Color discrepancy in Lightroom vs. Photoshop

[Barton5C39]

I edited an image in LR.  See 1st screenshot below.  I then clicked "Edit in Photoshop 2025" and when the image opened in Photoshop, the colors were different.  See 2nd screenshot.  I don't recall this being an issue in the past.  Is this normal?  Thanks.  

[AxelMatt]

Do you use the same color profile settings in LR and PS?

Is your monitor color calibrated?

Check your monitor profile: How do I change my monitor profile to check whether it’s corrupted? | The Lightroom Queen

[Barton5C39]

Thank you for your reply.  For some reason, now when I open the 2 images, they look virtually the same in LR and PS.  That said, regarding your 3 questions,

• As to color profile settings, I have not worked with them in LR before.  So I Googled it and saw how to access.  Pasted below is that information.  Should I have either sRGB or ProPhoto RGB reflected somewhere in the panel?  If so, where?  (The image is ProPhoto RGB in Photoshop.)  
• My monitor is calibrated. 
• I went to the link and see the instructions pertain to Windows 8 or lower - I am at 11.  Still, I will try this.  It seems like it's good to know regardless if it is (or rather was) the problem in my case.  

[D Fosse]

A difference between Lightroom and Photoshop indicates either a defective monitor profile, or a buggy GPU driver.

The actual conversion into the monitor profile is executed in the GPU. So which one of those two components is the problem, requires testing to determine. The simplest test is to replace the monitor profile.

There are three different types of color profiles that you need to keep separate. Don't mix them up!

• You're showing a screenshot of camera profiles. That is irrelevant here, ignore that (except under very special circumstances that don't apply here).
• The document profile is embedded by Lightroom into the file it sends to Photoshop. This profile will always be correctly treated by Photoshop. It overrides the Photoshop working space and they don't need to match.
• The monitor profile is the critical component. The original numbers in the file are converted into the monitor profile, and these recalculated numbers are sent to screen.

Since the source color spaces are different, the actual conversion is different. That is why, if the profile is defective, one may work correctly and the other fail.

[Barton5C39]

Thank you.  I do have a few questions.  You said

"The document profile is embedded by Lightroom into the file it sends to Photoshop. "

But what determines/assigns the document profile in Lightroom?

In the course of creating this post, the image in PS "corrected" itself and looked as it does in LR, and I have no idea why.  Should I check the color profile of my monitor, regardless?  

I went to the link supplied by AxelMatt to check my monitor profile.  I clicked the Add button as directed.  The dialog box shown in the 2d screen shot shows the selected profile.  Should I select the sRGB IE61966-2.1 as directed?  These instructions are presumably rather old since they refer to Windows 8.  

LR Queen says if "everything looks correct" after assigning the temporary profile then the problem was the previous monitor profile, and you "can can temporarily leave sRGB as the monitor profile, as it’s better than a corrupted one."  Shouldn't you be able to just see what profile was assigned to know whether it's the right one or not?  This seems vague and potentially faulty - relying on whether "everything looks correct."  Also, if the sRGB IE61966-2.1 is only temporary, what determines its replacement?  

[D Fosse]

The document profile is set in Lightroom Preferences > External Editing. Lightroom then encodes the raw data into this standard RGB color space, and that's how it opens into Photoshop. This embedded profile overrides the PS working space.

The problem with monitor profiles is that they may be defective or corrupt. So the profile may be "the right one", but still not written to correct icc specifications. This happens surprisingly often with monitor manufacturer stock profiles, which are usually distributed through Windows Update. So you can suddenly get a bad profile out of the blue. I don't know why manufacturers can't get this right.

The monitor profile is a map of the monitor's native color space, in its current state. So the proper way to do this, is to use a calibrator, which measures the monitor's response and writes a profile based on this measurement. This profile is a standard icc profile, used in a standard profile conversion, from the document profile into the monitor profile. This is done by Photoshop on the fly, as you work, continuously updated.

These corrected numbers are sent to screen, thus representing the file correctly on screen. If the profile is bad/incorrect/defective/corrupt, Photoshop can't display correctly.

[Barton5C39]

This helps, thanks.  From what you've described, it sounds like the calibrator creates a profile (for the monitor) that interpolates the document profile, so that what's in the document displays corectly, is that roughly correct?  I regularly calibrate my monitor, using SpectraView software that was supplied with it.  I assume I'm doing what I need to do to ensure accuracy.  

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

If that's the NEC Spectraview software, that's usually very reliable and trouble-free. Once it's up and running and it has made the measurement and written the profile, everything is handled automatically. There's nothing you need to do.

I'm guessing you just saw a random glitch where the operating system for some reason didn't load the monitor profile correctly. That substitutes the default Windows monitor profile (sRGB).

If it doesn't happen again, and it probably won't, it's nothing to worry about.