Photos exported from lightroom looks different on pc and iphone

[jestir jan]

When i'm developing an image inside lightroom i was expecting the same output after exporting it with srgb color profile. I am using foxstone viewer to view exact colors. But the image looks so much better inside lightroom develop module. I tried importing it on my iphone and the image looks brighter and a bit saturated on my phone Because i thought iphones displays exact colors. Do i have to depend on my iphone display to correct my image brightness ang saturation? My laptop is not calibrated.I am using lightroom cc 2015.5.1 on windows 7.

[dj_paige]

Calibrate your laptop monitor. Calibrate your iPhone.

[Jao vdL]

I am pretty sure fasstone viewer does not color manage by default and so will always show you incorrect color even on calibrated displays. You need to calibrate your display using calibration hardware regardless. Also, except when your iPhone is a 6 or 7 model, do not expect the display quality to be that good as before that Apple wasn't really calibrating the screens that well. Also there are many settings on the phone that can mess up the color and contrast Such as the ambient adjustments they can do. Even the newer ones are not going to be very good although they are probably going to be better out of the box than a random uncalibrated computer display.

[andrewb4_4]

I'm having the same problem I have a IPhone 6 and my photos in Lightroom look good but once I sync them to my Lightroom mobile app my pictures look different it's like they delete all my edits I'm not sure how to fix it

[jenniferg9285900]

I have the same problem, dont know how to calibrate either.

[Laura Shoe · Accepted solution]

Hi Jestir,

You wrote, "When I'm developing an image inside lightroom I was expecting the same output after exporting it with sRGB color profile."  Lightroom essentially works in the ProPhoto color space, which is larger than sRGB - ProPhoto can contain and Lightroom can show you colors that are much more saturated than what sRGB can. If you have intensely saturated colors in your photo, these colors will be dampened down to fit into sRGB.

It's no surprise that your photos are displaying brighter on your iPhone. There is nothing in your image file that tells your device (iPhone, monitor) how brightly to set the display - your monitor and iPhone are just set to different brightness values. You could sit down at your computer with an image on your monitor and the same one on your phone and adjust brightness on your iPhone so they match and set your iPhone brightness preference to not automatically adjust, but next time you walk outdoors you'll find that your iPhone is way too dark for you to be able to read it - its brightness needs to be adjusted to varying ambient lighting conditions.

[Aliyaan AK]

So how do we fix it?? I've edited my photo but it's not looking the same when I export it. What do I do??

[shwetav]

Hi Aliyaam,

If you are editing photos in Lightroom CC then try below option and check, I hope it will work.

While saving photos save it as "Save for Web (Legacy)", select checkbox "Embed Color Profile" and "Convert to sRGB"

Thank you

[D Fosse]

This is the Lightroom forum. Save For Web is a Photoshop function.

But yes, Exporting to sRGB (under the file settings tab) accomplishes the same thing.

However, this doesn't "solve" the problem, it just makes it less conspicuous in most cases. The solution is to use a color managed photo viewer/web browser. Without color management, even an sRGB file will only be as close to correct as the display is close to sRGB natively. Which is to say, it will never be a perfect match.

[manuelamir]

Dear Ms. Laura,
I  have a similar problem, after export the photo looks different, but it is much more saturated which i snot in line with your above explanation: " colors will be dampened down to fit into sRGB."
 The main question is how can the image been viewed inside LR  before exporting, to control the color output .
Otherwise it will request a lot of trail and error until reaching the right color hue/saturation. I belive  there should be an export previw or similar posibility ?
further to mention i have the same issue in PS.

[D Fosse]

It sounds like you're viewing it in a photo viewer which is not color managed.

In that case it's entirely down to the characteristics of your monitor. Traditionally, most monitors are fairly close to sRGB natively, so an sRGB image would display roughly correctly without color management.

The further your monitor is from an "ideal" sRGB response, the more incorrect it will display. With wide gamut monitors, unmanaged sRGB material will always display oversaturated. These monitors have a wider gamut than sRGB, so all numbers will inflate like a balloon, filling the wider color space.

If you have one of these displays, you simply cannot use applications that are not color managed. That's the deal, and what you implicitly accepted when purchasing such a unit. There is no workaround: you need full end-to-end color management. Or, for that matter, accept the oversaturation.

With color management, the monitor profile will remap the numbers into monitor color space, preserving correct colors. To get the full benefit of this, you also need a calibrator to make a monitor profile that describes your monitor accurately. A generic manufacturer profile will never be as precise.

[TheDigitalDog]

LR like ACR, Photoshop and many other applications that deal with images, is color managed. 

In color managed applications, what you see there is what you see elsewhere when those applications are also color managed (on the same device). 

If you don't see the same previews, it is due to a lack of color management. It doesn't matter if you save out as sRGB or anything else; outside of a color managed application, sRGB is an utterly meaningless concept. Nor is the display description via some profile used for previews. 

The iPhone OS is color managed. And some iPhones, since version 6 use a wide gamut display. No matter the color space, if tagged (and that's the only way export in LR works thankfully), the previews will be correct. But not all phones and other devices are color managed and will not preview correctly (let alone 'match' some other display). 

There is absolutely nothing you can do upon export to fix a lack of color management elsewhere. Yes, on an sRGB like device, sRGB will look the most reasonable but again, without color management, it's possible it will not. 

You cannot control what other's see of your images; you don't know if they use color management, calibrate and profile their devices etc. 

[GarySymonds]

When I export I export a tiff file and a jpeg the jpeg looks wrong over saturated and dark but the tiff looks find when they are viewed from windows before I share the jepeg  on the Webb I have to get it to look good on the phone

Why would the tiff look good same as it did out of lightroom and photoshop but jpeg wrong 

[ManiacJoe]

Windows? Which version?

Is your monitor calibrated?

Which program are you using to view the TIF and JPG files on Windows?

Which phone? Which picture viewing app?