Lightroom is turning my edited photos purple. HELP!

[Rudedee]

I run a freelance senior portrait business, and was working on a client's photos when lightroom began to do something very odd. When I chose "edit in an external program" (adobe photoshop), made my adjustments, and then saved, the edits showed up per usual in the thumbnail, but the photo was very obviously purple-tinged.

I am absolutely sure this has nothing to do with my edits in photoshop. Every photo this happens to looks fine in preview and photoshop. I've tried exporting the photo to my desktop, editing it in photoshop from there, then importing back into lightroom, but as soon as I switch to "develop," I can literally see the photo switch to purple.

I'm really not that computer-savvy, and my client needs her photos, and I am getting extremely desperate. HELP, please!

 

[Brad Snyder]

Rudedee

Welcome, sorry you're having trouble. Tell us a little more about your workflow (image file types, etc.) software versions, OS? etc.

A screen cap or link to one of the 'bad' images would be a help also.

 

[Rudedee]

Hi, thanks for responding so quickly!
Alright, I work only in jpgs, haven't upgraded to raw yet. I'm using Lightroom 1.', and I work on a MacBook, OS X version 1'.5.4. I also use photoshop CS, version 8.'.
Here's a screenshot of one of the images, in photoshop and lightroom. The "bad" one is on the right.

 

[DonRicklin]

This sounds like a classic case of Corrupt Monitor Profile. Re-calibrate your monitor. You can do a simple test by swapping the profile for another to see if this is so. Then re-calibrate!

Don

 

[Rudedee]

These monitor profiles, are they in system preferences? How do I go about exchanging profiles?
Does re-calibration require any special software?

Thank you!

 

[DonRicklin]

These monitor profiles, are they in system preferences? How do I go about exchanging profiles?
Does re-calibration require any special software?

Thank you!

On a Mac go to System Prefs, Displays, Color. If you only have one profile showing, uncheck 'Show Profiles for this display only' and 'try' another. You can then use the Calibrate Button at the bottom to do a software by eye calibration. The best think, though is hardware calibration.

Don

 

[Rudedee]

Thank you!

 

[DonRicklin]

Thank you!

So it was the profile?

Don

 

[Rudedee]

Argh, no. I messed around with the profiles, and calibrated using system preferences, but it made no difference.
I'm reluctant to buy the stuff you need to do hardware calibration, because I'm in high school, and penniless.
I'm searching around for alternate solutions, because I'm not completely convinced it's the monitor. Though, I have heard that laptops are notorious for these kind of problems.
So, in short, I have no idea.
If you reinstall Lightroom, do you have to re-load all of your photos?

 

[Brad Snyder]

In Lightroom, have a look at the histogram. Is it displaying this purple cast as well? It's supposed to be a neutral medium gray(other than the primary color spikes). If it has a color cast, it's definitely a monitor system problem.

 

[Denis Pagé]

Any screen capture of your Lightroom's histogram in Develop mode Rudedee?... :roll:

 

[Victoria Bampton]

While you're messing around with your computer Rudedee, you might want to update from 1.' to 1.4.1, which was the last free 1.x update. HUGE changes between, and well worth the update! And welcome to the forum!