If you’re having preview problems of any description, the monitor profile is a likely suspect. This is especially if you’ve recently upgraded your operating system or graphics card driver, or installed a new monitor. To rule out the monitor profile as the cause of the problem, you can temporarily replace it:
Windows
- Close Lightroom.
- On Windows 7/10, go to or type in the Start menu search box. On Windows 8, use the Search charm to search for ‘color management’ and then select .
- Click the tab if it’s not already selected.
- From the Device pop-up, select your monitor. If you have more than 1 monitor connected, pressing the Identify monitors button displays a large number on screen for identification.
- Check the Use my settings for this device checkbox.
- Make a note of the currently selected profile, which is marked as (default). If there isn’t an existing profile, you can skip this step.
- Click the Add button.
- In the Associate Color Profile dialog, select sRGB IE61966-2.1 (sRGB Color Space Profile.icm) and press OK.
- Back in the Color Management dialog, select the sRGB profile and click Set as Default Profile, and then close the dialog.
macOS
- Close Lightroom.
- Go to
- In the Color Profile pop-up, select sRGB IEC61966-2.1 for a third-party monitor or the default for your screen if it’s an Apple display (e.g., Apple XDR Display).
Finally, restart Lightroom and check whether everything looks correct. If it does, you’ve confirmed that the previous monitor profile was the cause of the problem. You can temporarily leave sRGB as the monitor profile, as it’s better than a corrupted one.
Monitor Calibration
The only real way of calibrating a monitor is with a hardware calibration device. Software calibration is only ever as good as your eyes, and everyone sees color differently, but calibration hardware, such as the ColorMunki, i1 Display Pro or Spyder devices are now inexpensive, and an essential part of every keen digital photographer’s toolkit.
Most calibration software offers an advanced setting, so if it gives you a choice, go for a brightness of around 100-120 cd/m2, 6500K or native white point for an LCD monitor, and most importantly, an ICC2 Matrix profile rather than an ICC4 or LUT-based profile, as these more recent profiles aren’t compatible with many programs yet.
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
If you have the Photography Plan, then as well as Classic you have access to the Lightroom cloud ecosystem including the mobile apps and web interface. For more information on these apps, see Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Note: purchase of these books includes the first year’s Classic or cloud-based Premium Membership (depending on the book purchased), giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the applicable Lightroom version if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
We also have a special bundle offer for the two books. This includes Premium Membership for the first year as described above for the whole Lightroom family!
Originally posted 22 December 2014, updated for Lightroom Classic in 2019.
Thank you so much !
Thank you SOOOOOO much for this post! I reinstalled the whole Windows system several times hoping this strange problem would go away but to no avail. Your method works immediately. Thank you for saving my newly built computer and my new monitor.
Thank you so much. The Color Management solution worked. I am using the same computer and the same images as I was before and this is the only program that had the dark image issue. I’m so happy to have this fixed!
Hello! Thank you so much for your help! A few days ago I restarted my lightroom and suddenly everything was desaturated. Looked normal online and in PS though. So I calibrated with SpyderX Elite and restarted my computer only to have everything become desaturated. I sent the photos to others and they said my photos looked bold and saturated but not oversaturated. Today in the middle editing, lightroom crashed. I reopened it and now all the photos in lightroom look way oversaturated. Anyone else have this issue?
I’d recalibrate again.
Hello, I have a question because there is a color difference between the lightroom library and the developer.
There is a phenomenon in which the yellow and orange feel of the photos in the library is displayed more strongly than the photos in the development. Even if I press the \ key in Develop to check the original, the more original photo is turning yellower.
I am using a macbook pro 14 inch m1max, and the display setting is apple xdr display (p3 – 1600 nits).
Do you have any solution?
I’ve tried changing the display settings, but I can’t do it like the fix here.
Also, is it possible to match the color space settings of the library and developer?
They should match automatically, however I don’t have a laptop with one of the new XRD displays so I’m unsure of what settings are available. In your case I’d suggest posting on the Adobe forum, where someone is likely to have the same machine. https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/ct-p/ct-lightroom-classic
Thank you so much, don´t know how long I have been having this issue.
This helped me out so much.
I set up the sRGB IEC 61966-2.1 for both monitors, shut it all down, reopened LR and the issue still exists, on both monitors. If the issue is some setting in LR, calibration of the monitors does not seem like it will solve the puzzle.
I should just buy a new computer. Google has been really going crazy lately, dumped all my data for emails, and on two occasions today created a headache in trying to figure out & standardize the Apple account and the icloud account for the ipad used with my drone. Then I had to re-register for adobe, no user name, password would work and when I logged out and attempted to log back in couldn’t. so I registered again. What a mess. Damn now I cant log into my proton mail – no password data there either.
