Image edits are not appearing the same as in older LR

mattr97931751  wrote I just updated from an older version of LR to LR Classic CC and I can see a significant difference in my image edits vs the old version - despite making the same changes to the images.  Why are my adjustments not the same?  They look flatter and I can't get the same contrast.  It also visually appears that my images are clipping in blacks well before the histogram shows clipping warnings.  What is wrong?!

Lots of information and suggestions have been provided, but let's go back to basics. You're images edited in LR 4 (or any other previous version) should look identical when viewed inside LR Classic 7.3.1. Your image files are NOT automatically updated to the new process version unless you've done so manually. There's also no need to uninstall LR 4 until you are totally comfortable with LR 7 and sure everything in your catalog has been correctly imported into it. First we need to determine what's causing the differences between LR 4 & 7.

LR 7 has added graphics processor support, which can cause screen rendering issues on some systems and when using older graphics drivers. To check for this open LR Classic 7.3.1 and go menu Edit> Preferences> Performance and uncheck 'Use Graphics Processor.' Compare an image file that has been edited in LR 4, but NOT edited in LR7. Do they now look the same, but are different if you go back and check 'Use Graphics Processor?'

Your screen shots show that in Lightroom 4 you are using either process version (PV)   PV1(2003) or PV2(2010) because your are using the Fill Light and Recovery sliders. Lightroom 4 is capable of using PV3(1012) which is closer to using PV4(2018) which you are using in CC 7.3.1 on your top photo.   The corrections from the NEW sliders (Highlight, shadows, whites and blacks etc) is way different that you get with the OLD sliders (Fill Light and Recovery).  From my experience, the new sliders are way better.  I don't think you will ever match the new and old renditions.

Between the new sliders/process versions and Profiles as said above your chance of matching is nil.  You should actually uninstall Lightroom 4 and if you want to use to old sliders just set the process version to PV2 (2010) in Lightroom CC

Did you allow Lightroom to update the process version to the current version? If you did, that could account for the change. Just a thought.

Try using a different profile at the top of the Basic Panel (use the profile browser to see all of them). Adobe Color is now the default, not Adobe Standard, so that might be a reason.

The other reason is that Lightroom Classic has a different 'Process Version', with different sliders. That means that you can never have the exact same result, there will always be some small differences.