I develop photos exclusively for web use in Lightroom Classic. That means I'm exporting in sRGB colorspace to post images on my website and social media. However, exported photos look completely different than what I see while developing. I assume this is because Lightroom uses a different ProPhoto colorspace. My monitor is a Dell S2721DGF IPS monitor. It has a wide-gamut and excellent color reproduction, though I have not done any calibration myself.
Now, I understand that Lightroom is a color managed program and windows/web is not, therefore I expect to see color differences when exporting to sRGB. I'm trying to use soft proofing to predict the differences and make changes, but the issue is that the soft-proofing doesn't appear to be working correctly. The picture I open in Windows does not reflect the soft-proofed sRGB copy displaying in Lightroom. Furthermore, the soft-proofed copy doesn't appear any different than the original in a side-by-side comparison inside Lightroom.
See the image below. The sRGB proof in Lightroom still appears different than the exported sRGB image. The exported image (left) is darker, higher contrast, and more saturated. Any ideas why these images would still be different after soft proofing? Alternatively, is there any way I can change the colorspace inside Lightroom to simply develop in sRGB and see the same colors when I export? Any help is appreciated, thank you.
2 Correct answers
@D Fosse has the correct answer here. The images in that screenshot are identical if you consider they are displayed in different programs that use different scaling algorithms. What you are seeing is that Develop uses a different scaling algorithm to downscale your image to the display size than other places. It subsamples the original raw file for the display. This can result in an overestimation of colorfullness (it might just happen to pick out the strongly colored pixels) and this often lea
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You can't change the way develop renders unfortunately. The difference is minimized if you use high resolution displays such as retina screens, 4k monitors, etc. since you can't really see the individual pixels there. You can get a bit of an idea by switching back and forth to Library or by using a second display (the preview on the secondary display is rendered from the jpeg preview just like in library but it updates live (but slow) while doing changes in develop settings). One factor we haven
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I appreciate the response. Using a color managed image viewer will not solve the issue though, unfortunately. I use these images for business, posting to our website and social media accounts. Facebook and Instagram do not appear to be color managed, or at least do not recreate the colors seen in LR. Similarly for my website; while Chrome and Firefox may be color managed, I do not see the same colors on the web that I do in LR. Windows photo viewer and my website look nearly identical, which is to say significantly more saturated and higher contrast than LR.
Furthermore, I've opened the exported jpg in FastStone, but as you can see there are still clear differences:
Something is still amiss. If the lack of differences in soft proofing imply there the image is within sRGB, why would there still be a difference in the exported photo? Is there anything else I can try?
Sure thing! Here is a google drive link to the RAW file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17sJX3zuczuBoSo2bM7zrMaDGc_90X_6g/view?usp=sharing
And here is are the export settings:
Export settings seem fine.
When I export in LR using a similar setting, the preview in Photoshop and LR match:
Sorry, I didn't do a great job lining the up to match the screen capture exactly but the two appear to match otherwise.
The JPEG is in my public Dropbox here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4t5uagxkzuibugk/HSL07930-2.jpg?dl=0
I've exported the raw you supplied as a DNG so everything is set, locked in, as I saw on my end (I didn't alter anything whatsoever in LR, just did an import but I want you to have a DNG that honors everything I saw).
That DNG is here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4t5uagxkzuibugk/HSL07930-2.jpg?dl=0
So on this end, all is working as expected.
When you now import that DNG, and compare it to the JPEG, do they match or mismatch?
Thanks! Your JPG and DNG look identical as far as I can tell:
The problem appears to arise after editing, when cranking up the saturation and colors. Perhaps the colors get pushed out of sRGB after editing?
When other color managed applications don't match Lightroom, it's usually because they are not properly configured, or because the monitor profile is defective.
Did you enable color management in FastStone? I forgot to mention that you have to restart FastStone after doing this.
There have been reports of broken color management in Chrome, but I have never experienced it.
Some websites will strip out the color profile from images, but most browsers will then assign the sRGB profile.
The exception here is Firefox, which needs to be set to color management mode 1 to do this.
To change the color management mode in Firefox, type about:config in the address field and press Enter.
Type color in the search field, then scroll down to gfx.
Click the pencil icon on the right, then change 2 (which is the default) to 1. Restart Firefox.
If this doesn't help, you most likely have a defective monitor profile. (not uncommon on Windows)
As troubleshooting, and as a possible temporary fix, try setting the monitor profile to sRGB. (use Adobe RGB if you have a wide gamut monitor)
If this fixes the issue, it is recommended that you calibrate the monitor with a hardware calibrator.
This will also create and install a custom monitor profile that accurately describes the color response of your monitor.
Close all color managed applications.
Press the Windows key + R, type colorcpl in the box and press Enter.
Add the sRGB profile, then set it as default.
I appreciate the detailed response. Unfortunately none of this has worked. FastStone is indeed color managed and has been restarted. I've tried setting the Windows color profile to sRGB as you suggested and restarted everything. Still, the colors in the exported image are different than what's seen in Lightroom. This is showing the same exact pixel sampled. The zoomed in shot clearly shows significant color differences:
I'm baffled at this point. The only thing I should mention is that my display is not calibrated. Is there any chance that buying a hardware calibrator and going through the process would help? They're expensive, and in my mind all it will do is apply an ICC color profile that gets me "true" colors, which will be applied similarly to both LR and exports and still result in differences.
You simply MUST compare colors and tone in Develop module alone, at 1:1 or greater zoom.
ALL ICC aware applications should exactly match, some browsers are not color managed and some web 'services' strip the profile of uploaded image which is problematic.
sRGB alone doesn't guarantee any such matching as without proper color management, sRGB is an utterly meaningless concept. With proper color management, any tagged RGB color space image will preview correctly on your machine and match all other color managed previews (others? All bets are off).
LR is 'correct', the other preview isn't. Due to a color management issue with that product or a lack of color management.
Here is another oddity. I've actually clicked on your screen capture in the first post to enlarge it, I'm viewing it in Safari on Mac. They appear to match.
Here is a screen capture I see in Safari. Maybe it's late, but to me, I don't see the difference you describe, making me think, there is some profile or CMS issue on your end.
Question: When you view this preview below, which is from my screen, do the two look very similar????
Honestly the pictures look more similar on your screen. Here is a closeup comparison, and the pixels look pretty similar, though there are minor differences:
How does this image look on your screen? I think this showcases the differences better (comparing a closeup of FastStone and LR):
I do have photoshop. Comparison here, and the difference is quite clear on my screen. All I can think of now is that I should calibrate my screen, but I don't necessarily believe it would fix this.
See below. The images still look quite different, so it does not appear to be a resampling artifact. I have also exported in tiff and png with the original resolution and still see color differences.
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