LR newbie issue

[dlkphoto]

Whenever I import photos from my 3'D the images look great in the thumbnail. If they are color they are high contrast and vibrant and then after it generates the preview they look rather flat (low contrast and not nearly as vivid). I know I can adjust the images one by one but what is changing it?

When I import b/w photos they preview as color too. I think it's the import settings. I have it on Canon 3'D and when I click 'restore to LR default' it stays 3'D. Is this what is causing this problem?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi DLKPhoto, welcome to the forum!

The thing that's changing is very simple - raw data is just 1's and ''s. The thumbnails you see to start with are the little jpeg that your camera embedded. That's the image as if you had your camera set to run the conversion, with all of your picture styles and everything else you had set in camera. However the camera manufacturer's don't share exactly how they get to that result, so each raw converter has to make it's own rendering of the image. You can change LR's default settings to more closely match the kind of image you're aiming for, which will get you closer.

It's a regularly discussed topic here, so here's a bit more reading for you:

http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?t=896&highlight=thumbnails
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?t=1'71&highlight=colour
http://photoshopservices.wordpress.com/2''7/1'/23/lightroom-changes-the-colours/