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david.at.large
Participant
January 4, 2020
Question

Lightroom displays photos dully - undersaturated and low contrast

  • January 4, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 845 views

Hello everyone,

for a while now I have the problem that photos exported from lightroom (up to date CC) are considerably more saturated (epecially in the reds and oranges) and darker (especially in the shadows) than when they were displayed in any lightroom modul.

I'm working on a wide gamut XPS 15 4K laptop monitor. I tried calibration the monitor but the problem remains. (also, I'm not sure if this should help since I am viewing the images on the same monitor anyways)

In an atempt to solve the problem I did:

set the monitor to display only sRGB both in Windows settings and in Dell PremierColor settings,

force all applications to use the designated graphics card,

enable color managemnt in photo viewers (Faststone and Irfanview),

enable soft proofing in LR (tried on and off, no difference when selecting sRGB for proofing),

export from Lightroom in sRGB.

The problem persists. Photos look over saturated and contrasty (dark) when viewed in Irfanview, Faststone and also when opened in Photoshop (2019 version of CC). Also, when I right-click the image in LR and choose to open in PS, it appears too saturated adn contrasty in PS. Photos have the saturated look in Windows' Explorer preview and also in Windows Photos. They do look like or very similar to the Lightroom "version" when opened in Chrome, but not when uploaded to eg Instagram (where they look too saturated and contrasty). Also, when I view the exported jpeg in Lightroom next to the edited NEF raw file, they look very similar. 

I have googled for a solution and it seems it is not an uncommon problem to have the jpegs look too saturated after export. Unfortunately, I haven't found a solution to this problem. 

Thanks for any help and advice. I'll attach some examples.

David

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 4, 2020

Some applications are color managed and use your monitor profile to display the image, others are not color managed and don't. They don't know what an icc profile is.

 

That's the long and short of it. It's not complicated at all. Those two will never match - one is right, and can be trusted, the other is wrong and cannot. That they are open on the same screen is irrelevant, that's not what it's about.

 

However, from your (long and somewhat confusing) description, it sounds like your monitor profile is corrupt/defective. That would naturally only affect those applications that actually use it. A smoking gun would be if Lightroom and Photoshop are not absolutely identical. They should be. But they could react differently to a broken profile.

 

It's very important that you don't change any application color settings if you don't know what you're doing. This is about a bad monitor profile, nothing to do with document profiles, which is what color settings deal with.

 

To test the monitor profile, replace it with sRGB or Adobe RGB depending on what type of display you have. If it's a wide gamut display, use Adobe RGB. It won't be entirely accurate, but better than a broken profile. Relaunch all applications when done.

 

Next, get a decent calibrator like an i1 Display Pro, ColorMunki, Spyder Pro etc. Dell is notoriously unreliable in these matters.

 

 

    D
    david.at.largeAuthor
    Participant
    January 4, 2020

    Hey,

    thank you for the answer. Adding and changing the profile in Color Managment seems to have done the job. The photos now look in Lightroom like they look exported, ie Lightroom now displays them more saturated and with darker shadows than before. At least the photos now look alike across all apps.

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