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Question

Inconsistencies in the way Lightroom displays a photo and exports it

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
November 28, 2018
4 replies
1997 views

Hi there! I'm having an issue with my Lightroom Classic CC rendering some photos really inaccurately. This is a photo from a bonfire at a recent wedding.

^ That is a screenshot of how the image displays in Lightroom, which is the way I want it to look.

^ This is how the jpeg file appears once it's exported. It looks this way everywhere: Preview, Photoshop, Pass+ client gallery... If I pull the correct-looking photo from Lightroom directly into Photoshop, it looks like this too.

As a professional photographer, that’s a train wreck compared to the original and I’d never deliver it. The spots that I lowered highlights are suddenly really obvious, there is a ton of grain that has appeared all over the people. Why is this happening?! It does similar things when I export other darker photos that have been even a little bit brightened, making them really unbearably grainy, even though they look fine in Lightroom.

This is frustrating when I don't realize the discrepancy until I'm uploading them to the client gallery. And then trying to fix the problems is obviously difficult when Lightroom isn't showing me an accurate preview of how the photo will export. Is there a way to avoid this without going back through every photo *after* I export to make sure they’re fine? And then fixing and re-exporting and fixing again and exporting again until the exported one looks fine-ish?

Below are my export settings. It's not sharpening on export, and I get the same result regardless of if quality is at 80 or 100. That's why I believe the problem is rooted in the way Lightroom is displaying photos, and I'm not sure how to fix that.

Edit to add I'm using a 2014 Macbook Pro High Sierra 10.13, Lightroom Classic CC 7.4.

lightroom-cc-classic

This topic has been closed for replies.

GoldingD

Legend

Have you tried inspecting the image in develop moduel with soft proofing turned on?

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Edit to add I'm using a 2014 Macbook Pro High Sierra 10.13, Lightroom Classic CC 7.4.

First you should definitely upgrade your Lightroom. The current version is 8.0. Second, was the screenshot you show from the Develop module? The Develop module does not display noise reduction and sharpening correctly when you are not at 1:1 display. In zoomed out view it overdoes the noise reduction and you should really look at the image in Library to confirm.

Last, how are you calibrating your display? Make sure that you do not use iCC v4 profiles for the display calibration. They have known issues of shadows plugging up in the Develop module especially if GPU acceleration is turned on. Lastly, Try disabling the GPU acceleration in the performance preferences in Lightroom and see if that fixes the plugged up shadows. There are some bugs with shadow rendering in GPU accelerated conditions both in Lightroom and Photoshop with certain graphics cards.

K

KLefeverAuthor

Participating Frequently

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jao+vdL wrote
Edit to add I'm using a 2014 Macbook Pro High Sierra 10.13, Lightroom Classic CC 7.4.
First you should definitely upgrade your Lightroom. The current version is 8.0. Second, was the screenshot you show from the Develop module? The Develop module does not display noise reduction and sharpening correctly when you are not at 1:1 display. In zoomed out view it overdoes the noise reduction and you should really look at the image in Library to confirm.
Last, how are you calibrating your display? Make sure that you do not use iCC v4 profiles for the display calibration. They have known issues of shadows plugging up in the Develop module especially if GPU acceleration is turned on. Lastly, Try disabling the GPU acceleration in the performance preferences in Lightroom and see if that fixes the plugged up shadows. There are some bugs with shadow rendering in GPU accelerated conditions both in Lightroom and Photoshop with certain graphics cards.

I'll upgrade it tonight!

I just double checked and I'm not sure about the screenshot in regards to library vs develop... it definitely looks the way it should in the develop module. If I scroll from the previous photo to this one in the Library module, it looks bad (second screenshot). However, if I click develop on this photo, see it change to the way it should look, and then go back to library again, it'll look grainy like the second screenshot for a few seconds before rendering to look exactly like the first correct version that was shown in Develop. So library is fooling me there. I really have no idea. I always look at photos in Library prior to export, so I would guess I was scrolling through them, noted a problem with this one, clicked develop and saw the problem disappear, then went back to library and once again noted the problem disappearing.

My display profile is set to Color LCD; I've never changed it. I don't see the GPU acceleration in performance preferences...

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

My display profile is set to Color LCD; I've never changed it.

So that is the built-in profile. While Apple's profiles are lightyears better than anybody else's it is not reliable and you should calibrate your display with calibration hardware such as a color vision Spyder, Colormunki, i1 display, etc. It is essential and indispensable for professional color photography work.

I don't see the GPU acceleration in performance preferences...

The option is in the preferences panel in the performance tab. It will be the topmost option called "use graphics processor". Turn it off and restart Lightroom and look what the image looks like in Develop. Also make sure to look at the image at 1:1 in Develop in the too light and noisy area.

So library is fooling me there.

In general it is actually Develop that does not render noise reduction correctly and Library is the more accurate display for noisy (i.e. night-time) images. You should always look at your images at 1:1 in develop to accurately judge noise reduction as the zoomed out view suppresses a lot of noise that actually is there. Only 1:1 is correct. This is a compromise done to speed up rendering in Develop that normally is not a big issue and usually invisble but does become a big issue with high noise images such as star photography, night photography, and such.

GoldingD

Legend

For the edit in photoshop part of the issue.

In your LR preferences, external editing, what are your Photoshop settings, color space and bit depth comes to mind.

In PS, how are you setup for PS treating color space of images opening up in PS from say LR?

As for the JPEG??

And why is the issue looking a lot like noise not color?

Forum members, help needed!!!!

K

KLefeverAuthor

Participating Frequently

davidg36166309 wrote
For the edit in photoshop part of the issue.
In your LR preferences, external editing, what are your Photoshop settings, color space and bit depth comes to mind.
In PS, how are you setup for PS treating color space of images opening up in PS from say LR?
As for the JPEG??
And why is the issue looking a lot like noise not color?
Forum members, help needed!!!!

For images opening in PS from LR, my settings are as follows: TIFF, ProPhoto RGB color space, 16 bit, 240 resolution, zip compression. I wish I knew the reason for the issue with noise!

GoldingD

Legend

Sorry, I do not have a screenshot to share with you. So poor words will have to suffice.

Your screenshot does not include the left side of the export dialog, normally that is one column with one section we ignore. Occasionally, forum members with similar issues, despite having Post-Processing stating do nothing, have an additional panel, lower left indicating a plug-in is being applied (plug-in or preset???)

Can you go and verify this? And a screenshot that is wider.

This is just a hunch.