Answer: nothing good

Did I get your attention? Are you ready for another urban myth of photography to be knocked down? Here we go.

If you shoot JPEG, are you editing all your images always? If no, don't set your camera to Adobe RGB as you need to, at the minimum, output the colorspace to the general sRGB colorspace before sharing your images.

The choice of color space is a 50/50 choice, as in: sRGB you win, Adobe RGB you lose.

If you shoot RAW, you're wasting your time completely. Why? Your file names get an underscore in the first position like _MG0001.NEF and RAW files don't have a colorspace anyway. RAW files are the original sensor data. Camera sensors don't have a colorspace. Colorspace is an attribute of your digital editor or how the color data is encoded into a display format when the RAW data is converted to JPEG or TIFF, etc. That's how a tool like Lightroom or Topaz Sharpen can use ProPhotoRGB against your RAW files even though ProPhotoRGB isn't even an option in the camera menu options.

Do you shoot RAW and JPEG so you can share the JPEGs quickly? Now you're wasting your time by a factor of 2x. Your 'quick JPEGs' now require a colorspace conversion before sharing, defeating 'quick'. Your RAW files, as noted above, get a less useful filename while having no technical impact of using the Adobe RGB colorspace camera setting.

Now, let's get to the real urban myths:

Myth1 - Adobe RGB is better for printing

Really? Do you print your images? Does your printer (local or third-party) accept files in Adobe RGB? Have you ever compared two prints, one in sRGB against the same image in Adobe RGB? If you have any NO responses to these probing questions, then Adobe RGB is not really better for printing.

Myth2 - Adobe RGB is the better colorspace

Really? When your RAW sensor data was converted to an 8-bit JPEG, the 12- or 14-bit data from the sensor was 'compressed' into the maximum storage capabilities of the 8-bit JPEG format. To simplify the high-level idea, Adobe RGB emphasizes different colors / tones over sRGB, but it cannot 'store' more data in 8-bit than sRGB can store in the same 8-bit encoding. BTW, RGB is literally Red-Green-Blue and this colorspace data is simply all the color tones and relative brightness of mixing Red with Green with Blue to create the rich colors and tones of the world.

When should I use Adobe RGB?

I'm trying to argue: never.

If I haven't convince you yet, consider these four reasons / input requirements, all that must be met together:

a. You shoot in your camera's highest quality JPEG setting, i.e., the highest pixel resolution and the least JPEG compression.

b. You edit all your JPEGs in a workflow that reliably enforces a conversion to the sRGB colorspace for online sharing of the edited results.

c. Any transitions between software in your workflow maintain the ProPhotoRGB (or Adobe RGB) colorspace when the transition files are created.

d. You have a printer that accepts the Adobe RGB files and prints in the Adobe RGB colorspace (and does not perform a behind the scenes sRGB converion).

e. (Optional) You've paid extra (a whole lot extra) to buy an "Adobe RGB" monitor to see your colorspace during editing

Still not convinced? Here's two UHH links:

The first post shows a problem using the wrong colorspace on page 1 of the original post. Just skip to page 2 to see an example of the image converted and posted to sRGB. This is what you risk by using Adobe RGB:

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-362867-1.html

Here's a longer, boring thread about the two colorspaces:

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-364870-1.html

Myth #1 is NOT a myth. Adobe RGB 1998 makes a huge difference in the quality of your prints, that is if you have the sensibilities of a fine art printer. Or put another way, if when you go to print what you see is what you get is important to you.

Not being flippant here, as many people don't notice and don't care if the colors they get in their prints are not what their files are. But, If you want your prints to match what you see on your monitor, your file should be in Adobe RGB and you must print in the Adobe RGB color space. Period.