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andreao71486404
Participant
March 4, 2019
Question

Color difference in Reference vs Active and Before vs After views

  • March 4, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 1753 views

When looking at the same RAW image under the reference and active view, the color tones do not match.  The reference version of the image shows up slightly more magenta.  This is making it very difficult to accurately edit.  If I try to match other images to a "reference image" then those new edits turn out even more magenta.   I understand that Lightroom is rendering in ProphotoRBG, and exports in sRGB.  But the color difference is visible on my screen between the reference and active views, prior to export.  When exporting, the file matches the "reference" image and not the active image.   Does this make sense?   Right now my only solution is to edit with the reference and active view showing with the same image for both, and to base my edit off the changes that are displayed on the "reference" side (so that the colors will match the export). 

Also, I have noticed that the coloring is off when I pull up an unedited image to view the before and after.  The before is slightly more magenta and more saturated, and the after appears more washed out (even though I have not made any adjustments). 

Am I importing my images incorrectly?  Are there some color or camera profile setting changes that I need to make?    Note that this is happening for both my Canon and Fuji files. 

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    2 replies

    johngulingan
    Participant
    August 11, 2023

    Hello guys.

    I think I have the same issue where the Reference view has different color from the Active view even though I selected the same exact file for both windows. I'm not sure if the calibration has to do with it since they are side by side on the same monitor.

     

    Turned off GPU acceleration and restarted my Mac but didn't fix the issue.

     

    Mac Ventura 13.2

    Lightroom Classic 12.4

    Camera RAW 15.4

     

    andreao71486404
    Participant
    March 4, 2019

    So I feel like an idiot, because it appears that restarting Lightroom has fixed the problem.  But does anyone know what could be causing this?  I still want to try to make sure it's not a settings issue. 

    Per Berntsen
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    March 4, 2019

    If it happens again, try to disable the GPU.

    Preferences > Performance > Uncheck Use graphics processor.

    Are you on Mac or Windows?

    andreao71486404
    Participant
    March 4, 2019

    Thank you! I will try that.  And I'm on a Mac.