P: Add Soft Proofing to Lightroom Desktop

[KG_BK]

Lightroom Cloud 2023 uses the ProPhoto RGB color space. This is a problem if you want to edit your photos for Instagram, which uses the sRGB color space (i.e. fewer colors). It's a problem because the entire time you're editing, you're seeing what your photo will look like in ProPhoto RGB, not sRGB. But as soon as you're done, and you export your photo to sRGB, you lose a ton of colors. And there appears to be no way to know which colors you'll lose until you go to export. 

I believe there is a setting called "soft proofing" in Lightroom Classic that shows which colors you will lose when exporting as sRGB. But this option does not exist in Lightroom Cloud.

Can someone tell me why this seemingly enormously important feature is left out of Lightroom Cloud? I have to suspect that a majority of people using Lightroom Cloud are uploading their pictures to Instagram. Isn't everyone disappointed then, after spending all that time editing, when they finally go to export as sRGB, and they lose all of those colors?

Or am I missing something? I am not an expert in color management. Only learning as I go. Thanks!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Probably the biggest reason is few are asking for it. In 5 plus years, no one has managed to fill out a feature request for this functionality. I've converted your post to the authoritative feature request so that others can vote and add their voices. Please add your vote at the top. 

[JohanElzenga]

What you are seeing on your computer is not ProPhotoRGB. No screen in the world can display that. If you have a wide gamut monitor, then you do indeed see more colors than sRGB however. Many wide gamut monitors can be switched to sRGB, so you can 'soft proof' by doing that. Do not forget to change your monitor profile to sRGB too if you work this way. And do not forget to switch back to your custom monitor profile when you switch back the monitor to its native color. You do have a custom monitor profile, don't you?

[KG_BK]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography 

Thank you. And, wow. I wonder why they haven't. This is exactly what makes me think I must be missing something. A commenter below suggests switching my monitor to show only sRGB (and that does what I want!). Still, when I want to switch tasks and do other things on my computer apart from using Lightroom, unless I want only to see things in sRGB, I have to remember to switch the monitor back each time.  

[KG_BK]

@JohanElzenga 

Thank you! This solves the problem, though I still think Lightroom Cloud should have a proofing option, so I don't have to switch my monitor. (Unless... is switching the monitor standard workflow? Is that what most people are doing?)

I don't yet have my screen calibrated because I am brand new to all of this, so I'm still learning, but I plan to do it soon once I understand better what the best product for that is.

Even though I had been playing around in those monitor settings a few weeks back, I didn't know what I was doing, because I hadn't yet learned about color spaces, so now that I do, it makes total sense. The solution was under my nose the whole time! Thank you for prompting me to go back there! 

[Jim Wilde]

I don't yet have my screen calibrated because I am brand new to all of this, so I'm still learning, but I plan to do it soon once I understand better what the best product for that is.

By @KG_BK

And therein lies the real problem when we share images for viewing on a screen of some kind. The majority of users will not have calibrated their screens (many will not even have heard of screen calibration), so we have no control over how well (or badly) our images will look on their screens. So unless you know that a specific user uses a certain type of monitor, which is calibrated correctly, the best we can reasonable do when exporting for screen viewing is to export to sRGB and hope for the best.....after ensuring that our own screens are properly calibrated, of course.

[Jao vdL]

surprised there hasn't been a feature request before. I remember many times questions on this forum like "where did soft proofing go", "I am trying to soft proof but it is not where the video says it should be", etc. The answer invariably is that you need to use Classic of course but perhaps it should be that "for now it is a Classic only feature and you should submit a feature request."