Unfortunately sounds like you have a much wider issue then, Gary.
YOU ARE A JESUS TO ME. I HAVE BEEN LOOKING ONLINE TO FIX THIS FOR OVER A YEAR. TRIED IT ALL.
I WISH YOU EVERYTHING!!!!
I have the profile in RGB, restarted LR, quit LR and set the calibrated profile to default as has been always. The iMac is new with macOS Catalina Version 10.15.3. The problem remains with a RED oversaturated. LR version 3.3. Please any solution ?
Calibrate your monitor with a proper calibration device if the colors look off.
I am familiar with color calibration as I have been managing my displays for a few years with my Spyder5 Pro, but I have run into a problem I cant seem to resolve.
I recently bought an apple cinema display monitor second-hand. My intentions were to calibrate it as best as I could and hopefully use it as an extra monitor. I have calibrated both my MacBook Pro 2018 and Cinema Display, but when I view the same image across all my devices, they vary on the magenta-green tint spectrum.
For example, the way the photo displays on my monitor is the same as how it looks on my iPhone 11 Pro Max (more green), and the way it displays on my MacBook is the same as how it displays on my iPad 7th generation (more magenta). My biggest frustration is that I cant get my MacBook to match my monitor… the tint is most noticeable in the neutrals.
Would love to hear if anyone else is experiencing this and how/if you’ve been able to remedy it.
Wow, thank you so much!!!
thanks a lot i helped i was so frustrated with colors at last its fixed thank you so much 😀
When I installed a new monitor I have some problem and I”m going to temporarily replace it. Then I follow the lightroom queen. And it”s help me a lot. But I found another way named facebook to solve the problem. You can try it.
Victoria,
very helpful explanation for those who may be inadvertently stuck with a broken display profile, also that you suggest:
“You can temporarily leave sRGB as the monitor profile, as it’s better than a corrupted one, but it would then be wise to calibrate your monitor accurately using a hardware calibration device.”
Very important, that part.
It’s also worth folk with multiple displays remembering that “Mirror” displays [same screen info on both] is no good if you want colour accuracy on screen. They must use Mac “extended desktop” https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202351 / Win “Extend these displays”
have a good weekend all
Good tip, thanks for sharing Neil
Thank you are the great tip in a format everyone can understand. Once again the “Queen” rules!
Woowww!!! Love you,🥰🥰🥰i had now more than 2 months with this problem and many people were only talking about color profile on photshop or lightroom they never mention this. ITS HELPFUL!!!
Thank you very much for your help. I tried to solve this prob in lightroom for ages !
This solved my problem immediately! Thank you – you have ended a couple of very frustrating weeks!
Thanks alot it solved my problem.
Just wanted to thank you for the good advice.
For me, I was getting oversaturation in the LR web module, compared to Develop and Library. I was _also_ having the problem in web browsers with cinemagraphs I’ve been creating, _and_ when playing h.264 videos on my PC (looked fine in Premiere and AE, but when played in a colour-aware video player, the same over-saturation problem).
Very confusing, as my Eizo screen is hardware calibrated (Windows 10).
What I did was swap the default profile to sRGB, restarted LR, then quit LR and set my hardware calibrated profile back to default. That has solved my problem (and made me breathe a big sigh of relief that my clients have been seeing, and not mentioning, this oversaturation problem. Phew!!).
Many thanks again 🙂
Charles
It looks identical in lightroom and photoshop. Is there a photo viewer that you recommend using to view exported images? My only concern is that it does not print the way it is shown in lightroom/photoshop.
Lightroom and Photoshop are both fully color managed, so they’re your best bet. Your next question is why the prints aren’t matching what you see there, but that’s probably a conversation for the forum (see the link in the menubar).
The exported jpg image imports back into lightroom with the identical color saturation that the original raw edited image has in lightroom. You can’t tell the difference between the two as long as I am viewing them in lightroom. Now I am really confused. Thank you for your help!!
That’s good, that means there’s no problem with the export, and still makes me think the other app isn’t fully color managed. Have you tried something like Photoshop?
I’m confused because I calibrated my monitor using Spyder 5 pro with display Cal and suddenly lightroom looks completely different than my exported images. When I followed your steps and went back to the srgb profile it corrected the issue. Why would the calibrated profile be corrupt? Ive tried calibrating it several times and the problem continues to cause my images to look different once exported. Any suggestions?
Thank you,
Sarah
What are you using to view the exported photos? And on which operating system? From your description, it sounds like you’re simply viewing the photos in non-color-managed software.
