Lightroom is treating shadows differently in library mode vs develop mode

[s.vaidy]

Hello! 

I've used Lightroom for a while now with no issues, but recently, the application has been treating the shadows of my images very differently in the library compared to the develop module. The shadows look like a filter has been put over them and I'm losing some detail. And no matter how I develop it, my image's shadows always look different when I return to my library. I've calibrated my screen and reset my preferences just in case I may have changed a setting but nothing seems to solve this issue. Is this a bug or something I did with the color profiles of Lightroom? I'm genuinely lost, so any advice would be greatly appreciated! 

[Jao vdL]

How are you calibrating your display? Make sure you calibrate to a icc v2 profile. Lightroom has some issues that could cause different shadow rendering with v4 profiles. The difference between your screenshots is very hard to see but it is there indeed.

[D Fosse]

Also, matrix-based, not table-based (LUT) profiles.

Different calibration software will have different defaults - but if there are no options for this in the calibration software, it will be version 2 and matrix. Which is always the safe option.

[s.vaidy]

I calibrated my screen using a Calibrite ColorChecker. When I was calibrating my screen it said that the v4 profile was default for Mac screens on the application. I'm a student, and my professor also recommended I use a v4 profile. May I ask why Lightroom has issues rendering with v4 profiles? Also, my apologies for the difficulty with the screenshots! 

[D Fosse]

It's just that empirically some applications have problems with v4. I don't know why, it's just how it is. In any case, v4 doesn't really bring anything significant to the table. There aren't any particular advantages to it.

I haven't seen any problems in my own v4 testing with Lr and PS, but I still stick to v2 just to avoid any potential issues.

I also stick to matrix profiles for the same reason. I think most experienced users do the same.

[Jao vdL]

The real issue is not really v2 vs v4 but like @D Fosse says matrix vs LUT. I believe that v2 profiles can only be matrix while v4 can be either. LUT profiles are in principle better because they can avoid the appearance of banding but a problem can be that it depends on the precise color management engine how the interpolation between the lookup values occurs. I am no expert but know there is an issue with v4 LUT profiles in Lightroom that is not entirely understood why it happens.

[D Fosse]

Actually you can have v2 and LUT:

Eizo ColorNavigator is one calibration software that has v4 and LUT as default. It works well in Lightroom and Photoshop here, but I changed it to v2 and matrix anyway (Gamma EOTF is what they call matrix in CN).