These are small quotes from my 'guidelines' thread at fredmiranda.com
You want a working color space that can hold most or ideally all of the color data your camera can capture, but don’t want to choose a working color space that’s way too big and with that risking delicate colors getting compressed into a single level.
Using 48-bit RGB images’, having three 16-bit color channels, eliminates all the negative aspects of working with large gamut color spaces.
If you want to retain all data your camera can capture, you maybe want to consider an ever larger color space like ProPhoto RGB. ProPhoto RGB is an example of a large gamut color space. It even has imaginary colors, that don't exist and no printer or light source can create. Working is this color space can be useful on some specific cases, but you absolutely don’t want to use this with 24-bit images because of the risk of posterization and banding.
You may want to consider Bruce Lindbloom's Beta RGB. It’s slightly smaller than ProPhoto RGB, contains essential all colors that can be captured or reproduced.
sRGB is a small-gamut space, has a limited color gamut, approximating that of the average computer monitor. Frequently it’s too small to hold the color data of your image and you throw many colors away. All colors outside sRGB are gone forever. Converting sRGB to a larger color space is useless. You simply risk loosing even more color data. Some people claim that the gamut of portraits or weddings is very small, even smaller then sRGB, but that’s most of the time not true. If you’re forced to work with low-bit (24-bit) images, sRGB will reduce the change of posterization and banding compared to a larger working space like Adobe RGB. Adobe RGB is not a bad choice even with low-bit images, you maybe want to think about using an alternative color space like BruceRGB. BruceRGB is a good choice if you're primarily concerned with ink-on-paper output, work in 24-bit RGB, and you need a decent amount of editing flexibility.
Ideally you work with 48-bit images in a large color space (at least Adobe RGB) and convert your copies when you’re done to the end output device. sRGB for web display and the printer-profile when you want to print the image.
Btw, I would ignore the infamous Will Crockett, do a search at Rob Galbraith’s website if you want to know why.
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