Photos in grid view render darker than detail view after 5.1 upgrade

[rodcharris]

After upgrading to lightroom desktop (cloud) 5.1, found that photos in grid view render darker (and more red?) than before. Whole grid is darker. When selecting photo for detail view, photo renders proper brightness. So, this is not an issue with brightness in individual photos - this is an across the board problem with grid photo rendering. I have a dual-monitor setup (Benq), which have been calibrated, and darker grid view renders irrespective of monitor selected. Detail view of photos, again, renders properly. I have Intel i9-10900x @3.70 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 64 bit Windows 10 Home, 21H2. Using NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 driving BenQ EW3280U and Benq SW321C. Anyone else notice this issue?

[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear that. Could you try changing the screen color profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-change-my-monitor-profile-to-check-whether-its-corrupted/

Regards,
Sahil

[rodcharris]

Sahil:

Thanks for suggestion. Logged out of Lightroom, changed color profile, then logged back in. No change in photos rendered in grid view. Again, photos rendered in detail view rendered fine. So that leads me to believe it is not a monitor color profile problem (otherwise, why would detail view render appropriately?) I've attached a .pdf file of two screen shots showing the two results. Other ideas?

Rod

[Jao vdL]

Does the same happen if you have only one monitor connected? Might be a bug where the monitor profile of the wrong monitor is used which you will avoid if you connect only a single monitor. Note that Lightroom Cloudy/Desktop does not have any duel monitor support. For dual monitor support you need Classic so perhaps not a surprise if there are bugs on dual monitor systems. Also try turning off graphics card acceleration in Lightroom preferences. If that makes a difference, it is probably a bug in the graphics card driver.

[rodcharris]

Jao:

Disconnected second monitor, rebooted, reloaded Lightroom. Same issue.

Have both Lightroom Desktop / Cloud and Lightroom Classic. Understand differences between the two on dual monitor support. As I mentioned in original post, the darker grid view shows irrespective of monitor used (and still shows with only one connected). Detail view of an individual photo renders fine. This leads me to believe something to do with rendering of photos in the grid view (see attachment my previous post).

Turned off graphics card acceleration. No difference. Reinstalled graphics driver for Benq monitor. No difference.

Rod

[Jao vdL]

I actually meant the driver for your graphics card. Also, how are you calibrating these screens? There are common issues with icc profiles installed by drivers for displays in windows that can lead to behavior you are seeing. These profiles installed by monitor drivers are often corrupt. It is astonishing how common that is. Solution is to calibrate using a display calibrator. My guess is that you are already doing this so probably that's not the issue.

What do the images look like if you use a browser and point it at https://lightroom.adobe.com Log on with your creatuve cloud account. Do the thumbnails look like the darker versions or like the zoomed in versions?

I am guessing your preview database is corrupt. You can recreate it if you are sure all your images are synced to the cloud by deleting your local copy of your Lightroom Library. Usually this is in your pictures folder. When you then restart Lightroom, it will download a new copy of the library from the cloud and recreate the image previews.

[rodcharris]

Jao:

I think you found the issue! Going to the web version, grid photos render fine (as well as in detail view). So looks like local copy is corrupt. Want to make sure I delete correct file - is there a way to specifically identify the local copy (I have three drives on my setup, want to make sure I get to correct file)?

Also - you're correct about calibration. Using Xrite 1Display Plus plugged directly to Benq. Photos from Lightroom Classic render nicely on monitor.

Thanks for your interest,

Rod

[Jao vdL]

The Lightroom Library should be on your system drive inside the My Pictures folder. You can't move it's location to any other place so that's where it should be. I don't have a windows machine to check but on my Mac it is called "Lightroom Library.lrlibrary". I think it is called the same on windows but not sure but it should be obvious I think. You just drag the .lrlibrary file into the bin and restart Lightroom and it should give you a progress bar where it downloads and sets up the library again. I've had to do this a few times because of similar weird issues such as that all my images just had grey boxes as previews and having it recreate the .lrlibrary file fixed them. Do note that you should only do this if you are sure all your files have synced to the cloud. If they have, it is safe to do this.

