Is it normal for exported photos from Photoshop to look slightly different?

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

I tried to upscale and adjust the brightness, contrast, and sharpness of an illustration in Ps, using layers.

Everything looks good in Ps, but when exporting the file and viewing the final product with my Macbook's default image browser ('Preview'), it seems like the contrast and other adjustments are gone.

Any ideas?

[D Fosse]

Are you embedding the color profile in the Exported file?

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

Sorry I'm new to Ps and photo editing in general.

Did you mean those two check marks during export? If so, yes, I checked BOTH sRGB and Embed

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Please set the Status Bar to »Document Profile« and post meaningful screenshots taken at View > 100%. 

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

Sure, can do this once I get a chance to get back to my computer

[didiermazier]

There are several factors. It depends on the export file format. For instance if exporting under PNG, and you choose smaller file size the colors may be affected. And forget JPEG…

Also it depends how your color space is managed. If working in CMYK and exporting for the web under RGB some colors are not the same. just beacause Photoshop emulate on screen the final look of your pic on paper.

The opposite as well.

Then it also depends on you screen calibration. With a standard Mac screen you may evaluate the pictures distinctly. Check the screen brightness… You may find a pic too bright or too dark or redish or anything just because your screen is not properly set up.

And the file preview function on mac is not the best judge… 

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

Yes I am working in sRGB. And the brightness is at the middle setting of my macbook.

I export with JPG and simply use 'Export As' JPG.

Is Macbook's 'Preview' image viewer known to have false display?

If so, what is a better alternative to view exported Photoshop images correctly?

[Test Screen Name]

Here's a simple but important test: take the exported file (not the original file) and open it in Photoshop. How does it look? Like the original? Or like the corrected file?

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

Good idea! I will have to try this

[didiermazier]

I would say that if your purpose is to publish to the web, the best way to check the final result is to open the pic with browsers (Chrome, Opera, Firefox or Safari) You can compare and then edit the image accordingly to adapt it.

Also Mac rendering is much brighter than Windows… So for the web I use to lighten my images a little more…

[D Fosse]

Also Mac rendering is much brighter than Windows

By @didiermazier

Not with working color management, which all browsers do today. Then the platform is entirely out of the equation. The document RGB values are remapped into monitor RGB values, and the result is a correct rendering.

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

Good idea. So you think Chrome browser would be a better image viewer than Mac's Preview image viewer?

[didiermazier]

No Chrome is not better. But it may show your image nearer what others would see once it will be published on a website.

As our friend told, if you use color management (profiles and so on…) the image is supposed to look the same on any viewer.

Nonetherless once sent to lets say a social network like Insta or FB, you image will be reencoded and you may experience a few surprises.

And even with color mamagement, when the printing guy will open more or less the ink injectors (because of pages inposition) some differences between what you saw on screen, the matchprints  ro cromalins and the final result will always happen .

In fact to me there is no absolute truth whatsoever. But color management reduces the error margin.

The idea is to emulate on screen what the final viewer will see. And Photoshop does that rather welL

[NB, colourmanagement net]

"Also Mac rendering is much brighter than Windows… So for the web I use to lighten my images a little more…"

really, with application colour management that should be entirely ruled out. 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[Jumpenjax]

What are your exporting setting?

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

I clicked on bot sRGB and Embed boxes during export. 

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Wen saving the file "Save As" [rather than export], be sure that the profile is embedded. This tells other applications how to interpret the colour in your image

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[default9vrfpofji3uq · Accepted solution]

Update:

Thank you for all the suggestions.

Finally fixed the issue.

I followed some of your advices as well as some Youtube tutorials.

My fixes:

1. RGB Color Space

2. Assign profile to RGB

3. Before exporting, 'Merge Visible' (on top of topmost layer) to add a flattened layer on top of all of my layers, to avoid Ps from miscalculating layer adjustments during export.

4. Export with both sGRB and Embed boxes

[D Fosse]

It sounds like the "merge visible" layer is what actually fixed it, and that means it's a layer compositing issue, not a color space issue.

That can have two explanations: one, you're not viewing at 100% so what you see are screen resampling artifacts. 100% maps one image pixel to one physical screen pixel, and is the only way to see the actual pixel structure correctly.

The other explanation is that Export and/or Photoshop isn't handling the layer compositing correctly. What version are you on? There was a problem with GPU compositing for a while, and GPU compositing has now been removed entirely (presumably for a rewrite).

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

Thanks. I am currently updated with the most recent version. I am on a Mac Catalina

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Yes, missing out the flattening step is likely the one option that was causing the issue you had. 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[default9vrfpofji3uq]

Additional update:

View final product on any internet broswer, and NOT on your local image viewer, for an accurate render.

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Yep, you definitely need a colour managed application program to have images match appearance of Adobe applications.

neiulB