Lightroom Auto Tone much warmer than Photoshop

[sdinweoinasd9384152]

When I Auto Tone in Lightroom For an interior with warm florescent lights it gives me 2850 but taking the same image in Photoshop with Auto color will give me around 2600.

I've noticed that Lightroom is consistently much warmer then Photoshop. Is there a reason behind this?

[Akash Sharma]

Hi sdinweoinasd9384152,

Sorry that you're getting unexpected color outputs in Photoshop vs Lightroom.

Please take a look at these articles and let us know if they help:

https://lightroomkillertips.com/keeping-your-color-consistent-between-lightroom-and-photoshop/ https://www.slrlounge.com/does-your-image-look-different-in-lightroom-photoshop/

https://www.slrlounge.com/does-your-image-look-different-in-lightroom-photoshop/

Thanks,

Akash

[sdinweoinasd9384152]

The problem is not the color space. The images look exactly the same in both software and I have the same embedded profile and color space.

I'm getting different Auto color balance results.  Although I would still adjust manually afterward, doing an initial Auto helps to speed up the process, but having very big differences make it difficult if I don't always open the photo in both software to double check.

[JohanElzenga]

I’m not sure I understand your workflow, or the problem. The thread title talks about Auto Tone, but because that does not alter the white balance, I assume you mean the Auto white balance option. You also say that you only use this as a starting point (“I still adjust manually afterwards”). So where does Photoshop fit in this workflow? Do you also open the raw images in Photoshop (Camera Raw)? Why? And why is a different Auto white balance in Camera Raw a problem if this is only a starting point anyway?

[sdinweoinasd9384152]

Sorry I meant Auto color.

It's a problem because I'm exporting from raw to Tiff in Lightroom and then using 2 other software to perform hdr and stitching, then importing to Photoshop for final touch-up, but going through these conversions with not so ideal colors will cause a loss of some details if I'm adjusting the colors again in Photoshop, especially from the hdr step.

Having a starting point that's a bit off with the Auto white balance in the color panel in Lightroom will cause me to end up with wrong colors unless I'm constantly opening the images in Photoshop at the same time to compare.

[JohanElzenga]

sdinweoinasd9384152  wrote

Sorry I meant Auto color.

It's a problem because I'm exporting from raw to Tiff in Lightroom and then using 2 other software to perform hdr and stitching, then importing to Photoshop for final touch-up, but going through these conversions with not so ideal colors will cause a loss of some details if I'm adjusting the colors again in Photoshop, especially from the hdr step.

Having a starting point that's a bit off with the Auto white balance in the color panel in Lightroom will cause me to end up with wrong colors unless I'm constantly opening the images in Photoshop at the same time to compare.

I’m sorry, but I’m still confused. You said you manually adjust these images anyway, so how can you end up with ‘not so ideal colors’ in that case? And why would you need to compare them with Photoshop? Are you saying that auto white balance in Photoshop is always ‘right’ and AWB in Lightroom is always ‘wrong’ and that you cannot see what is ’right’ and correct it manually, unless you look at the Photoshop version?

[sdinweoinasd9384152]

Yes Lightroom auto white balance is always wrong and Photoshop is much closer to what it should be. The difference is between 150 to 350k, and more red.

I have problems perceiving with my eyes a difference smaller than 300k when adjusting a slider, but I can immediately identify a difference of 50k when I have the images opened side by side, which is why I need to open them up Photoshop at the same time to help me adjust in Lightroom since the wrong starting point with Auto white balance will throw me off of I'm only looking at Lightroom.

[JohanElzenga]

sdinweoinasd9384152  wrote

Yes Lightroom auto white balance is always wrong and Photoshop is much closer to what it should be. The difference is between 150 to 350k, and more red.

I have problems perceiving with my eyes a difference smaller than 300k when adjusting a slider, but I can immediately identify a difference of 50k when I have the images opened side by side, which is why I need to open them up Photoshop at the same time to help me adjust in Lightroom since the wrong starting point with Auto white balance will throw me off of I'm only looking at Lightroom.

In that case you may want to consider to following change in your workflow. Instead of exporting the images as TIFF, open them as smart object in Photoshop. Then double click on the smart object layer. That will bring up the Camera Raw dialog, where you can use the Camera Raw AWB to correct the white balance. Once you've done that, you can flatten the image so it can be used in your third party HDR and Panorama software.

[Jao vdL]

sdinweoinasd9384152  wrote

Yes Lightroom auto white balance is always wrong and Photoshop is much closer to what it should be. The difference is between 150 to 350k, and more red.

I have problems perceiving with my eyes a difference smaller than 300k when adjusting a slider, but I can immediately identify a difference of 50k when I have the images opened side by side, which is why I need to open them up Photoshop at the same time to help me adjust in Lightroom since the wrong starting point with Auto white balance will throw me off of I'm only looking at Lightroom.

