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Participant
June 29, 2021
Question

Completely different color in Library and Develop (calibration not working)

  • June 29, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 4215 views

I'm having a problem with the photos in my Lightroom's Develop looking completely different than in camera and in the Library. (Libary is the accurate one to the camera image). I have tried calibrating my Mac display and choosing an sRGB color profile but it didn't help. Interestingly, the color of photos in the Library changes to the same one as the Develop color after I open them with the Develop and they stay that way. 

It seems that the problem is the same when I open the RAW photos with Mac's Finder (the icon shows accurate colors but after opening it in the preview it becomes very contrasty).

 

Attaching screenshots to show the huge difference.


Does anyone know a solution?
(PS, I'm not very tech-savvy so would be very grateful for easy to follow instructions)

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

Community Expert
June 29, 2021

One thing to do is to set up Lightroom Classic to try to mimic your in camera settings. This works for most Nikon and Canon and many Sony cameras. In Preferences, go to presets and in the top popup (global), select "camera settings". This will automatically select a camera matching profile and attempt to read any in-camera settings and mimic those. This will only apply to new imports but for already imported images, try to select the "camera settings" preset which is present in the defaults section in the presets sidebar. This will have the same effect.

Jerimiah27402358zhax
Participating Frequently
December 2, 2022

Unchecking "Use Graphics Processor" works to make the colors match export, library, and develop screen images on two different computers with different brands of graphics cards. Note that when I edit the image in Photoshop it matches the library and exported images accept when I then open it in the Camera Raw Filter... then it matches Lightroom's Develop.

 

I'd like someone to tell us all how we can have the benefits of hardware acceleration and have accurate colors when developing photos! Is there anyone guru who knows this answer? 

 

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
December 2, 2022
quote

Unchecking "Use Graphics Processor" works to make the colors match export, library, and develop screen images on two different computers with different brands of graphics cards.


By @Jerimiah27402358zhax

If turning OFF GPU works, it's a GPU bug and you need to contact the manufacturer or find out if there's an updated driver for it. This is why disabling GPU is an option as more and more functionality moves to the GPU in newer versions of many Adobe products.
Also see: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/acr-gpu-faq.html

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
F. McLion
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 29, 2021

How did you calibrate your monitor?

What is the type of your monitor?

If it is a wide gamut type, you need to calibrate it with a hardware calibration device like a Spyder or alike.

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JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 29, 2021

This has nothing to do with monitor calibration (which you should do, of course), but with embedded previews versus lightroom generated previews. See the bottom right corner of the image in the first screenshot.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
F. McLion
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 30, 2021

The main issue has been addressed by your first answer/post, Therefore it makes no sense to write the same again (as others often do here).

However, the request of the OP sounds as there could also be an issue with the calibration or at least regarding the understanding of it. Since he is writing about calibrating the display, I wanted to make sure that all is clear with that.

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JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 29, 2021

The reason why you see this difference is because you imported the images with 'Embedded & sidecar' selected as option for the previews. That means that the Lightroom library module will show you the embedded previews that the camera generated, and did not yet generate previews of its own. But these are edited previews and edited in different software (the camera software), so they won't match with what Lightroom does. When you open the image in the develop module, Lightroom will generate a preview based on its own raw engine. This image has not yet been exited, so that increases the difference. Once you've made edits, the library and the develop module should match, because then the library previews get updated to what you did in Lightroom.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
Participant
January 6, 2023

Can you help me? I have the same problem as you