I was also hoping that was the issue. I have tried multiple color managed photo viewers (such as Irfanview) and my images look de-saturated. Unfortunately, my images print for mpix with the same color tones as the basic windows photo viewer. I export srgb, 300 resolution, 100 quality. Any other thoughts? I am working on a touch screen hp envy 360.
If you import one of the exported photos back into Lightroom, do they look the same as the edited one?
Thanks Victoria, This article helped me to get my grey thumbnails fixed. It was very annoying for a while and I had tried many different ways to fix it. I had to attach all my external hards every time to be able to see my catalog thumbnails..
Thanks,
Mo
thanks a lot ma’am! You fixed it like magic! thank you a lot!
Wow thank you! I’ve been having issues for a while and I thought lighroom was the issue. This fixed the problem right away.
Hi Victoria,
I use an x-rite display tool. I am having a problem with thumbnails not showing my edits when I synch several images at the same time. If I close and backup Lightroom classic CC I am good for another few hours. Is there a place where I should be adding more hard drive space? I got nowhere with Adobe help, they promised a call from a higher tech which never happened. I am using raw files saved as DNG.
Thank you,
Cheryl
That’s an odd one Cheryl. Report it at the Official Feature Request/Bug Report Forum at https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/new/add_details?topic%5B because the engineers hang out there.
Many thanks! Spent 6 hours on this before I found your solution. Made my day!
I’m glad it helped Christer. Next time you’ll stop here first! 😉
Thank you for a great article on this. I have just recently updated my (Late 2012) iMac to El Capitan. I have calibrate both my iMac and MBP Retina (Late 2013) with ColorMunki Photo. I just recently started having problems with my photos exported as sRBG jpgs out of Lightroom and sent to my iPhone via iMessage. Have you encountered the issue with viewing your photos on you phone that you send to yourself appearing desatured and flat? Would love to hear your thoughts as I have been futzing around and know that my color profile settings are correct and it’s so upsetting and annoying.
As someone who uses social media for marketing, I am having to re-edit the photos I send to myself via iMessage on my phone again because it has completely lost its original edit from what I see in LR from my iMac and/or MBP.
Any insight or help is appreciated. Thank you in advance!
-Bryan
Hmmmm, desaturated and flat would usually suggest a wide color space like ProPhoto RGB, so I’d first double check that you’re definitely exporting sRGB JPEGs.
I am exporting them as sRGB jpgs. I have been doing this for a while now and this is the first time it has been happening.
Odd indeed. Could your monitor profile have become corrupted?
OMG that made my day!! I was trying and searching for hours and finally found your hint.
Have your book but failed to look it up there 🙂
LOL Glad you found it!
Many, Many, Many Thanks!!!! It was a nightmare and you save me!
Thanks so much Victoria….. I was losing hope!
Thanks very much Victoria. I thought I had caused it somehow but this profile seems to have fixed the warming problem.
Thank you Victoria, I had this problem and your very clear instructions took care of it!
If you have calibrated your monitor, why would you choose sRGB IE61966-2.1 (sRGB Color Space Profile.icm) as your default profile? Thanks!
Only as a test to see if the monitor profile is the cause of the problem (where the photos are a funny color in LR). More frequently it’s the manufacturer’s profiles that cause problems, rather than proper calibrated ones.
Yep? It worked.
Thanks Victoria for this.
As I’m sRGB virtual device model profile in the list, and it worked. Cheers 🙂
Victoria – thank you for this… I had read a few unhelpful threads which didn’t help. Your article sorted it out straight away 😉
What if your monitor profile is not corrupt… would you have something after this that can be tried? Unfortunately this did not fix my problem.
Post it on the forum at http://www.lightroomforums.net and we’ll talk you through other possibilities Allison. You’ll need to tell us more about the symptoms you’re seeing too.
Thank You!
This advice saved my day! I’ve spent hours to fix this issue, but thanks to you I can get back to work! 🙂
This cured my LR colour problems up perfectly; thanks so much.
Victoria – you are brilliant! I’ve been futzing around with this problem for hours and you had the answer – thank you so much!
I’m an Adobe Certified LR Expert myself, but so much to know even beyond that! If you are ever looking for a helper (with the easier stuff!), I can do remote sessions, would love to help…
Or if nothing else, know that I am grateful for your being such a terrific resource…
Cheers,
Rebecca Benoit
Thanks Rebecca. We’d love to have your help on the forum!
Thanks HEAPS it was driving me mad
Hi. Glad I found this! I’m going to give it a try. My LrC dims when switching between Library and Develop. I’ve already verified my MacBook Pro settings for auto brightness and dimming when on battery are off. Seems like this started recently after updating OS and LrC (Oct 2023).
If it’s since LR13’s release in October, one possibility is that you’re editing in HDR, which only shows up properly in Develop at the moment and looks flat in Library.