The question of which colorspace profile to use for working space comes up every now and then. Here’s my brief take on the argument.

We’re probably a little different than most labs (but I’m sure you knew that). It doesn’t really matter what colorspace you use as long as it is accurately tagged in the ordering system so that we convert the image from the correct space to the printer.

The printer profiles are definitely closer to sRGB than to Adobe98. That said, there are a couple of caveats:

1.) Each printer / paper combination produces a different profile (not lustre vs matte vs glossy, but our RR30 and Kodak paper is different from our Epsilon and Kodak paper).

2.) sRGB files seem to be a little easier to correct. The best analogy I can come up with is that of a fulcrum:

Adjustments to images that are in Adobe98 seem have a larger effect on the image than those done to images in sRGB.

The effect is that it (sometimes) makes it more difficult to make small changes to files that are in Adobe98.

All of the above is really moot, however, when you are shooting RAW. The color balance of the image in RAW has a MUCH, MUCH bigger effect than the choice of working colorspace. If an image doesn’t look right coming out of RAW as an 8bit file, its not going to make a damn bit of difference if it is in Adobe98 or sRGB, it is still going to be equally hard to correct and look equally bad.

In my experience, there are many more headaches involved with switching (especially in the short term) than there are with staying with the space you’ve always used. There are inevitably places in the workflow where the change is not made and something (usually something mission-critical) gets screwed up because of it.

You should work with adjustments to the camera calibration and to the hue/sat sliders in LR or ACR to tweak things, rather than mess with such a big change as colorspace.

And with the ability of Lightroom to store different Export presets for different purposes, there is even less reason to change your entire workflow.

Also, keep in mind that the gamuts of displays and paper are always being increased. There are monitors available now that can show the whole of the Adobe98 gamut. And Kodak has introduced paper with a broader gamut as well.

FWIW, I use Adobe98 for all my files (unless they are going to the web, then I convert to sRGB).