Color mismatch between Lightroom and Photoshop ACR

[rsamco]

All of a sudden, I am getting image color casts when I use Lightroom's "Edit in Photoshop CC 2017..." or "Open as Smart Object" to open a RAW file in Photoshop CC 2017. However, if I instead use Lightroom's "Export..." to send the RAW file to Photoshop as either a PSD or a TIFF, the image opens in Ps with color that matches Lightroom's. That is, I can perform these 3 different ways of editing a RAW image in Photoshop and compare the 3 resulting Photoshop edit windows side-by-side -- the "Edit in..." and "Smart Object" versions will be exactly the same but wrong (usually too Cyan), with only the "Export..." version's color correctly matching Lightroom's window.

I'm at a loss why this is now happening...I have checked:

• I am using current CC 2017 versions of Lightroom, Photoshop & ACR (Lr v2015.10.1/ACR v9.10.1; Ps v20179425.r.252x64/ACR v9.10.1.750);
• Running Windows 10, Creator's Edition x64 with all Microsoft updates applied;
• Turned off GPU acceleration in Lightroom & Photoshop;
• Double checked that Lightroom's "Preferences/External Editing": exports to Photoshop in "ProPhotoRGB 16bits"; Checked that my Photoshop default Color Space is the same. "Color Settings" in Photoshop has the 3 "Ask" boxes checked for missing and mismatched color profiles.
• Although it seemed a long shot, I re-calibrated my monitor since other forum threads suggested doing that. I also double checked that correct monitor profile is being used (through Window's "Color Management");

Is there anyone who can help? TIA!

[D Fosse]

Are they really different? Any differences in the histograms?

Double check that they all really have an embedded profile. The simplest way to do this is to set the notification area (lower left corner of the image window) to "document profile". What that profile is should not matter as long as it's there, and they also don't need to be the same to display identically. It should all get remapped into the monitor profile and display correctly.

[rsamco]

Yes, they are different! Ps' doc profile in bottom left shows all 3 having same "ProPhoto RGB (16bpc) [also I'm not getting "profile mismatch upon opening"]. The color difference isn't enough to visually see a difference in the histograms. But if I put two of the 3 into a single document as layers and set top layer to difference, then I get something other than black (i.e., there is a difference). Here's a histogram of the difference:

[rsamco]

Here's thumbnail of correct color (i.e., from "Export..."):

Here's thumbnail of incorrect color (i.e., from "Edit in..."):

(should be able to see green/cyan even in browser's sRGB space).

And here's the difference between the two:

and with a curves applied to accentuate the diff:

[rsamco]

I should add that this problem showed up seemingly out of the blue...I've been a heavy Lr and Ps user for years without experiencing this. And I can't come up with even a theory on what may be occurring. Even though it looks like a profile problem, document profiles are identical. Monitor profile is same for all.

IMO, it seems to be a ACR problem -- Lr's ACR seems to be rendering the RAW file differently than Ps's ACR! And PS's ACR is the one that recently changed -- all past images edited in both Lr and Ps (& which always appeared identical in both), now appear with color cast in Ps.

[TheDigitalDog]

rsamco  wrote

Yes, they are different! Ps' doc profile in bottom left shows all 3 having same "ProPhoto RGB (16bpc) [also I'm not getting "profile mismatch upon opening"]. The color difference isn't enough to visually see a difference in the histograms. But if I put two of the 3 into a single document as layers and set top layer to difference, then I get something other than black (i.e., there is a difference). Here's a histogram of the difference:

Best to provide us this layered document to examine. Doesn't need to be high rez!

[D Fosse]

No preset applied? Camera profiles?

[Joe Foe Toe]

This is only very "hunchy" - but I seem to recall a problem with Camera Profile differences between PS Smart Object and Lightroom, for the life of me I don't remember the conditions, but you might try turning off in both images, applying Adobe standard in both, etc. Very fuzzy in my head, but not too hard to check!

