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McGonzophoto
McGonzophoto
Participant
October 8, 2018
Answered

Colors off moving image from LR to PS

  • October 8, 2018
  • 7 replies
  • 911 views

When I take an image from LR to PS using 'Edit In' the colors are completely off. I update PS yesterday and I have never had any issues before. I check my external editing preferences and they are the same as before. Any help on what to do next?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer D Fosse

    In PS? Where do I go to change this? I'm not great at this and could use some direction on where to fix. Thank you!


    In Photoshop > Working Spaces > RGB, you have your display profile. Don't do that, it breaks color management.

    Working RGB needs to be a standard color space like sRGB IEC61966-2.1, Adobe RGB, or ProPhoto. Those are the profiles you would use as embedded document profile.

    The display profile created by the Spyder is set up at system level automatically. Photoshop will find it there and use it, without any intervention from you. This is a standard profile conversion from the document profile and into your display (Spyder) profile. This conversion is performed by Photoshop on the fly, as you work.

    In other words, run the Spyder software and then don't do anything. It's all handled automatically.

    Did you check Lightroom and Camera Raw versions? Not "latest", but which versions, specifically? Please do that.

    7 replies

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 11, 2018

    The traditional color management checklist is short and manageable:

    • embed the document profile
    • make sure your monitor profile is valid and healthy
    • use color managed software that reads both these profiles and converts correctly

    If something doesn't display correctly, it's one of these three. Color management works out of the box and is not difficult in itself - the problems start when color management stops, usually in #2 and 3.

    Recently we've seen a couple of nasty varieties that are difficult to diagnose. One is that applications may use the wrong monitor profile in a dual display setup. This is quite frequently seen with ACR and Bridge, and possibly Lightroom. I suspect this may be more widespread than generally acknowledged, but passing unnoticed or ignored if those two displays are roughly similar. With wide gamut displays it gets rather more urgent.

    Another is buggy video drivers. Over time, more and more of the color management chain is handed over to the GPU.

    And then the third, which is the OP's problem here. This is an outright Adobe bug. They forgot to instruct ACR to preserve incoming camera profiles, if the incoming camera profile is an older version than the current new default. This is normally a non-issue as the defaults remain the same - except after the total overhaul in Lightroom 7.3 and ACR 10.3.

    This last one isn't strictly "color management" as such, it's not part of the icc profile chain. But in a wider sense it is, and the results of a problem are the same: wrong colors.

    brettr114037049
    brettr114037049
    Participant
    October 10, 2018

    Hey there, so lately I have been having the same problem with over saturated LR images in Photoshop(plus I have a Spyder 5 Pro calibrator as well). What I did differently was I re calibrated my display(still not sure if that did the trick) and I check marked used graphics processor in Lightroom(Edit / Preferences / Performance). Now the colors align between Lightroom and Photoshop but I've run into over saturated images after export

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 10, 2018

    >but I've run into over saturated images after export

    This is likely due to using a wide gamut monitor with applications that are not color managed. On windows many applications are not color managed and images will often look oversaturated on a wide gamut monitor. Make sure the application you use to view images are color managed. Internet explorer (or whatever microsoft calls their browser now) for example is NOT color managed and will not show you correct color on a wide gamut display.

    TheDigitalDog
    TheDigitalDog
    Inspiring
    October 10, 2018

    Sounds like another bug with GPU set to be on.

    Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
    elie_dinur
    elie_dinur
    Participating Frequently
    October 10, 2018

    According to the first screen-shot the LR is 2015, which is definitely not the "latest". And it will be using the old DCP profiles.

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 10, 2018

    elie_di  wrote

    According to the first screen-shot the LR is 2015

    Then there you have it (I didn't notice that).

    Surprisingly often now, the CC app seems to get stuck in reporting available updates. I have no idea why. But with the camera profile overhaul from version 7.3, people certainly notice it, whereas they didn't before and just kept happily working with old software.

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 10, 2018

    While the working space should absolutely be set to a standard space and not a monitor profile, in this case the setting has no effect  as the preserve embedded profiles policies are set and the images will come into photoshop with whatever is set up in Lightroom's preferences. So it doesn't have anything to do with the observed problem. Should be fixed but is not what is wrong here. It's likely simply  a bad monitor profile or the age old problem of not looking at images with a lot of noise at 1:1 zoom.

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 10, 2018

    Yes, that's exactly what I said in post #9. It's not the immediate problem here, just something worth pointing out to complete the picture.

    And that's why I keep asking the OP for Lr and ACR version number. I think this is a camera profile mismatch.

    TheDigitalDog
    TheDigitalDog
    Inspiring
    October 10, 2018

    McGonzophoto  wrote

    When I take an image from LR to PS using 'Edit In' the colors are completely off. I update PS yesterday and I have never had any issues before. I check my external editing preferences and they are the same as before. Any help on what to do next?

    The item marked correct is absolutely something you need to check on, Photoshop and LR should not be using sRGB or any 'canned' RGB working space as a display color space for previews.

    But I'd like to add: always view comparisons of such images by first being in and only in the Develop module for LR but also important, have the zoom ratio set to 100% (1:1) in both applications. When you zoom out farther, the software has to subsample the image for the zoomed out preview and differing applications can often end up showing different colors as a result.

    If this still persists after you properly setup the display profile, try recalibrating again to build a new ICC profile. The older one might be corrupted. Lastly, never let your software build what is called a V4 spec ICC profile. There is usually a preference for this and the default is usually for V2 which is what you want. But sometimes people set the software otherwise and V4 profiles can be problematic.

    Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
    Per Berntsen
    Community Expert
    Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 8, 2018

    It would be helpful if you could post screenshots that show the problem, and also tell us the exact versions you are running of Lightroom (go to Help > About Lightroom) and Camera Raw (in Photoshop go to Help > About plugins > Camera Raw).

    Also please tell us what OS you have.

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 8, 2018

    Also show us a screenshot of the color settings in Photoshop (edit menu). Make sure there that all the color management policies are set to "preserve embedded profiles" and that the checkbox to desaturate colors by 20% is not checked.

    Most problems of color differences between photoshop and Lightroom are caused by a bad monitor profile.

    kglad
    Community Expert
    kgladCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 8, 2018

    [moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Lightroom Classic CC — The desktop-focused app]

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