LR migrated to new laptop, aspect & colors of edited photos altered

[Nico]

Operating System: Windows 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): LR5.4

Hello,

I was looking if a thread for my trouble already existed on the forum or somewhere else on the web, but I did not find how to solve my problem yet.

My problem is that I migrated LR5.4 on a new laptop (my other one is a dying horse). Exactly the same LR version. I copied all the necessary files from the one laptop to the new one (Backups, the Catalog, the Catalog previews folder, the Catalog smart previews folder and the Lightroom setting folder) and pasted them in the folder where LR would store them. So far so good. Additionally I did the same with my presets and pasted them in the Lightroom Presets folder. Again, no problem so far.

The only adjustement that I had to operate was to re-assign the place where the "missing" folders were when I launched LR on the new laptop. Within a few minutes this has been solved. Each photo was recognized and exactly at the place it was on the old laptop. All the photos that I have edited or processed previously were also shown as been edited. The PROBLEM though is that the appearance of edited photos was different. And I will had an important detail: I am using an additional 23 inches screen to work on the photos. Long story short: Laptop changed, but the screen is the same than before, what allows me to compare. The colors of the photos are altered on the screen. I used mostly VSCO presets as a base, some photos are darker than they used to be, some in B&W are fader. The "funny" thing is when I see the miniatures on the panel downwards, I can see the accurate old adjustements, but as soon as I click on the miniature to make the photo appear in the Library or Develop modules, the photo appears differently. It is very frustrating.

Does someone have an idea? I am without solutions, I don't understand the reason of the problem. Thanks a lot in advance for advices.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I believe VSCO uses custom camera profiles as part of their presets. Camera profiles are not stored in your Lightroom presets folder, but in a shared folder with Camera Raw. You probably didn't copy those profiles over to the new computer, so that causes the difference. The fact that you see the correct old adjustments in the thumbnails is because these were not updated (there was no reason for Lightroom to update them). But as soon as Lightroom needs to re-render a preview because you open the image in loupe view or in the develop module, the missing profile is replaced by a standard profile and so the appearance changes.

 

[Nico]

I believe VSCO uses custom camera profiles as part of their presets. Camera profiles are not stored in your Lightroom presets folder, but in a shared folder with Camera Raw. You probably didn't copy those profiles over to the new computer, so that causes the difference. The fact that you see the correct old adjustments in the thumbnails is because these were not updated (there was no reason for Lightroom to update them). But as soon as Lightroom needs to re-render a preview because you open the image in loupe view or in the develop module, the missing profile is replaced by a standard profile and so the appearance changes.

Thank you Johan. I will try to find these profiles. If I don't find them I just re-install the VSCO pack and hope for the best. In any case, negative or positive, I come back to you. But your answer makes sense to me, though I would not have found by myself. Many thanks again!!!

 

[Nico]

I believe VSCO uses custom camera profiles as part of their presets. Camera profiles are not stored in your Lightroom presets folder, but in a shared folder with Camera Raw. You probably didn't copy those profiles over to the new computer, so that causes the difference. The fact that you see the correct old adjustments in the thumbnails is because these were not updated (there was no reason for Lightroom to update them). But as soon as Lightroom needs to re-render a preview because you open the image in loupe view or in the develop module, the missing profile is replaced by a standard profile and so the appearance changes.

Problem solved!! Thanks so much!