[rsamco]

OK, here's what I have tried:

• Changed RAW's camera calibration to "Adobe Standard" in Lightroom and then compared subsequent "Edit in..." vs "Export..." in Photoshop -- rendering difference remains.
• Reset RAW's settings in Lightroom (i.e., everything zero'd out) and then compared subsequent "Edit in..." vs "Export..." in Photoshop -- rendering is identical.So one or more ACR settings are being rendered differently (but it's not within "camera calibration." Time for a search for the culprit within Lr ACR settings...
• Found that apparently each and every ACR adjustment is rendered differently in Lr vs Ps ACR! That is, started with totally reset RAW (w/o any adjustments) and then just adjusted WB, then just adjusted Vibrance, then HSL, ... Every such isolated Lr color adjustment that I tried was rendered differently!

So it appears that the ACR rendering difference is pervasive -- any ACR setting is rendered differently in Lr vs Ps! Time for a reinstall of Photoshop?

[rsamco]

More data...

• Remove interface concerns between Lr & Ps by, within Lr, writing image's ACR settings to image's xmp sidecar file and then opened that RAW file using Photoshop's Open ... as a result, fiile opens directly into Ps' ACR. Rendering problem shows. I then simply converted and opened image in Ps, and, sure enough, same rendering difference/error is there.
• Then copied RAW+xmp & TIFF "Export..." image files to my laptop and opened using same v20170425.r.252 x64 version of Photoshop ... RAW+xmp rendering looks correct to my discerning eye! When I compared it to Photoshop's TIFF file rendering, I saw an extremely small brightness difference in shadows and, sure enough, performing a difference comparison using layers & extreme curves enhancement showed some difference. But I'm going to ignore this for the time being and focus on the fact that the laptop's ACR rendering is essentially correct, and assume therefore that there is something odd with my desktop Photoshop installation/configuration.
• Laptop's Creative Cloud app then notified me that Photoshop needed updating, but not ACR ... so updated laptop's Ps and it now reports same v20170425.r.252 x64 version as before, so don't know what the update did. Anyway, then performed same as above by opening RAW and TIFF versions. Same results as above: So also going to ignore this version strangeness.

So, the big finding here is that my Laptop's Photoshop basically renders the RAW+xmp file correctly. And I believe that I have also  ruled out Lightroom as a factor. I am leaning toward removing and reinstalling my desktop's Photoshop and ACR, but I hesitate since I'd like to figure out what's going on before I brute-force fix it (it's the engineer in me).

[aleduj]

Hi,

I experience a similar problem.

Photoshop messes up colours (same kind of colourcast as rsamco) when opening two corrected photos as layers from Lightroom.

I don't open them as smart objects though.

All programs up to date. Everything was working in previous version

[Per Berntsen]

aleduj  wrote:

I experience a similar problem.

Photoshop messes up colours (same kind of colourcast as rsamco) when opening two corrected photos as layers from Lightroom.

I don't open them as smart objects though.

All programs up to date. Everything was working in previous version

To avoid confusion, and because your problem seems slightly different, it would probably be best if you started a new thread.

Please tell us what versions of LR and PS you are running, and your operating system.

Screenshots showing the difference will also be useful.

[aleduj]

Hi,

Thank you for the advice.

To answer your questions about my versions of LR and PS and system:

Adobe CC: LR-2015.10.1 & PS-2017.1.1 (version 18.1.1) - ACR-9.10.1

System: macOS Sierra-10.12.5

MacBook Pro 2.5 GHz - i7 - 16 Go Ram

I can make a new thread, but I'd like to share what happened this morning.

I wanted to test raw files from another camera (I always open corrected files from LR to PS as 16bit prophoto and not smart object). I opened 2 photos, but not as layers this time. PS in this case prompted the usual dialog box regarding the Color profile. I ticked integrated Color profile in the first one (and got the corrected photo from LR - no problem here) and no Color profile in the second one (and got obviously an ugly photo with kind of a strange 'Color cast'). Then, I opened the same 2 photos from LR to PS but as layers this time. The result was the exact same as the photo without the Color profile.

[D Fosse]

rsamco, remember that "Reset" takes you to default settings, not "zero". They may not be the same if you have accidentally saved new default settings. In ACR that's very easily done if you're in the panel flyout menu and happen to click in the wrong place. In Lightroom it's even easier, press the alt key and "Reset" changes to "Set Default".

