various devices in your photographic workflow have different color gamuts in which they can record, store, edit, and output photos. A color profile defines a color space so that Lightroom knows how to manage and convert colors in your photo. |
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| | Raw photo files generally don't have embedded color profiles. For raw files, the Develop module uses a wide color space based on the color values of the ProPhoto RGB color space. ProPhoto RGB encompasses most colors that cameras can record. The raw files are interpreted and rendered in this wide color space using calibration values for the specific type of camera that recorded the file. Calibration values for new cameras are added to Lightroom regularly. |
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| | A color profile is also defined by a gamma value, or more accurately, its _tonal response curve_. The tonal response curve defines how tonal values in the raw image are mapped. To provide useful information in the histogram and RGB value display, Lightroom assumes a gamma value of approximately 2.2. More accurately, it uses a tonal response curve similar to the tonal response curve of the sRGB color space. |
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| | While Lightroom uses a tonal response curve to provide information for the histogram and RGB values, it manipulates the raw data before it is tone mapped. Working in this linear gamma avoids many of the artifacts that can result in working with a tone-mapped image. |
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| | | The Library module stores previews in the Adobe RGB color space. These previews are also used when printing in draft mode. |
| | | The Library module stores Low and Medium quality previews in the Adobe RGB color space, and High quality previews in ProPhoto RGB. These previews are also used when printing in draft mode. |
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| | For rendered files such as TIFF, JPEG, and PSD files, Lightroom uses the image's embedded color profile to display the image, histogram, and color values. If the image doesn't have a profile, Lightroom assumes the sRGB profile, and the image may not look as expected on your monitor. |
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| | h3. Output color profiles |
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| | When you print a photo in Lightroom, you can choose to convert the colors to more closely match the color space of the printer, paper, and ink you are using. For information on working with printer color profiles, see [Set print color management|Set print color management - Basics]. |
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| | Lightroom automatically exports images in the Slideshow and Web modules using the sRGB profile so that the color looks good on the majority of computer monitors. |
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| | [Learn more|About color management in Lightroom - Learn More] |
