Color Mismatch

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TobyTucker

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This is driving me crazy and hopefully someone can help. I have my monitors calibrated with the Spyder 3 system. Images look good in lightroom, but at times, more often than not, when I go to edit them in Photoshop CS4, they are different. Sometimes they are darker, sometimes lighter, but never the same as lightroom. Images that I have adjusted the exposure down to see some detail in blown out areas show up as blown out in Photoshop. It almost seems as though Photoshop is not holding the adjusted exposures. From what I have read, I believe Lightroom uses the calibrated profile of the system. Does Photoshop use this also? I bet I just have a setting wrong and don't know where to look and change it.

Thanks,
Toby
 
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Hi,

I was just about to post here for a similar problem. I never notice this when I'm at home on my desktop with a monitor calibrated with SypderExpress2. But while I'm on the road I'm on just a regular old Dell laptop and the color, when exported from LR, looks bad... Just washed out...

I'm using sRGB that I've set in the control panel, and I export from LR as sRGB as well. But the color that I see in LR looks nothing like the color I see once exported.

Here is an extreme example of a sunrise in Tokyo.

What I see in LR: http://www.timarai.com/images/pics/LROriginal.jpg

What I see once exported: http://www.timarai.com/images/pics/LRExport.jpg

It's driving me crazy... I've tried all 3 color options in the Export dialog in LR but they all look "blah". At first I thought it was the color space too but now I have no freakin' idea....

Any help would be great!! Thanks guys!!
 
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...really?? The one from LR definitely has much more yellow saturation than the exported one...

Hm. But even if I had the monitor on my laptop calibrated (impossible to do...and probably shouldn't since it's a work one...), why would it look so different in LR than an exported JPG if I am looking at it both from the same screen?

It's like LR is using a different color scheme than Windows when rendering the same image...

I swear...I'm a programmer, work with computers all day, I consider myself quite technical...but for some reason my mind has a block when it comes to color management... (-_-)
 
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[quote author=TimA link=topic=72'9.msg49'91#msg49'91 date=124757'848]
...really?? The one from LR definitely has much more yellow saturation than the exported one...

Hm. But even if I had the monitor on my laptop calibrated (impossible to do...and probably shouldn't since it's a work one...), why would it look so different in LR than an exported JPG if I am looking at it both from the same screen?

It's like LR is using a different color scheme than Windows when rendering the same image...

I swear...I'm a programmer, work with computers all day, I consider myself quite technical...but for some reason my mind has a block when it comes to color management... (-_-)

[/quote]

LR color working space is ProPhotoRGB so if you are viewing the JPEG sRGB image on the desktop there will be some effect. Also your desktop screen is probably higher quality and resolution than the Laptop (not profiled/calibrated).

I suppose its the same thing you see in a TV sales showroom, so many displays with different rendition of the same cable feed.
 
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LR color working space is ProPhotoRGB so if you are viewing the JPEG sRGB image there there will be some effect. Also your desktop screen is probably higher quality and resolution than the Laptop (also not profiled/calibrated).

I suppose its the same thing you see in a TV sales showroom, so many displays with different rendition of the same cable feed.
Click to expand...

Ah... It's ProPhotoRGB? Hm. I didn't know that. Then I suppose it will degrade a bit... I suppose since most of my photos go up on the web, I'll stick with sRGB for now since, if I remember correctly, most browsers don't support that yet...

I understand the differences in monitors...I've seen how my photos look on other people's screens much to my dismay many times... I was more concerned about what seemed to me an apparent color degradation from one program to another even though, in my mind, I was using the same color space when editing as well as exporting...

Now I wonder if I should be exporting my images as ProPhotoRGB even if I just want to send it off to a lab for a quick and dirty print job...
 
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Tim said:
I'm using sRGB that I've set in the control panel, and I export from LR as sRGB as well. But the color that I see in LR looks nothing like the color I see once exported.