I think that's what happened here. Zero everything and save that as new default, then check again.

[rsamco]

My mistake implying that a reset typically zeroes settings, but my default does zero all settings (I just double checked). WB is "as shot", Camera Calibration is "2012 (current)/Adobe Std".

I think that I've narrowed the question down to: why does ACR+Ps on desktop give much different (& wrong) rendering than on my laptop? This has nothing to do with zero settings or defaults -- the same exact ACR settings (in the xmp sidecar file) produce markedly different results!

[rsamco]

Forgot: yes, turned  off GPU acceleration in Ps' ACR as well.Just double checked.

[rsamco]

More weird results:

Just saw that laptop just installed a Windows 10 update, so retried experiment there and same result: correct Ps+ACR rendering of RAW+xmp.

Then decided to have my desktop Ps open the RAW+xmp and TIFF files off the thumbdrive (i.e., open same exact files that the laptop opened, rather than the original hard drive versions). Desktop's Ps+ACR renders thumbdrive RAW+xmp version correctly! WTF. Open original hard drive's RAW+xmp -- still incorrectly renders. Did a file comparison of both the RAW and the xmp files with the thumbdrive versions -- XMP: no substantive differences (see below), RAW/.CR2; no file differences. So what's going on? How can a image file's file location change its ACR rendering?????

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RAW files comparison transcript:

Comparing files rs-20170304-165403-4075.CR2 and F:\RS-20170304-165403-4075.CR2

FC: no differences encountered

RAW/CR2 files comparison transcript:

Comparing files rs-20170304-165403-4075.xmp and F:\RS-20170304-165403-4075.XMP

***** rs-20170304-165403-4075.xmp

   xmp:CreateDate="2017-03-05T00:54:03.00"

   xmp:MetadataDate="2017-06-19T13:17:37-07:00"

   xmp:Rating="0"

***** F:\RS-20170304-165403-4075.XMP

   xmp:CreateDate="2017-03-05T00:54:03.00"

   xmp:MetadataDate="2017-06-19T13:02:48-07:00"

   xmp:Rating="0"

*****

***** rs-20170304-165403-4075.xmp

   xmpMM:OriginalDocumentID="7D54FA32330E9184F4B3E35E274B6596"

   xmpMM:InstanceID="xmp.iid:383a9a17-afa3-194f-81cd-7f02752233e1"

   xmpRights:Marked="True"

***** F:\RS-20170304-165403-4075.XMP

   xmpMM:OriginalDocumentID="7D54FA32330E9184F4B3E35E274B6596"

   xmpMM:InstanceID="xmp.iid:5676aef6-4c02-eb45-b807-204c41748bfb"

   xmpRights:Marked="True"

*****

***** rs-20170304-165403-4075.xmp

      stEvt:action="saved"

      stEvt:instanceID="xmp.iid:383a9a17-afa3-194f-81cd-7f02752233e1"

      stEvt:when="2017-06-19T13:17:37-07:00"

      stEvt:softwareAgent="Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 9.10.1 (Windows)"

***** F:\RS-20170304-165403-4075.XMP

      stEvt:action="saved"

      stEvt:instanceID="xmp.iid:5676aef6-4c02-eb45-b807-204c41748bfb"

      stEvt:when="2017-06-19T13:02:48-07:00"

      stEvt:softwareAgent="Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 9.10.1 (Windows)"

*****

[Joe Foe Toe]

If I'm reading this all correctly, your desktop Photoshop renders incorrectly the same file that is rendered correctly in the other three permutation, Lightroom desktop and Lightroom & Photoshop on your laptop.  Assuming all Photoshop settings the same on both computers and exact same ACR on both, we have a head-scratcher (as if you didn't know). I understand your interest in sorting it out. A reinstall of Photoshop desktop will either fix it and you might never know what the issue was, but could chalk it up to a ghost in the machine -or- you end up with the same discrepancy and back to square one.

Through all this there's the added possible confounding issue of xmp sidecar. You might try eliminating this as a factor.

