If we can get past the geek-speak barrier, you will be amazed how a little RGB working-space knowledge can improve the quality of your images. First, you need to know what a working space is. Picture a triangle with red in one corner, green in another and blue in the third, with the colour gradually fading to white in the middle of the triangle. Now imagine that the corners represent the reddest red, the bluest blue and the greenest green that the human eye can see. If you were to lay a grid over this triangle, you could then describe any colour in the rainbow by its x/y co-ordinates. This is exactly what Photoshop does. If you have version 5.0 or greater, you can determine how much of this colour Photoshop will be allowed to work with. By drawing a triangle within that larger triangle, you define a working space. You do not want to allow Photoshop to work with every colour because your scanner or digital camera will not be able to see all of those colours. If you use a working space that is too big, colours will look unrealistically vibrant and pixels in the image will be very obvious and distinct. The problem will usually get worse if you try to make any changes to contrast, colour or brightness. Hence, if you can find a working space that closely matches the colours that your scanner or camera is capable of seeing, it is possible to make a noticeable difference to the colour quality of your images. Building these spaces is a bit of an art form. The working space can be set in Photoshop in the RGB setup window (File>Color Setting>RGB Setup). This window has a variety of canned spaces. You can build your own by entering the gamma, white point and primaries - the primaries being the red, green and blue corners of your working space triangle measured against that x/y graph. Do-it-yourself working spaces are very difficult and require some software and a lot of know-how. I don't recommend building your own. I do strongly recommend experimenting with the spaces that other people have made. Of the canned spaces that come with Photoshop, sRGB and Adobe RGB (1998) are the two most useful ones. sRGB should only be used for images that will be posted on Web sites. It is a small working space and should not be used for anything you want to print because it uses fewer colours than a good inkjet printer can print. Adobe RGB (1998) is a larger working space that was originally designed as a standard for high-definition TV and seems to match reasonably well with most scanners and digital cameras. Ekta Space is another very good choice for more expensive scanners and some digital cameras. It is meant to mimic the colour gamut of Ektachrome slide film. Test this one carefully as it is very large. Watch out for the problems I described earlier. Ekta Space and many other useful files can be downloaded at http://www.chromix.com/ pages/pc/search.html. Look under working spaces. Bruce RGB is another good choice. It is a smaller working space than Ekta or Adobe RGB (1998) and is designed for images that are bound for the printing press. Bruce RGB can be downloaded at the above address or at www.pixelboyz . com which also has an excellent explanation of Photoshop's RGB working spaces. To use these working spaces, click on the load button in the RGB setup window. HARD COPY