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Participating Frequently
November 19, 2023
Question

EXPORTED IMAGE COLOR CHANGE

  • November 19, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 126 views

Evening folks, since the last LR update, when I export in any format, the colours of the end product simply don't "pop", and look washed out/faded in comparison to my LR edit as viewed before export. Any comments/help greatly appreciated. Note, I have been using LR for 10 years+, and never come across this discrepancy before, I'm a macOS user.

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1 reply

Community Expert
November 20, 2023

Are you using any HDR options? If so, your final image will look like it has much less pop. There are basically no apps on Mac OS that can correctly display HDR images. Preview certainly doesn't. Only apps that correctly display HDR images are Chrome, Lightroom (only in the develop module with the HDR option enabled and making sure that the option to by default show HDR when editing a HDR format (for some reason not the default!)) and Photoshop if you enable the HDR accurate color management in technology preview preferences and enable HDR by default in the camera raw settings. Everything else just discards the HDR or mangles it. So for now, be aware that enabling the HDR option in Develop is not a good idea if you don't control where the output goes. It is still a bit of a gimmick (a very cool gimmick but nevertheless).

If you don't use HDR in Lightroom, it is possible that you're exporting to a too narrow color space. Most Macs have display P3 gamut nowadays and if you export to sRGB, you might get clipped and less vibrant colors.