Participating Frequently

Answered

Some Lightroom exports not as sharp as Photoshop exports

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 18, 2023
4 replies
4076 views

Hi

Some of my images are mushy when exported from Lightroom, but when I send them to PS and export from there at the same dimensions they are fine. ie. they are how they look in Lightroom on screen.

Even if the file size in PS is smaller, the image still looks sharper.
I need to export at 1024 x 681, at between 250 and 300 KB.

Any help appreciated! (except telling me to output at higher file size 😉 )

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Jao vdL

Sean already mentioned this but some clarification. The output sharpening in the export panel is completely different than the capture sharpening in the develop panel. The sharpening in develop deals with blurring inherent to the capture process caused by the Bayer mosaic in the sensor, the lenses, diffraction, etc. It works on the pixel level at the resolution of the camera. The output sharpening is meant to compensate for the blurring inherent to the downscaling of the image to the resolution at which it will be viewed and the output device (a monitor vs a print). Interestingly when you downscale as much as you are doing, the capture sharpening is likely completely irrelevant to the appearance of sharpness. You are scaling a 6000 to 9000 (24 MP to 54 MP camera) pixel image on the long side down to 1024 pixels, which downscales ~50 pixels in the original into 1 pixel in the output. All of the effect of the develop sharpening will be completely blurred away after scaling that far down. It is probably quite irrelevant at 1024 pixels. When scaling down you need to use the output sharpening. Photoshop does this when use the bicubic automatic option. In Lightroom you have to specify it.

DdeGannes

Community Expert

Interesting thread. My export from LrC is from an enhanced and edited raw image with additional processing in ON1 Raw.

Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.

Per Berntsen

Community Expert

For the Lightroom export you have set Limit file size to 275 kb.

When using this feature, Lightroom has to calculate what quality setting to use to keep the file size below 275 kb.

Lightroom doesn't tell you what quality setting has been used, and it could be that it is lower than the setting used in Photoshop. (relatively speaking, since they use different scales)

Exporting without metadata as mentioned by @Jao vdL will result in a higher quality setting.

You can also try using Low or Medium output sharpening for screen. Bot will increase the file size, but Low shouldn't add all that much to the file size.

M

michaelc21776769Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks Per

I think you're right, the quality setting is just lower than PS.
I am going to experiment with the Quality percentage slider again, and definitely going to strip out that un-needed metadata.
Sharpening has already been added, which is why i avoid it in Export.

Thanks again!

DClark064

Inspiring

Output sharpening and creative sharpening are entirely different. Lightroom is designed with this in mind, and it's why there is a standard sharpening for each output, be it screen or for later printing to specific paper types. If you didn't require it, they wouldn't have included it. Not only that, it's based on the work of Bruce Fraser, who was the eminent expert on sharpening at the time of it's creation.

TL;DR Use the output sharpening and it will solve your issue.

Why is PS different?

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

You need to use output sharpening in Lightroom. It will give better results than the bicubic automatic mode in Photoshop. To be equivalent to the default in Photoshop, you need high screen sharpening typically. You also DO NOT want to use file size limitation in Lightroom, just use a quality setting like you are doing in Photoshop. The quality settings in Lightroom are equivalent to those in Photoshop just on a different scale of 0-100% instead of 0-7 (used to be 0-12). Lastly make sure to strip most of the metadata in Lightroom (like you are doing in Photoshop!). The setting "copyright and contact info" is usually what you want. If you keep all the camera raw data like you are doing, the final filesize is majorly inflated because it will save every edit and mask you generated in Lightroom in the metadata section. That will take 100kB in the final filesize easily!

The algorithm is the same. You are just saving all kinds of crud along with the image from Lightroom. The Export as panel strips all that by default.

M

michaelc21776769Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks Jao!

I should have thought of that - not sending Lightroom edit metadata - will definitely strip that out.

The reason i don't add Sharpening is because I've already added +40 at 95% Masking.
Surely images from a good camera (Nikon Z6ii) shouldn't need more sharpening than this??

I've tried it every which way with that quality setting versus the Limit File Size and found it made no difference.
My clients require smaller than 250 KB files, so I have to mess around with that slider to get the sweet spot with each image, which is horrendously slow process?
Just experimented with it and seemed to get decent quality at around 72%, giving roughly 200 KB file.

Great tips! - thank you so much! 🙂

J

Jao vdL

Correct answer

Community Expert

Sean already mentioned this but some clarification. The output sharpening in the export panel is completely different than the capture sharpening in the develop panel. The sharpening in develop deals with blurring inherent to the capture process caused by the Bayer mosaic in the sensor, the lenses, diffraction, etc. It works on the pixel level at the resolution of the camera. The output sharpening is meant to compensate for the blurring inherent to the downscaling of the image to the resolution at which it will be viewed and the output device (a monitor vs a print). Interestingly when you downscale as much as you are doing, the capture sharpening is likely completely irrelevant to the appearance of sharpness. You are scaling a 6000 to 9000 (24 MP to 54 MP camera) pixel image on the long side down to 1024 pixels, which downscales ~50 pixels in the original into 1 pixel in the output. All of the effect of the develop sharpening will be completely blurred away after scaling that far down. It is probably quite irrelevant at 1024 pixels. When scaling down you need to use the output sharpening. Photoshop does this when use the bicubic automatic option. In Lightroom you have to specify it.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

Lightroom Classic uses a different and less effecient compression algorithm than Photoshop. Therefore, the exported from Photoshop will be better than the LrC file for a given file size.

Have you tried using the High sharpening setting? It should help with the mushiness you mention, but file size will likely increase.

DClark064

Inspiring

Why is the compression algoritm in LrC worse than Photoshop. Last time I checked they are both produced by Adobe.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

That they are both by Adobe doesn’t seem to matter. If you look inside Photoshop alone, you can find at least three different ways to export a JPEG: File > Save As/Save a Copy, File > Export > Export As, and File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy). Notice that the JPEG compression options each method offers are different, and even if you only look at the Quality option, they are different: Save As/Save a Copy uses a JPEG Quality scale from 0–12, the JPEG Quality scale of Export As is 1–7, and the JPEG Quality scale for Save for Web is 0–100!

I don’t have an explanation for those differences for the same function within a single application, except that some of those features are much newer than others, so different decisions may have been made at different points in history. But I suppose comparing multiple applications from Adobe is like looking at three cars all made by Ford: They might have different engines and different dashboards, even though they are all from the same company.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded