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I want to shoot few photos using smartphone. Nature, landscapes. From smartphone I will receive JPEGs, RGB. I will trasfer them to computer. Next step I will convert them to TIFFs. Next step I will crop some of them, I will do color correction. Next step I will make JPEGs for delivering and I will publish these JPEGs in my blog.

Which color model to use while editing photos? RGB? Or some else?

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    Im not sure what you are asking for in particular. Since your images are captured with RGB color it makes sense to edit them in a RGB color mode. Even if you edit them in CMYK (which is a color mode used for printing) and save them as JPEGs the color will still be saved as RGB anyways.
    – Arjihad
    May 8, 2020 at 17:28
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    @Arjihad - there are many RGBs, as there are many CMYKs. The camera will have a profile, the editor will have a profile, monitor will have a profile, the output will have a profile.. so long as you're not converting every time you import or export, then you only need to do this once.
    – Tetsujin
    May 8, 2020 at 17:33
  • @Arjihad Thank you, Arjihad. What about LAB?
    – Konskoo
    May 8, 2020 at 17:40
  • What about LAB? I've been using Photoshop since 1991 & never had to use lab colours. tbh, I have no idea what they're for, but they're certainly not needed for photo processing to print or web.
    – Tetsujin
    May 8, 2020 at 17:46

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Instead of thinking about colour space better check if your camera can take RAW photos (usually DNG). On most of the cameras this is named Pro mode (Android). If you use Apple device download Lightroom and use it to make RAW photos.

I am not aware of phone which can take photos in colour space other than RGB. And my advise is to stay with it.

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    I wouldn't dream of using RAW in any software other than that made by the camera manufacturer. Such apps as Lightroom/Photoshop/PhotoRAW make an awful mess of it compared to the jpgs.
    – Tetsujin
    May 8, 2020 at 18:26
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    @Tetsujin, I do not have experience with Apple devices, but on Android I have camera2 interface and IMHO RAW files I tune are better than jpegs. May 8, 2020 at 18:38
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    @Tetsujin They don't make a mess, they just don't use the settings that the manufacturer encoded in some proprietary EXIF. But then if you stick to these settings you get the original JPEG, and getting something else is exactly the point of shooting raw.
    – xenoid
    May 8, 2020 at 19:31
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    @xenoid - I have nothing against shooting RAW, that's not what I said. I said I wouldn't start to edit them in anything other than the manufacturer's software. That's a whole different thing. I made my case on this post - photo.stackexchange.com/q/96952/57929
    – Tetsujin
    May 9, 2020 at 6:12
  • @tetsujin Yes, and this is exactly what my comment is about.
    – xenoid
    May 9, 2020 at 7:09
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The trick is to only change colour profile once

You can do it at initial import, or you can do it right at the end before you save your final output, so long as you only do it once.

If your output is for a printer, ask them what profile they want to receive. Many commercial consumer-level printers these days want your output as sRGB.

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  • Thank you, Tetsujin. What about LAB?
    – Konskoo
    May 8, 2020 at 17:44
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If you're going to do any serious editing, don't use jpeg format to shoot in. Use HEIC. Much better quality than compressed jpeg. As was stated above RGB is what these phones shoot so use that as the editing space. I've heard some people recommending Lab color but unless you have a 16-bit image to start (doubtful ) it will get degraded going to 8bit Lab color. Choose the RGB colorspace to shoot in based on what your final result will be. If you're going to a wide gamut inkjet print then shoot in Adobe RGB otherwise for internet use sRGB is fine.

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