[rodcharris]

Jao:

Hang with me here. I'm using windows lightroom desktop (creative cloud). Under <Edit> <Preferences>, I am able to direct Lightroom Desktop as to whether / and where to store local copies of photos. See attachment. I was able to change location to my second drive (happens to be Cloud (E:) > CC Desktop). Restarted lighroom desktop and all 5,838 photos were downloaded (copied?) to the new location. That worked. However, grid view still dark.

As you can see from attachment, I am also able to have it store smart previews locally (on C: drive only, though). There is no indication in that window WHERE lightroom will store the previews. Nevertheless, I elected to do this (it was unchecked before) in hopes of regenerating previews and clearing up the problem. After restart, the change did not impact the dark grid view. Wondering whether lightroom  "copied" rather than "regenerated" the previews (if it did anything at all). I looked for a file / folder with ".lrlibrary" extension (as you indicated above), and none present where photos are stored (could this be different between Mac and Windows?). Came up empty searching C: drive as well. Instead, under Cloud (E:) > CC Desktop (where pictures are now stored) there is a long folder name composed of letters and numbers, under which is a folder called "Originals", and under that are folders by year (e.g. "2022", "2021"). Basically all photos, no smart previews.

I think I need to be able to completely delete the previews file, if I can locate it, and have Lighroom desktop regenerate. It is not under the "Pictures" folder, at least that I can find.

On the right track, but still not home free!

Rod

[Jao vdL]

This confuses a lot of people. The preference doesn't actually move the library. It just moves the local copies of your originals and your on-disk cache of images. All your previews and the local copy of the library are still in the same location on your startup disk. Lightroom Desktop/Cloudy is not able to have its library file in any other location than that. Note that the storage location you set in preferences is just a local cache of images. It is just used to speed up access to your images preventing you from having to download the image you want to work on every time. It is not needed or essential. It is just a local acceleration cache. You can always (automatically behind the scenes) download a new copy of the image.

So if you want to see if a poluted preview cache is the problem, you need to manually delete the library file and have Lightroom recreate it.

[Jao vdL]

Also, smart previews are NOT the previews you see in the grid view. smart previews are small scaled down and compressed versions of your raw files that are fully editable. They are in dng format and are basically lightweight versions of your raw files that download faster than the full raw. The previews you see in grid views are jpeg files that are stored inside the .lrlibrary file in your Pictures folder.

[rodcharris]

Jao:

I have scoured the Lightroom folder under Pictures (again, I'm on Windows). I see all of my Lightroom Classic catalogues and related / supporting folders. I see nothing that would be a stand-alone Lightroom Desktop / Cloud file that would hold previews. That said, my research shows Lightroom Desktop / Cloud has previews stored under user settings on Windows: "Users\rchar\AppData\Local\Adobe\Lightroom CC\Data\c1fa018f398\previews" (that next to last folder name is longer). Would this be the previews file I need to delete in order to have Lightroom Desktop / Cloud regenerate?

If the file you mention SHOULD be in the Pictures\Lightroom directory, why am I unable to find it?

Rod

[Jao vdL]

I don't have a windows machine so I don't really know. Checking google I think you found the location where all this is stored on windows indeed so deleting from there should have the same effect. I think you should be able to delete the entire Lightroom CC folder in \users\appdata\local\adobe\ and not just the previews but it should have the same effect of having to recreate the previews

[rodcharris]

So Jao, back to square one. Problem is still here: Photos in grid view render dark (across the board), while rendering properly on detail view.

I researched how to regenerate the preview file on Windows (delete the data folder in: Windows (C:)->Users->username->AppData->Local->Adobe->Lightroom CC), did that, restarted Lightroom Desktop/Cloud, and let it regenerate previews for all 5,844 photos kept on lightoom cloud. All still render dark on grid view, while rendering properly on detail photo views. Again, web lightroom renders photos properly on grid or detail view.

Next?

Rod

[defaultwrxq6qsrqey9]

did you ever find a resolution for this? because I'm dealing with the same issue, only that DETAIL view and compare view are the ones showing darker/incorrect

[rodcharris]

Yes. After much effort. However, its been awhile and I went down many a rabbit hole - so many I frankly don't remember which path lead to success. I was surprised I ran into the problem (and that no one else seemed to have a similar issue). I have an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GeForce card. Latest Lightroom version. Sorry you have (but feel vindicated).