..... why would it look so different in LR than an exported JPG if I am looking at it both from the same screen?....I was more concerned about what seemed to me an apparent color degradation from one program to another....
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Tim, you don't say how/what application you're viewing the images in external to Lr. You should be concerned, because there *may be* substantial differences from one program to another. Many, many programs are color management naive; the color-aware programs are few and far between, particularly in the consumer/home arena.

That said, I do see a difference between the images, in a colormanaged environment. I guess we need to know more about how you created the actual images. The Lr export is understandable, but where did the Lr original come from? Is it a screen shot? If so, what capture software? What parameters for the capture and export? What machine were you using when you did the capture? What Lr module? What size preview? You mention being a programmer, I'd say that in this experiment, you've introduced additonal uncontrolled variables in the test procedure.

Tell us more, and we may be able to pin down where the difference is being introduced. However, even that may not solve any problems, because as you noted, "other peoples' screens are frequently dismaying". Electronic public dissemination of photos is chancy at best.

As a side note, that particular color, the sunset yellow-orange has arisen before as a particularly sensitive region in Lr's rendering, and may vary from view to view within Lr modules. There're several threads here, try [color=#''''ff]this one[/color] and its embedded thread links.
 
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[quote author=TimA link=topic=72'9.msg49'94#msg49'94 date=1247575462]
...I understand the differences in monitors...I've seen how my photos look on other people's screens much to my dismay many times... I was more concerned about what seemed to me an apparent color degradation from one program to another even though, in my mind, I was using the same color space when editing as well as exporting...
[/quote]
It seem you are confusing Color Spaces with Color Profiles.

Your image live in a Color Space where its pixels are scattered around.

The surface of your monitor emit light in a given Color Space and can't reproduce colors outside this space. Cheap monitors just cover sRGB and best ones can go just beyond AdobeRGB.

Your computer use a Monitor Color Profile to map the pixels from your image's Color Space to your Monitor's Color Space. So, you monitor profile can be called anything such as MyMonitorProfile.icc and you are not selecting a Color Space with it.

Selecting sRGB.icc as your monitor profile just map the values differently. It is a generic profile and does not garantee a good translation from the image's color space to the screen rendition (gamut).

Suppose MelissaRGB[sup](1)[/sup] can reproduce the colors '123456789 and that sRGB can only reproduce colors 234567. A profile will try to fit one in the other.

For example:
When outputting in Absolute rendering from MelissaRGB to sRGB:
'123456789 -> 2223456777 what is out of gamut just stay on the new limit.
When outputting in Relative rendering:
'123456789 -> 2233444556 pushing what is near the limit inside to make room so you still see some gradation rather than a patch of saturated color.

When you output an image, you embed a color profile so other programs will know how to translate (if they can).

[sup](1)[/sup] MelissaRGB is the color space used by Lightroom. It is the combination of the ProPhoto color space, with an sRGB gamma curve.
 
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I guess we need to know more about how you created the actual images. The Lr export is understandable, but where did the Lr original come from? Is it a screen shot? If so, what capture software? What parameters for the capture and export? What machine were you using when you did the capture? What Lr module? What size preview? You mention being a programmer, I'd say that in this experiment, you've introduced additonal uncontrolled variables in the test procedure.
Click to expand...

...that is very very true. In this case, I guess I ended up putting on the hat of a typical customer that I'm used to dealing with all too often...

What that being said, the two images were captured on my Dell laptop that I use for work. The screen in uncalibrated and looking at the settings in Control Panel (this is running Windows XP) "sRGB Color Space Profile" is set.

The "LR Original" is a simple screen shot. Taken with "Print Screen" command, tossed into Windows Paint and cropped and saved as a JPG. I was concerned about doing that but the end result was an almost perfect copy of what I see in LR in terms of color as opposed to the colors I see after export so I left it that way. This is exactly how it looks in both the Loupe view in the Library and also in the Develop module as well. Preview is 1:1.

The export settings that could affect the image were as follows:

Format: JPEG
Quality: 9'
Color Space: sRGB
Resize to Fit: Long Edge 16'' pixels
Resolution: 24' pix / inch
Sharpen For: Screen
Amount: Standard

The exported image looks less saturated in every program I have used so far to view it in with the same machine. IE, Firefox, Windows Image Viewer at least.

