Image appears alot darker after export from PS

Emailed image has incorrect appearance?

first make sure it’s in the colour space sRGB and the sRGB profile in embedded. You may need to google that. 

then if it’s still looking wrong you must question how your recipient is viewing the image. Maybe it’s a non - colormanagement application that’s causing the problem. Maybe the screen is either not calibrated or calibrated badly. Maybe it’s just set way too bright?

Imagine I send you a sound file and your volume is set real high? You’re going to tell me it’s too loud, unless you know to reduce volume. In really simple terms the same thing can happen with screen brightness. 

Calibration done, correctly sorts, out screen appearance. 

 Neil Barstow

colourmanagement.net

the gallery within windows

That's the Photos app, and it's not color managed, so stop using it.

As has been suggested, you can use Bridge, which is part of your subscription.

Or, use a third party color managed image viewer, like FastStone, which is free for personal use.

You have to enable color management in Settings, both check boxes must be checked, like below.

One more thing that should not be underestimated is the background color. It affects your perception profoundly. Just look at the image as it appears on top of this page (white background) - versus if you right-click it to see it on a dark background. It's almost like flipping a backlight switch.

The most neutral background is a light gray, similar to the traditional interface color in Photoshop. The new default dark interface is pleasing to the eye - but a big problem with it is that it makes everything look good. It tends to conceal problems like muddy highlights or weak shadows.

Fiona, are you on Mac or Windows?

And what application are you using to view the exported image?

As for photo viewers, I don't understand why more people aren't using Bridge. It doubles as file browser too.

Color managed web browsers on Windows are Firefox and Chrome. Don't use Edge or Internet Explorer.

Yes, you need to view it in a color managed photo viewer/web browser, one that uses your monitor profile to display images correctly on screen.

Very dark images like this will often look much darker without color management. The reason for that is that almost all LCD displays have a very noticeable deep shadow dip in the tone curve - just in the tonal range that makes up most of this image.

A monitor profile will normally account for this, so that in a color managed application, the numbers sent to screen are already corrected for it.  The net result on screen is linear.

An application without color management ignores all icc profiles and just sends the original numbers straight through to the screen. Both document profile and monitor profile are ignored.

Color management isn't just about color. The whole tone response curve is mapped in an icc profile.

Export it with both "Convert to sRGB" and "Embed Color profile" checked. If exporting as png then use Save for Web (legacy) for your export as Export As has a bug with the profile.

Then view it with a color managed viewer/browser (many are not and all bets are off on how they will display your image)

Dave