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Blue hues look different in Library and Develop modules

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_MZ_

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Mar 17, 2012
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Hello! (new here)
I noticed the problem when I needed to process a few panorama scenics (TIFFs) with saturated blue skies. I chose a completely different image to illustrate my point because I think that it does a better job.

So here's the deal. The example is a TIFF file tagged with Adobe RGB. It's a small portion of a photo I took with a Nikon d70s probably around 2005. Last year the raw file (nef) was imported into Lightroom, exported as a TIFF file with zero adjustments, edited in photoshop (no tonal alterations whatsoever), saved and imported back into LR. In LR it was given all the exposure, contrast and color treatment. When I was doing it (about a year ago) there were no issues with it whatsoever. It was WYSIWYG. Obviously something's changed there.
In the Library module it looks just the way I remember it but the moment I go to 'Develop', the blue hues get messed up. Switching back to Library - everything's normal. Exporting the file - it looks 100% OK. Well, I don't care about this particular image because I don't need to do anything to it but there's a whole bunch of those photos with blue skies that got me backed up here. The problem is obvious, being in the develop module I make my adjustments based on what I see. As soon as I switch to Library it's a whole different picture... and it ain't pretty. I tried exporting some of them but they looked disgusting. Evidently, the colors in 'Develop' module aren't true to the source. In theory I could finish them photos in Photoshop but I'm used to doing those things in LR and in a certain way too. Regardless, I have to get down to the bottom of this because lots of photos are coming my way.

It's the computer at my work that I'm talking about. The version of LR is 3.3 and there's no internet connection, so I can't update it. I'd save me lots of time by simply taking my work home (I have LR 3.6) but my computer's been busted for two weeks (I'm putting together a new work-horse). I grabbed the screenshots at work, finished the picture in PS and brought it with me to my buddy's place.
I don't think that it has anything to do with the version of LR because this problem did not previously exist. Other people use this machine and someone probably installed something or changed the settings. I know for a fact that when I was on vacation they changed the whole display calibration. Everything looked the same when I got back so I didn't think anything of it.

My best guess right now would be that something's wrong with the color management. Adobe doesn't tell much about how the colors are mapped behind the scenes but one possibility is that the rendering intent is different in Library and Develop modules and that it somehow got screwed up in windows. Or maybe the display profile is damaged? Maybe there's a second (and different) LUT in there and it gets selected in 'Develop'. I'm not a color-management wiz and I apologize if I said something stupid. Before I start digging around in that area, please tell me what you make of this.

It's a Win7 machine, 64-bit. I wish I could tell more about it but I'm not in front of it. Ask me what you need to know and I will try to remember or go down there and check. If I can fix this, I'll be working tomorrow because I should really have this done by Monday. If I've got no choice I'll try to do what I need in PS but I don't know if I'll have enough time because usually it takes so much longer.
Any help is appreciated!
 

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Trust the develop module, this is how it will look, the library module is a bit more rough and ready and not always accurate. That's how I understood it anyway. I might be wrong, if I am it won't take long to get a reply.

On my monitor the wood is also subtly different as well, sharpness has been applied, i think.
 
Well, I did trust it before, *always*. And up until recently example #2 would look like example #1. I cannot rely on Develop module anymore simply because my photos won't look the way they do in there. What matters eventually is what the photos look like when exported and when exported they look they way they appear in 'Library', which is *crap* because I'm ruining them in 'Develop'.
 
Looks like I have no choice but to try to get the project done in time in PS. I still need to get down to the bottom of this. I'm quite tech savvy and if anyone has a clue where to look for the problem, I'd take it from there.
 
Colour management is the obvious place to start, but what I don't understand is why you see a difference between Develop and Library, especially if you zoom into 1:1 in Library to force a preview update. They should then look the same.

Putting the Tiff problem to one side, have you been able to check if the same mismatch occurs on Raw files?
 
"Colour management is the obvious place to start..." Well, yeah but only because no one's got any other ideas, including myself. Color management *IS* the place to start... the color management INSIDE Lightroom. How do we do that? Who can tell us if Lightroom switches to a different profile, a different LUT or a different rendering intent once you go into 'Develop'. No point in going to poke around who knows where *until we know* what LR does behind the scenes, especially that everything everywhere else looks fine.
It's a major pain in the rear not having my computer running but I did manage to cough up an old photo that fits the bill in one of the LR catalogs at work. Take a look. It's a NEF file, not a TIFF. Don't even remember when I was working on it but I do remember that when I was, I had absolutely zero color mismatch issues. Just for the hell of it I switched it to the 2010 process and applied to it every profile on the list: from ACR 4.4 down to Camera Vivid. No help there.
The photo is tagged with Adobe RGB space. D/L and open it in Photoshop or something that can handle the colors properly. That's the only way to fully appreciate the magnitude and the peculiarity of the problem. How can I make fine adjustments to a photo when I can't even see what I'm actually doing to it?
Someone's gotta know what's going on here.
Alright.. gotta head back to work...
 