I'm just trying to summarize to see if I have it all right - the only possible conclusion I can see is something different in Photoshop, either settings or broken. Hard for me to see where anything Win10 would alter the actual file contents, which seems to be the case.

Additionally, if a reinstall doesnt change things, perhaps some of us who are presumably on all the latest greatest versions can see if we can replicate using the same files.

[rsamco]

OK, did some more thinking -- maybe one of the files had a cache problem (file rendered from cache, so files maybe weren't really identical). Therefore, I purged the ACR cache again (did so yesterday) from within Ps, checked that it went to zero (in Explorer), re-rendered hard drive's RAW+xmp -- still renders incorrectly. For the sake of my sanity, re-rendered thumbdrive version -- it now renders incorrectly! So much for my sanity 😞 Took thumbdrive back to laptop, it also now renders incorrectly on laptop!! Purged laptop's ACR cache and still renders incorrectly.

OK, the laptop now appears to be in the same state as my desktop -- Ps' ACR incapable of rendering RAW correctly. Well, at least that seems to show that the problem is not unique to my desktop system! And I am starting to suspect that a recent Adobe or Microsoft update caused the problem and therefore I won't be the only one reporting it.

I going to remove and reinstall Ps & ACR on my laptop and then rerun the experiment...

[rsamco]

OK, uninstalled & reinstalled Ps+ACR on laptop, saving/keeping prefs/settings (really don't want to restore/regenerate them).

Then went to desktop to refresh RAW, xmp, &TIFF files on thumbdrive. First, I actually first refreshed the TIFF and xmp files by rewriting the Tiff and xmp sidecar files from within Lr (interesting discovery: in Explorer the sidecar file's date/time shows as 7 hours earlier than when it was written, UTC time? why?). OK, took thumbdrive to laptop -- RAW+xmp renders correctly!

Took thumbdrive back to desktop -- still renders incorrectly.

So, Ps uninstall and reinstall fixes problem ... until it rears its head again!

[Per Berntsen]

rsamco wrote:

I have checked:

Turned off GPU acceleration in Lightroom & Photoshop;

Since you don't specifically mention it, did you also turn off the GPU in the Camera Raw preferences?

[WLan]

Similar issue here but in my case turning off CPU or setting it to Basic in Photoshop seems to solve the issue. There is still a slight change in color and contrast, especially noticeable in black and white images but not alarming.

This issue also does not occur when I export from Lightroom to PSD on my desktop and then preview the image in Finder by using the spacebar.

I just reinstalled PS and the issue remains so in my case the best solution would be setting the GPU performance in PS to Basic since I do regularly use the tools that take advantage of the GPU (and I'm into 3D in PS)

I wonder if there are others with a similar issue but without even knowing they just correct the color cast in PS.

Hope that helps others with the same issue.

[D Fosse]

Setting GPU to basic in Photoshop shifts the display color management back to the CPU (the traditional way). So that points to a buggy video driver. There are some inaccuracies in OpenGL code, most pronounced in ProPhoto where the compressed shadow values (compared to aRGB or sRGB) can amplify these small inaccuracies.

Generally, any color difference between color managed applications indicates a problem with either the monitor profile, or the conversion itself, as performed by either the GPU or the CPU. Those two can interact so that a slightly defective profile can throw one off but the other handles it correctly.

[WLan]

Thanks for your input D Fosse, much appreciated. At least now I know what the culprit is!

[arieln76859910]

Having the same issue here. Actually it's not the first time it happens and I couldn't remember what I've done before to solve this.
To make the story short, I've recently updated LR to 7.3 and CR was also updated in the process. Then I had to revert LR to 7.2 due to the buggy 7.3 presets and more. Anyways, exporting for external editing from LR 7.2 to latest PS and CR version is what causing this issue. All profiles match and I've ran the same tests as in the comments above. Upgraded to LR 7.3 again just to test and the problem was gone. The thing is that I don't want to use 7.3 until it's fixed so now I'm stuck with mismatching versions and useless Adobe bundle...

*UPDATE* rolling back to the previous version of CR did the trick. All this time consuming issue is just a matter of matching versions (having in mind that you have everything set up correctly such as color profiles in both programs)