My research indicated the problem has to do with how Adobe renders pictures in the grid view vs. detail view - and your graphic card settings. (Adobe apparently uses different rendering protocols for each view). I came across this interesting tid bit from an Adobe post three years ago: "In the Edit view you are looking at the image in the Melissa RGB Color Space. Grid view images are in the DisplayP3 space. Some of what you are seeing is a modest difference in the color space. We do have an open issue regarding color correction in the Grid views."

There were three possible paths I followed. One followed the lead on color space and the related Color Management in Windows 11. I believe under control panel there are ICC Profiles which can be linked to devices (specifically your display through your graphic card). I had to create / link an ICC Profile to the display device (BENQ SW321C mapped to the NVIDIA GeForce card); there I selected each of my two displays, verified the NVIDIA GeForce RXT 3080 was the device / profile, and checked "Use my settings for this device". The second path I followed was fiddling with the Nvidia Control Panel settings (sorry, can't remember which one) but believe it was under 3D settings, perhaps the "Configure Surround, PhysX", where PhysX settings were for Processor: "Auto-Select" for the PhysX -> NVIDIA Gefore RTX 3080". The third path was in Lightroom itself (Edit -> Preferences -> Performance) but I don't believe changing those settings was the fix.

Well, that review brought back some frustrating memories. Not the rifle shot you hoped for, but perhaps I narrowed it down a bit for you.

[defaultwrxq6qsrqey9]

Okay, that's actually very helpful. I've tried the second and third options, neither worked...I'm stuck on some of the steps of the first option you outlined. I know NOTHING about computers so am very limited unfortunately. Working from a laptop, so won't have multiple displays like you did with your monitors. Based on the verbiage, I know i'm in the right area, just am stuck on the "create/link icc profile to display device" step. Any way you can help here? :') I appreciate the response you gave already, as it has proved to be much more helpful than adobe can do

[rodcharris]

So, I've got two items for you. One relates to color profiles and the other, a new one, relates to adjusting the windows graphics settings specific to Lightroom (a new thought as I retraced my steps).

For the color management profile - I'm a novice at this. Here's the procedure to try (at your own risk, mind you). Use color management to assign different color profiles to different display devices, creating a uniform color experience across all of your devices. Usually Windows handles this on its own, but if you need to install and assign a custom color profile, here's how:

1. In Color Management, go to the All Profiles tab, and select Add...
2. Navigate to the color profile (.ICC file) you wish to add and select Add. The profile will be added to the list.
3. To assign a color profile to a device, go to the Devices tab, and select your display device in the Device drop-down.
4. Select the Use my settings for this device checkbox. This lets you make changes to that device's color profile settings.
5. Select the Add... button, select the profile you wish to use for that device, and select OK.
6. If you want to use this profile as the default profile for this device, select it in the list and then select Set as Default Profile.
I noticed I have separate color profiles for my monitors created during calibration. These are assigned to them as "devices". There are also color profiles for photo papers (and so on). Which profiles go where is up to you.

The new approach (which I'd try first) is on windows. You need to right click on the windows logo in your tool bar. Select: System -> Display -> Graphics. You'll see Custom Options for Apps and a list of applications. I saw that Lightroom (the desktop cloud version) was listed (if not, you could add it). Click on Lightroom, then click options. I had Graphics Preferences set to: High Performance, and checked the box for "Don't use optimizations for windowed games". If you have to add the application, my location was C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom CC\lightroom.exe

Good luck!

[chrisvolume2]

The new approach (which I'd try first) is on windows. You need to right click on the windows logo in your tool bar. Select: System -> Display -> Graphics. You'll see Custom Options for Apps and a list of applications. I saw that Lightroom (the desktop cloud version) was listed (if not, you could add it). Click on Lightroom, then click options. I had Graphics Preferences set to: High Performance, and checked the box for "Don't use optimizations for windowed games". If you have to add the application, my location was C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom CC\lightroom.exeGood luck!
By @rodcharris

I never had an issue since LR5 until recently running the latest 13.x.  The photo would look great in the develop module and terrible in grid view.  I unchecked the use graphics and then it looked crappy in both.  I'd open the image in PS and it'd look great again.  Same when I exported it.  I checked my color profiles and that wasn't the issue.  What is quoted here is what did the trick.  I did not check the optimizations nor HDR which came out better than with them checked.  Absolutely irritating.  Now, images are consistent across all views and applications.  Cheers to you Rodcharris!