As for other people's monitors, it's just uncalibrated or people mess with the settings so on one friend's monitor at work, she has the blues jacked up and whenever I see a photo of mine on her monitor it just hurts... I know electronically viewing an image is chancy only because there's no guarantee they see the same color as I do... Though thankfully most of them have no idea about this and don't care... But in this case, it's all on the same monitor...so thus my concern.

Denis is right. I was confusing the two terms. But if LR uses MelissaRGB then, for all intents and purposes, I will never get the exact color that I see in LR after export right?

In the end, on the exact same machine I see one version of the photo in LR and once exported outside of LR I see a different version of the photo. I realize my monitor is not calibrated but that shouldn't matter since this is all under the same environment I'd think. If my reds are screwed up, it should be screwed up in any program...

I appreciate the help!! And my apologies to TobyTucker...I didn't mean to hijack your post!! If the moderators deem it necessary, I will move this discussion to a different post.

Thank you.
 
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No worries Tim, kinda along the same lines. I think I figured out my problem has to do with Lightroom not "keeping" the adjustments before sending the file to Photoshop. I would adjust the white balance or even exposure, then hit ctrl-e to send it to photoshop. I noticed sometimes it does not retain the last setting I applied. I have been editing lately with the plus and minus keys cycling through the different options. I noticed that if I plus key or minus key an image, then hit ctrl-e right after, sometimes it does carry over to Photoshop. I tried closing the file without saving, going back to Lightroom, applying the setting again and then ctrl-e to photoshop. Then it worked. I guess it has something to do with Lightroom not fully accepting the correction. I also noticed this when I adjust similar settings then apply a vignette preset, which only affects vignettes and nothing else. The preset would undo my white balance, exposure, or whatever last adjustment I made with the plus or minus key. Seems like Lightroom has trouble retaining this setting while using this method.
I well, just need to pay closer attention till that fix that.

Toby
 
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[quote author=TimA link=topic=72'9.msg49156#msg49156 date=12476'4369]
...
The export settings that could affect the image were as follows:[/quote]
Those settings wont affect the color tough.

The exported image looks less saturated in every program I have used so far to view it in with the same machine. IE, Firefox, Windows Image Viewer at least.
Click to expand...
Depends on Firefox's version. On version 3 it is not color managed by default and have to be manually enabled. Version 3.5 is color managed by default and should show as in Lightroom. IE and Image Viewer are not color managed and hence, they don't care about color profiles/management.
Denis is right. I was confusing the two terms. But if LR uses MelissaRGB then, for all intents and purposes, I will never get the exact color that I see in LR after export right?
Click to expand...
When working in a large color space, one always have to take care of not working with colors that can't be reproduced. This is normally handled by proofing but this is not yet in Lightroom 2.x :(

In the end, on the exact same machine I see one version of the photo in LR and once exported outside of LR I see a different version of the photo.
Click to expand...
Just because the programs you use to view them outside Lightroom do not care about colors.
I appreciate the help!!
Click to expand...
You are welcome! :)
 
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[quote author=Denis Pagé link=topic=72'9.msg49122#msg49122 date=1247584''8]For example:
When outputting in Absolute rendering from MelissaRGB to sRGB:
'123456789 -> 2223456777 what is out of gamut just stay on the new limit.
When outputting in Relative rendering:
'123456789 -> 2233444556 pushing what is near the limit inside to make room so you still see some gradation rather than a patch of saturated color.
[/quote]

Not sure what you are saying here?

It might be true that, when viewing in Lightroom, if you are using a LUT based monitor profile, LR does a perceptual rendering for screen. But when using a Matrix profile, or when exporting images, any out of gamut colors will be clipped, since rendering is relative colorimetric.
Similar: There's no perceptual rendering intent (in PS) when converting between ProPhotoRGB to sRGB. Just relative colorimetric.
 
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