Which is why my cameras are set to AdobeRGB.
I usually print from TIFF exports using either Apple’s Preview or Color Sync Utility to set the ICC profile for the printer.
My initial concern (not knowing DxO’s DNG specs) was whether my Adobe RGB raws were being converted to sRGB. It appears that is not the case. I do find it wrong that DxO is embedding an sRGB Jpeg preview rather than respecting the color space of the Raws. I now know that is why I saw the DNGs tagged as sRGB in Photo Mechanic. I think DxO should change this but at least I now know I can ignore it. Thanks to everyone for your help!
A RAW file doesn’t have a colorspace. During demosaicing/creating RGB pixels, these RGB pixels do get a value so that they fit in a specific color gamut.
The preview is always in sRGB since it will be seen on any monitor.
George
Setting my in-camera jpeg setting to sRGB or aRGB seems to have no effect on the PL4 dng export function (Windows). As George indicates, these other applications (thankfully) are probably just reading the jpeg previews.
Richard, are you sure this is a DXO case and not something Adobe does? I think DNG is a pretty fabulous file format with a lot of interesting properties. In the museum I worked we used quite a lot of it´s potential in the museums DAM.
DNG is a RAW-format that has an XMP-header built in and can embedd image metadata. It also have a possibility to store a JPEG-copy of the processed DNG in the size you like (and your software can handle) and it also can embed the original RAW-file if you like that too.
DNG was fantastic in the museums DAM and it´s automated workflows:
A photographer could just drop his developed DNG-files into a watched folder. The systems automation hub processed it and added the metadata from the DNG to the embedded JPEG image file (in sRGB) too and then sent a copy of the DNG to the “RAW”-archive. After that it “broke out”/detached the embedded JPEG-file and copied that to a “Delivery File”-archive and after that it scaled a copy of the JPEG to a System-file folder with small, fast and effective JPEG-files (1280 pixels) used to carry the master metadata in the system.
When someone wanted a certain file they serched the DAM-webb among the small files and the system looked up the corresponding file with all pixels from the original in the “Delivery File”-archive. So it might be the case that it´s quite OK that a JPEG-file that is NOT going to be printed actually is stored in the DNG with sRGB-profile and NOT Adobe RGB. The later is not to recommend for screens since it often get a visible redish cast. Adobe RGB is for printing.
Another thing: In my country there was quite a scandal some years ago when a very well known local landscape photographer was found cutting and pasting in rare animal like the Lynx into the pictures. It´s a very shy type of animal. After a while some people started to react and analyze the pictures and a they found a lot of them were made with cut and paste. Some landscape photographers got really upset by this fraud. There was also another swedish photographer who won a contest set up by a paper in South Africa. Cut and paste there to. In that case a whole new sky and a cut and pasted elephant ear. It could have been okay if they admitted they manipulated the images but they did not.
If people arranging contest or investing things like that started to make the use of DNG as a mandatory file format, the photographers in these contests wouldn´t have a chans to bluff, since the RAW will be embedded as well as a JPEG developed just like the photographer prefered it. It´s then easy to check both RAW, DNG and the embedded JPEG against the printed pictures the photographers claim are unmanipulated and authentic. Then you can´t get a way just with a JPEG you claim came straight out of the camera as a JPEG-original. The first photographer continues to claim he just use JPEG in these days. It might be OK but who will ever know?
@Stenis
Maybe you can tell me.
A RAW file just from the camera hasn’t a color profile, it’s not an image that can be viewed yet. But if the DNG contains a linear tiff file, what then? If I search the specs of DNG for color profile/gamut then they are only related to the preview. Is that linear tiff file still in the camera’s color space?
And PL stores a linear tiff file in the DNG made from the edited image.
George
I dont´t know and frankly I don´t care. For me this is more of an academic question than an everyday one. I think though that Photolab is treating the DNG as a RAW without any ICC-identity (as you can´t really change it except in camera) BUT from this DNG you are totally free to create the derivates suiting more or less all the needs you might have both for screen or print as you please.
Maybee you select to export a 16 bit TIFF with Adobe RGB for print (if your monitor support it) like Joanna. I don´t like TIFF. They are just very large and doesn´t give my anything extra what I can see in my prints printing JPEG-files saved in 100% which gives almost no comprimation losses at all but of course it´s 8 bit.
I have even stopped making all my ready made JPEG-files in 4K for screen as I used to since the site I´m using for my portfolios and photo story blogs takes my full size unkomressed JPEG-files as they are and scale them automatically for the blogs but they also seem to save the high res file because the reader can see a high res picture just by clicking the images:
Here an exampel from a report I made from a pretty fantastic under water project in Stockholm where a an underwaterbridge with two extra tracks and a service thunnel (Söderströmstunneln meaning the “south stream thunnel”) was built between 2011 and 2013. As you can see it was built in three sections. The thunnelflor is 24 meters below at one ens and at 14 on the other which makes it lean 10 meters in 350 meters. 2017 we started to use it. It took me 10 years to publish this story. (don´t forget to zoom 
)
Allmost all imges are taken from the hills you can see to the right of the red brick building to the far right in the first image. The south part of the thunnel has it´s mouth 14 meters below that building which is an old elevator. Most images are taken by a NEX 7 with an old A-mount Sigma 150-500mm and quite a few from a distance of 300-500 meters (the image angle corresponds to appr. 750mm). The size of the JPEG-files are between 20-35 MB (all sRGB) and the DNG-files were 25-35 MB.
Stenis, you give some good cases where DNGs are useful. None apply to my normal workflow but still glad to know.
Regarding your first question, “are you sure this is a DXO case and not something Adobe does?”. To test this I exported a DNG from LightRoom and its Jpeg preview also shows as sRGB in Photo Mechanic. So apparently the answer seems to be this is something Adobe does. Good for me to know. However, if the embedded Jpeg previews are converted to sRGB rather than Adobe RGB I’d say this goes against your argument that the Jpeg is “a JPEG developed just like the photographer prefered it”.
George, you get to the root of what worried me. From the (Windows?) dialog box it appears DxO demosaics the Raw using the color space set in the camera? I’d prefer it to use the camera gamut but at the very least, since my camera is set for Adobe RGB, I assume (hope) DxO is creating an Adobe RGB demosaiced Tiff in their DNG wrapper. I’m satisfied for now that it is not converting to sRGB and will stop worrying.
Incidentally, if my version of PL4 had the dialog box in Wolfgang’s screen shot I wouldn’t have started this topic, or at least asked a more specific question. Still no answer if this is a Mac vs Windows program difference or some other explanation.
Why would anyone sophisticated enough to use DNGs worry about how an image will look on someone else’s uncalibrated monitor using a non-profile aware program? This is not a good reason to use a color space different from the intended one.
Iguess the answer to that “one size fits all”. Usually images are viewed on a screen and not printed. That´s why sRGB and not Adobe RGB and I couldn´t care less because there is always a way out isn´t it?
You have always to take care of your own situation don´t you and what others do is their head ache from which there is no common cure like paracetmol when it comes to these kind of problems.
muuhahaha!
DNG files can’t be exported ‘to srgb’ or ‘to adobergb’. They still contain the colorspace what your camera used… unless you went crazy in the color section with the ‘color rendering’ section.
So, your camera does nothing different to the raw data when selecting ‘srgb’ or ‘adobergb’, and neither will DxO when you export to DNG. If you export to TIFF or JPG, then output-colorspace will appear.
The only thing your camera does when selecting this option is change the icc-profile used in the preview-jpeg.
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