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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Replies
Simple solution and many wrong answers. I faced the same problem. go to the color sync utility and change the default color LCD to sRgb. You may need to look for the profile in the color profiles folder on the system.
By @Leonardo Izar
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" -H. L. Mencken
+1 to what Jao vdL just posted. This isn't a fix. Now all you've done is hose Lightrooms color managed previews as well.
When working for the web, Monitor RGB is the same. It displays the colors that your (calibrated) monitors profile uses and should be closer to your intent on the monitors of others. Since you create for the web, set both LR's and PS's soft proofing to display your monitors calibration profile (monitor RGB).
By @misterrick
Do not proof to Monitor RGB.
Proofing to Monitor RGB turns off all display color management. That is not what you want. It just shows you how it looks on your monitor without color management. It tells you absolutely nothing about how it looks on any other random monitor with unknown characteristics.
Furthermore, all major web browsers today are fully color managed and will correctly represent any embedded profile. Photoshop and your web browser will display identically.
There is nothing special about working for web. Calibrate and profile your monitor as usual. Convert to sRGB because sRGB has the highest likelihood of displaying roughly right in the highest number of possible scenarios. But with a profiled monitor - no proof - that will be displayed correctly by any web browser.
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