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MZ, do you fancy emailing me the file to [email protected] or drop it on my server (www.vbftp.net, username webupload, password 123) and I'll see if I can reproduce the problem here.

What do you get in Develop if you zoom in to 1:1? Matching Library or not? And are there any local adjustments (i.e. brush) on this photo perhaps?
 
Make sure that the preview file is being generated in the LIbrary module. If you make a huge change does this get reflected. I can't work out how colour management would make a difference, the picture in the develop module should look exactly the same in the library module. Doesn't matter if you monitor is uncalibrated,only matters when you output and it looks different on another computer.

All these photos are on the same computer ??
 
In both examples I grabbed the screenshot at 1:1. Obviously I had them scaled down in photoshop. There are no local adjustments apart from some minimal spot removal (cloning). The photos are on the *same* machine. If I do *anything* to my photos in 'develop' I can see it happen in Library. Everything works like you'd expect, except once I go into 'Develop' certain blue hues get really messed up. This happens with a wide range of photos, from different cameras and file types: raw, tiff. I can even see this on a few 35mm scans (16 bit tiffs). Everybody here is like: How is this even possible?? Well, even as I see it happen right before my eyes I still can't believe it.
You guys are the experts and if you're telling me that this is unheard of, it can only mean one thing. There's something terribly wrong with that computer or the installation of Lightroom itself. This has been a huge waste of time and I'm drawing a line. I'm way too busy to be dealing with this kinda stuff. Thank you Victoria for trying to help but you'd be wasting your time too. You won't be able to reproduce the problem, because there's nothing wrong with the files and I'm sure there's nothing wrong with your LR. Up until recently this problem was non-existent until something got screwed up.
My new rig should be up and running by Thursday. Since I'm doing a fresh install of everything I may as well upgrade to LR 4. So I'll be taking my work home for now and try to convince my boss to have everything reinstalled at work. I'm not responsible for stuff like that and sure as hell ain't doing it, so he'll have to call his regular guy to take are of all that mess.
Thank you people for trying to help but this thing seems to be beyond repair.
 
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I'm not saying it's unheard of MZ. I've seen it once before, but I haven't ever had files to try to reproduce it on my computer. My first thought would be to recalibrate the monitor.
 
Having similar color shifts in my reds between the library and develop module

I am using Windows 7, Lightroom 3.6, everything was fine until yesterday afternoon. I have been working on an image for an hour getting it ready for printing, then i noticed that once I switched from the develop to the library module all the bright reds disappeared. I had been going back and forth several times just 10 minutes before with no problems.

My monitor is calibrated, everything on the computer was updated just days before. Now I have no clue what to trust...

I attached the two files
the one on the left is the develop module the right is the library
Develop.pngLibrary.png

The difference is way to much for me to ignore and not stress about.

I am also working on these images in raw canon format, in a prophoto color space

This problem literally happened in a minute because i was at the computer the whole time and not using it for anything else...

ANyways I hope this added info helps and hopefully someone can help us all out
 
Welcome to the forums, getbentonit :)

Are you using a wide gamut monitor? One reason for what you're seeing could be the fact that LR's previews are stored in the AdobeRGB color space, but what you're seeing in develop is based on MelissaRGB. Also, the colors of this image seem to be typical for what's usually falling out of gamut in smaller color spaces. OTOH, I'd be surprised if your monitor did have a much larger gamut than AdobeRGB, even if wide gamut.

Have you tried re-rendering an 1:1 preview for the image?

Beat
 
Welcome to the forums, getbentonit :)

Are you using a wide gamut monitor? One reason for what you're seeing could be the fact that LR's previews are stored in the AdobeRGB color space, but what you're seeing in develop is based on MelissaRGB. Also, the colors of this image seem to be typical for what's usually falling out of gamut in smaller color spaces. OTOH, I'd be surprised if your monitor did have a much larger gamut than AdobeRGB, even if wide gamut.

Have you tried re-rendering an 1:1 preview for the image?

Beat

I am not using a wide gamut monitor. I am using the HP 2710M.

When in the library module at a 1:1 ration I still see the difference in color. I am aware of the possibility of my colors falling out because i am in a prophoto color space, but i don't believe that should make the difference because the problem is not an inconsistency on colors between the image and the monitor, but instead an inconsistency on color within lightroom. I see the image and the color i want in the develop module, but not in the library module. And I think that is the same problem the gentleman who started this thread was having as well.

To shed some more light on the problem, I have also been working on some black and white images, and I see changes as well in the contrast on those images between the library module and develop module. When I click over to library from the develop module the shadows are slightly darker and I loose some detail in those areas.

My professor urged me to try lightroom 4 and see if that fixed the problem...but i wanted to see if anyone had any solutions or ideas before I make the switch. Upgrading, besides costing me more money, seems to be the way to circumvent the problem, and not to fix it. This problem was so sudden that I am not entirely sure that upgrading would fix it either.