I have the same observation and can't use auto white balance because of this reason in Lightroom and ACR. It always makes the image too warm and makes areas that should be neutral orange. The eye dropper works fine with a grey card but auto white balance never seems to do a good job. This has bothered me for ages. Indeed photoshop's auto color is far better at this.

[JohanElzenga]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jao+vdL  wrote

sdinweoinasd9384152   wrote

Yes Lightroom auto white balance is always wrong and Photoshop is much closer to what it should be. The difference is between 150 to 350k, and more red.

I have problems perceiving with my eyes a difference smaller than 300k when adjusting a slider, but I can immediately identify a difference of 50k when I have the images opened side by side, which is why I need to open them up Photoshop at the same time to help me adjust in Lightroom since the wrong starting point with Auto white balance will throw me off of I'm only looking at Lightroom.

I have the same observation and can't use auto white balance because of this reason in Lightroom and ACR. It always makes the image too warm and makes areas that should be neutral orange. The eye dropper works fine with a grey card but auto white balance never seems to do a good job. This has bothered me for ages. Indeed photoshop's auto color is far better at this.

Maybe I didn't understand the initial post. From the way I understood it, the OP claims that AWB in ACR is better than AWB in Lightroom. Strange, because they are supposed to be the same routines, but I never checked that. He mentions Kelvin values for both, which are different. Auto Color in Photoshop is something entirely different, because that is performed on an RGB image, not on a raw image.

[sdinweoinasd9384152]

Sorry, I didn't clearly explain the issue in the initial post.

I am using auto white balance in Lightroom with the original RAW file.  Additionally in the later stages of the workflow, I'm bringing the exported TIFF into Photoshop for further processing. While I'm at it, I temporarily run auto color just to see what Photoshop recommends for color balance.

I just did a short test, and Photoshop auto color seems to be 200-250k cooler than Lightroom auto white balance. There appears to be other things adjusted in Photoshop auto color, such as the color balance in the shadows, and possibly something with cyan that I can't reproduce in the Lightroom temperature and tint slider.

The problem for me is that I can't tell the difference in 200-300k of temperature unless I have 2 windows open side by side, but when I can see them, the difference is pretty large.

There are several steps after LR before I bring it into Photoshop, and since I'm working with hundreds of photos in batch processing, I think I'll open up Photoshop in a side window and run auto color on one of the images just so that I can get a reference temperature to look at with my eyes while I adjust in LR.  The eyedropper white balance tool in LR doesn't really work well for me, so I'll use the sliders.

[JohanElzenga]

OK, understood. In that case my suggestion to use smart objects is no solution.

[JohanElzenga]

Have you tried shooting a grey card in one of your photos and use that to set the WB with the eye dropper in Lightroom?

[Jao vdL]

The original post mentions auto color, so that's what I went off. ACR and Lightroom are identical for me but auto color indeed works very well.

[JohanElzenga]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Jao+vdL  wrote

The original post mentions auto color, so that's what I went off. ACR and Lightroom are identical for me but auto color indeed works very well.

The title of the thread says 'Auto Tone', so I did not place too much value on 'Auto Color' either.

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

Akash, you should really stop posting those links. They are wrong, and they are misleading. I have no idea why Scott Kelby doesn't know better; he really should.

So to be perfectly clear:

• there is no reason whatsoever Lightroom and Photoshop color settings need to "match".
• the Lightroom native color space is not ProPhoto. That's just an arbitrary export to Photoshop default, because there has to be some default.
• Lightroom's native color space is a custom color space with linear tone response curve. It does not exist, nor has it any equivalent, outside Lightroom.
• as per the above, Lightroom and Photoshop color spaces cannot ever match, and nor should they.
• color managed applications like Lr and PS are color managed, and will display correctly whatever color space is used.

[Jao vdL]

D Fosse is absolutely right. There is no reason why you need to match color spaces between Lightroom and Photoshop. They fundamentally cannot match! It is good to use 16-bit prophotoRGB for Photoshop roundtrips to retain as much of the color info as possible as the primaries of the Lightroom space and prophotoRGB are the same. However, even if you used a different space in Photoshop, your images would still look identical as both are color managed apps and except when you are working with very wide-gamut monitors and have very saturated colors in your images the images will look identical.

[mk29376512]

There is a point raised in this that I agree with, lightroom AWB is waaay too warm. Adobe is there any chance you could please improve this, the algorithm is definitely not working well.

[DdeGannes]

I am not sure the issue you are raising will get the attention you are seeking, first the thread raised 20 months ago and the Lightroom application has had several updates and a new profile system has been introduced, second the thread has been marked as ”answered” and will not attract the attention of many users.

Best to start a new thread with an appropriate heading and full info about the issue. Also particulars of your operating system and the actual version of Lightroom Classic you are using. The present version of LrC is 9.3.