Colors do not match after exporting

[Bdorinel_photography]

So.

I have a laptop MacBook Air to edit my photos in Lightroom Classic.

I have an external monitor from Benq model  BL2420PT so I can see the photos in more datails while I.m editing.

I edit the photos, I export them in sRGB to my samsung S22 Ultra smartphone and it looks like desaturated. Am I doing something wrong?

How should I color mach on each devices to have the same look? What color profiles on devices should I use so the final images will look the same on every devices screen.

Regards.

[Per Berntsen]

A couple of possibilities –

• Do the colors on the Benq match the colors on the laptop screen? If not, the monitor profile for the Benq could be defective or inaccurate, causing images to display with wrong colors in LrC.
  Have you calibrated the monitor with a hardware calibrator using the Benq calibration software?
  Try setting the monitor profile to sRGB, and see if that makes a difference. Restart LrC for the change to take effect.
  I'm  a Windows user, so I can't give you instructions on how to change the monitor profile. (might be called display profile on a Mac)
• If the monitor profile is not the issue, your phone might be set to a low contrast color scheme.
  I'm not familiar with Samsung phones, so I don't know what options there are.
  Generally speaking, phones do not have color management.

[Bdorinel_photography]

Thanks for the advice and I would try it to see what would be the issue. Hope a Mac user can help me with other advices. Regards.

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

As long as you have a valid monitor profile for your BenQ (and a calibrator will give you that), Lightroom Classic displays correctly. It shows you what the file really looks like.

How your phone displays images is controlled by your phone, not Lightroom. There's nothing you can do in Lightroom to influence that.

[ZappaJul]

True in that phones can't be calibrated, but LR HDR on/off does make a BIG difference to how exported images are displayed on phones - see my other response for more details.

[ZappaJul]

There may be 2 issues here, one of which can be addressed through colour management (see A) and the other may be a  setting in LR (B).

A) Calibrate both laptop screen and BenQ. The accuracy of colours displayed and whether or not screens match each other depends on the color space and display uniformity of each screen. However, any monitor shows more reliable colour once calibrated and the two screens will be closer than before. Repeat regularly. (How often depends on colour drift, which is in turn dependent on screen quality. £500 screen? Calibrate weekly. £1500 Eizo? Monthly is fine).

1. Choose maximum number of colour chips and calibrate at night with the lights off, using a decent colorimeter (eg Calibrite Display Pro).
2. Download a known colour management reference image to provide a visual baseline. (Search Photodisc PDI test Image to download high-res version of  licensed freeware image attached). Pay special attention to whether your screen displays the skin tones accurately and shows separation between sections on Kodak GreyScale..
3. Set Lightroom to work in Adobe 98. (Lightroom defaults to ProPhoto colour space which is larger, but since your screen can't display that range, it won't help you with postproduction colour accuracy. NB Do not work in sRGB; it's a small colour space and you are immediately reducing the amount of data available for post production. However you are correct to export files to sRGB for the best colour reproduction on internet and mobile devices).

(B) In LR > Light section, is HDR activated? if so, try turning it off, or hit Preview for SDR. Is the resulting colour change similar to what you're seeing on your smartphone?

If you edit using HDR, the resulting colour looks fine in LR but inaccurate and strange in apps or devices that can't display HDR - ie most at the moment... LR's HDR feature is currently pretty niche. Solution: either keep HDR off and edit for SDR, or edit in HDR but use SDR Rendition Settings to make a version for apps and displays in capable of displaying HDR.

If you do (A) + (B) and the issue persists, suggest pursuing the problem with Adobe.