Anyways, thanks for the response and hopefully this added info helps.
 
Something new that may help:

I have my lightroom catalog and database on an external drive. I just plugged it into my Macbook Pro

Here are the specs:
2.5 ghz Intel Core Duo
6gb memory
OS X 10.6.8
Lightoom 3.6

I opened the same picture i was having problems with on my PC, on the MAC, and those difference were gone; no color change between the two modules.

Now the laptop is not calibrated and I know that going off anything i get on my laptop is not wise, but I thought I would share the info.

The problem may be coming from the way lightroom works on the PC... just a hunch
 
getbentonit,

This smells like a monitor calibration issue. Have you tried re-calibrating your monitor, and have you made sure you're producing ICC V2 profiles while calibrating?

Beat
 
So Since I last posted the issue was no longer a problem. Not because I fixed it... it just stopped occurring. I bought Lightroom 4 two days ago and installed it today. I updated my catalogs and the problem popped up again. I am still getting two different colors when I switch from the Library to the Develop module. I also have calibrated my monitor again and the issue still remains...any ideas? ;(
 
How weird! There is a difference between Library and Develop which might show up with colours which are inside the ProPhotoRGB gamut and outside of the Adobe RGB gamut that the Library previews use, but it sounds odd that it disappeared for a while. Have you still got that red flower one around? I'd love to see if I can replicate it here. You could email it to [email protected] if that's ok with you.
 
Hi. I was just looking for someone who experienced my problem.Got it to some extend. In my case, I saw the effect on a extremly underexposured picture. Only with exposure +2 it the scene looked ok (just memory picture) But in Library module it looked a bit, as if a paper profile was applied. Not as much as in the other pictures in this tread but visible. Would be great, if I just overlooked some parameter settings...
picture was a Nikon Raw at Iso 800 (what makes it really noisy), monitor a EIZO 2411, SW-calibrated, no wide gamut. Zoom in made no difference D mode showed a bit more contrast.
 
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I had somewhat a very similar problem. I'm new here and I subscribed after many lost hours editing pictures to see that the develop section doesn't display the images correctly. So to be sure my problem is well understood I will describe it and link pictures to show it. So here it goes : When in the Library module the picture looks different than in the develop module. The problems appears when using different zoom ratios (They look pretty much the same when using ''fit'', both smooth and noise-free) up to 1/2 1/1, where the develop and Library finally match. But using 1/8 1/3 and everything smaller than 1/2, they look different. I will include pictures and you will see how obvious are the différences. Than I tought, just render it save it and open it in a picture viewer. While I tought it would give a hint on which I can relay when editing, it just got worst. Opening the same picture in Windows pic viewer and in QuickTime: noise-free in Windows pic viewer, Noisy in QuickTime. So now I'm wondering many things. First : How can I solve this display issue in lightroom / or / which is the one I can know for sure is displaying correctly so that I can see the reel results!! Second: Which one of the picture viewer is showing me the good version of the picture. Is Windows pic view softening or quicktime sharpening which result in more noise ?! AND HOW THE F*** CAN I SHOW YOUR THE PROBLEM IF YOUR FORUM WONT DISPLAY CORRECTLY I CANT EVEN ATTACH PICTURES TO ANY POST ... ADOBE YOU'RE ABOUT TO LOSE ME FOR GOOD ! SMEELLLSSSS REFUNDDDDD
 
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1) We're not Adobe.
2) http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...t-screenshot-quot-on-Windows-or-Mac-computers
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...attach-a-quot-screenshot-quot-to-a-forum-post
3) The relationship between the various Library and Develop views/zooms in Lightroom is quite complex. The relationship between various viewing applications, Windows, and color-management is even more complex.
4) We'll likely need a more coherent explanation of your perceived problems than you have provided thus far in order to render assistance.

It is our custom to always say, "Welcome to the forums."
 
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trying to upload a video erase all the text I had written.. I feel I'm getting more problem than I am solving. Cant upload pics, video still not sure maybe waiting for approval but still erased all the explanations of the problem. Can't skip lines while writing .. I just dont get it . . . Nothing working ! LIGHTROOM DIFFERENCE IN PICTURES IN LIBRARY/DEVELOPMENT MODULES
As you can see at the beginning I show the settings, than I switch from Library and develop using the ''fit'' displaying option, which is about the same, very minor difference.
Than using different ratios (1:8 1:4 1:3) And you can clearly see the difference when switching from Library to develop.
After, at 1:2 1:1 where both images seems to start matching again!
In the end the difference also in different picture viewers (QuickTime is the Noisy one, also sharper, Windows pic viewer seems noise free and smoother)
I'm posting this video to send to the adobe forum hoping they will take care of this , its a pain editing in these conditions! ! !
** the ''fill'' will sometimes display corect sometimes not depending of the size of your picture, which will directly affect the aspect ratio of the displayed image to fill your screen. **
I'm nothing of a Genius but it seems obvious it has something to see with the resizing and pixels ratios or something like this
 
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