Shadows clipped in Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw on macOS

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

I have recently run into an issue where very dark shadows are being clipped in Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw. No issue in Photoshop.

MacBook Pro M3 Max

macOS 15.6.1

Photoshop 26.10.0

Lightroom Classic 14.5.1

I noticed this issue with macOS 15.5.0 and the previous releases of PS and LRC. I updated everything to the latest as of this morning, rebooted multiple times, and the issue still exists.

The issue happens when:

• Using the built-in display of my MacBook and the stock Apple XDR profiles or custom profiles I created with my Calibrite Display Plus HL.
• Using my external 24" LG 4K display with custom profiles created with my Calibrate Display Plus HL.

The issue DOES NOT happen when I set the display to use a generic profile like Display P3.

Disabling GPU acceleration in LRC improves the problem (less clipping) but doesn't completely get rid of it.

The issue also happens when using Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop as filter on a layer.

I updated Calibrate Profiler to the latest version and created new profiles to see if that would fix it, but no luck. The issue also happens with old profiles I created a year or more ago that I never had an issue with before until I started seeing this problem recently.

Here is an example of the issue. Photoshop 26.10.0 on the left, Lightroom Classic 14.5.1 develop mode on the right, running on macOS 15.6.1. Zoomed in to 100% on both. Same gradient 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF file opened in PS and LRC. This is difficult to show with the JPEG black crushing of the screenshots, but it is visible. Increasing your display brightness will help to see it. The original hi res screenshot can be downloaded here that more clearly shows the issue.

Here is another example, PS left, LRC develop mode right. Original screenshot here.

Is anyone else seeing this? Any other ideas for trying to fix it?

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

I included the wrong links (and can't find a way to edit the original post?). Here are the correct links to the screenshot PNG files:

Gradient

Rocks

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

The gradient TIFF test image I am using can be downloaded here.

[gregbenz]

Using the gray gradient, I see ACR and PS are a visual match (not a perfect numerical match, but extremely close - I stretched to the largest size that matches, took a screenshot, moved the ACR patch over to compare directly to PS). Sounds like you are seeing something different, all looks very good for me. Tested with MacOS Tahoe (dev beta 9) and latest PS / ACR with Pro Display XDR using default profile.

These programs likely use different MacOS display APIs and may show differences which may be greater with some profiles profiles. If you can find a valid profile which clearly shows the issue, may help to post that for Adobe to try to reproduce. 

Note that you must restart PS if you change profiles or turn monitors on / off, as the display is queried when PS launches and subsequent changes during the same PS session may result in an inaccurate display. I see this often when attaching monitors or toggling HDR mode after launching PS.

Also note that use of a custom profile with HDR enabled in MacOS display settings is invalid as there is not ICC standard for HDR at this time. You should expect clipping, but there may be other unexpected side effects from such an unsupported configuration.

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

Thanks Greg! To clarify on the profiles, the custom profiles I'm using are with SDR only. Even with the built in display the custom profiles I used did not use HDR.

However even the stock Apple XDR profiles with my MacBook display cause the issue.

Is anyone else able to reproduce this with the Apple XDR profiles on a MacBook?

[johnrellis]

On my Macbook Pro 2023 / Mac OS 15.5, I don't see any difference in the screenshots of gradient.tif in LR 14.5.1 Develop and PS 26.10, on either the Macbook's 16" Retina Display with preset Apple XDR Display (P3-1600 nits) or on my Eizo CG2700 display (self-calibrated).

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

@johnrellis Did you try downloading the PNG files and opening them in PS? The screenshot JPGs in the original post make it difficult to see, but the original PNG screenshots should show it. I am able to see the issue in the screenshot on a MacBook Air M2 in addition to my original MacBook Pro M3 Max.

[johnrellis]

@AdamWoodworthPhoto: "Did you try downloading the PNG files and opening them in PS? The screenshot JPGs in the original post make it difficult to see, but the original PNG screenshots should show it."

Yes, I see the differences in the two PNG screenshots on both my Macboo Pro 2023 16" Retina (preset Apple XDR Display (P3-1600 nits)) and my Eizo CG2700.

But when I view "gradient.tif" in PS and LR Develop, I don't see any differences.

I suspect your issue is going to be very hard to troubleshoot if others can't reproduce it :-< 

[KR Seals]

What LrC profile are you using in the Basic panel of the Develop module?

Are you using the same profile in ACR?

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

@KR Seals The "Color" profile, they are both TIFF files and the only profile options shown are "Color", "Monochrome", or browse for something else. Just defaulting to "Color" in both LRC and ACR.

Also, I goofed earlier when I said the issue happens with SDR Calibrite generated profiles on my built-in MacBook Pro XDR display -- the problem actually does NOT happen in that case, but it does happen with the stock "Apple XDR Display (P3-1600 nits)" or "Apple Display (P3-600 nits)" profiles for the built-in display.

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

I've been to confirm that I'm seeing the same issue using a different computer, a MacBook Air M2. Using the same Calibrite generated profile for the LG display causes the same issue.

But given that I see the issue on the MacBook Pro M3 Max with the stock Apple profiles for the built-in XDR display, it seems like it is an issue with either macOS or the rendering engine within LRC/ACR.

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

The closest I can get to fixing this is disabling GPU acceleration in Lightroom Classic. While it doesn't completely fix the issue of shadows clipping in Lightroom Classic, it dramatically improves the issue to the point where I think it will be usable again for editing dark photos.

However if I disable GPU acceleration in Adobe Camera Raw (and restart Photoshop) the issue of stronger shadow clipping still persits in ACR, at least when using it a filter for a layer. I disabled GPU in ACR by selecting "Custom" from the "Use Graphics Processor" drop-down menu, and unchecking "Use GPU for image processing", and restarted PS. But even after all that the ACR preferences still say that "Limited graphics acceleration is enabled" for my Apple M3 Max.

Is there any way to completely disable GPU acceleration in ACR?

Of course, disabling GPU acceleration is a bummer. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to debug this further?

And is anyone able to reproduce this using an Apple MacBook Pro (Silicon) with built-in XDR display using the stock Apple XDR profile?

[AdamWoodworthPhoto]

I installed macOS Sequoia 15.6.1 on an external drive so I could boot from a clean install and test this out. It’s the same macOS version installed on my internal drive. Here’s where it gets even weirder.

When I boot from the external drive the shadow clipping issue is not present in Lightroom Classic with GPU enabled when using the built-in MacBook Pro Display with the stock "Apple XDR Display (P3-1600 nits)” profile. But the problem is present on the built-in display when I boot from my internal drive with the same LRC settings and same stock Apple display profile.

The issue is present with the LG display using Calibrite generated profiles always, whether booting from the internal or external drive.

So this is very strange. The issue exists with the built-in display when using macOS on my internal drive, but no issue with the built-in display when using a clean install on the external drive. I’m using the same version of LRC, PS, and Calibrite profiler on both installs of macOS. I also used Calibrite to generate new profiles when booted from the external drive but that didn’t fix the issue with the LG display.

Does anyone have any idea what would be causing the internal display to show the shadows differently in LRC vs PS from one install of macOS to another even with the same versions of the software?