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12qwer233
Known Participant
May 15, 2017
Question

Picture is lighter in LR than in any other program

  • May 15, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 1770 views

Hello!

Recently I was surprised that LR displays pictures lighter than on exported JPG (exported in sRGB, as well as AdobeRGB, ProPhotoRGB) or other programs (GIMP, DxO, xnView, fast stone, windows viewer and so on). It is very well seen in the darks (please, look at the attached screenshot). If I open the exported JPG in LR, it looks lighter again.

I use LR 5.7 and calibrated display, profiles seem to be loaded correctly in the system.

I have tried many ways to fix this, however didn't succeed. Unfortunately, it is very annoying to keep in mind that deep shadows will be lost after export even if a picture looks just fine in LR.

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1 reply

Per Berntsen
Community Expert
Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 15, 2017

Most likely, the monitor profile is corrupted, or incompatible with Lightroom.

What version of Windows do you have?

What kind of calibrator?

And are you creating a version 2 or version 4 icc profile?

Lightroom has a problem with version 4 profiles.

Try setting the monitor profile to sRGB (or Adobe RGB if you have a wide gamut monitor).

If that fixes the problem, you have a corrupted or incompatible monitor profile.

Press the Windows key+R, type colorcpl, and hit Enter.

Add the sRGB profile, then set it as Default profile. See screenshot (from Windows 7) below.

Make sure that Use my settings for this device is checked.

1
12qwer233Author
Known Participant
May 15, 2017

Hello Per,

thanks for your reply.

I use Win7, EIZO CS230 and i1 Display Pro. Calibration was done by Color Navigator (the calibrator appears as i1 Display 3 / Pro there)

Actually, I don't know what version of icc profiles Color Navigator creates when calibrating the display.

Regarding your experiment. After I changed the default profile to sRGB, the difference between the exported JPG and LR disappeared (please, look at the attached screenshot). At least, I can't see noticeable difference.

I'm not sure if the display profile is corrupted (may be it is). But definitely, LR seems to have troubles with display profiles. Other programs doesn't.

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 17, 2017

Hello D Fosse,

thank you for your reply. I use laptop with EIZO connected through the docking station. Docking station has video card on-board (Radeon HD 6650M). Usually, I don't use the laptop display and it is not seen in the windows settings. If I open the laptop lid and use both displays, the result of the JPG output is the same. If I swap displays (if I understood you correctly, I just should choose the main display in the "screen and resolution"), nothing changes again.

I also noticed that if I drag LR window from EIZO to laptop, then picture is darken after a couple of seconds. If i drag it back, it looks a bit darker on EIZO for couple of seconds (too dark actually) and then becomes lighter again. As far as I understood, this is due to system/LR changing the monitor profiles.

Regarding the GPU. I'm not sure that LR 5.7 has that function.

I just tried to do the same on my laptop display. It is not calibrated and uses default profile from manufacturer. The profile is seen by windows and loaded. I set it as the main display and then exported JPG. The result is the same. LR is lighter (and color is a bit warmer, btw). Please, look at the screenshot (100% zoom).

It is really weird. Another RAW converter (DxO) doesn't have such troubles on my setup.


I see. This makes me fairly certain the problem is that the wrong profile is used by Lightroom. It's the only possible explanation if the profile itself is good and other color managed apps display differently. The instances I've heard of before where this happens, have always been laptop + external main display.

ColorNavigator set to version 2 and matrix ("gamma value") is a very reliable configuration and I have never heard of any problems with these profiles in any situation.

Yes, you'd change assignment of main <> secondary display in the OS.

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