Tone problems after exporting from lightroom and viewing on windows photo/flickr etc.

velonoir

velonoir

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463
Name
Dougie
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all, there is probably a simple explanation for this but recently after editing in lightroom then exporting at 100% quality as a JPEG I am finding that the tones look quite different when I look at the images on either the windows image preview or when uploaded to Flickr. The key problems are that the tones seem more saturated and darker. This leads to detail being lost in the shadows quite often (happens when starting from either JPEG or RAW). Also, the gradients in tone become quite "blotchy" for want of a better word. They are nice and smooth going from dark to light on lightroom but there are almost layers where the tones noticeably change when you look at the exported images. Can anyone give me any ideas where I should start looking? This is all being viewed on the same Dell U2711 monitor so the monitor isn't the issue.
 
Dougie

Check your export settings. This is most likely the 'culprit' if the photo looks OK in LR prior to export
 
Most likely problem is the colour profile. The web browsers will generally show sRGB accurately so export your file as sRGB colour space. If you export as aRGB or ProPhoto RGB then the colours will shift
 
Buck said:
Dougie

Check your export settings. This is most likely the 'culprit' if the photo looks OK in LR prior to export
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EOS_JD said:
Most likely problem is the colour profile. The web browsers will generally show sRGB accurately so export your file as sRGB colour space. If you export as aRGB or ProPhoto RGB then the colours will shift
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I thought to start with but I'm exporting JPG at max quality and with an sRGB colour profile. I exported TIF as well and they both do the same thing.
I'll have another play tonight... It's got me totally perplexed.
 
I'm glad it's not just me experiencing this, in Lightroom everything looks fine, but on Flickr they look horrendous and posterised!
 
A slightly off the wall suggestion, assuming you are exporting with an sRGB profile, is to reduce the quality setting. Try 75% - 90% for high quality.
 
You could try exporting a smaller file. Many online photo sharing sites reduce the size of the image to save space. Try sending it as say a 1200 pixel ( long side image,) sRGB profile and medium compression. See if this makes any difference
 
I had a problem like that a while back, caused by editing images INSIDE lightroom as something other than sRGB. It was fixed by ensuring they were handled at all times as sRGB only.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I had a problem like that a while back, caused by editing images INSIDE lightroom as something other than sRGB. It was fixed by ensuring they were handled at all times as sRGB only.
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You can't set LR to edit in sRGB... You can set soft proofing to display as sRGB, but LR uses a variant of ProPhoto.
 
Edited due to being wrong!
 
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OK, in my case it was the external editing colour space under the preferences tab - needed to be set to sRGB. Once that was done images then came out in sRGB colourspace when exporting (note: prior to that, the exif data showed sRGB even when they were clearly not).
 
velonoir said:
Hi all, there is probably a simple explanation for this but recently after editing in lightroom then exporting at 100% quality as a JPEG I am finding that the tones look quite different when I look at the images on either the windows image preview or when uploaded to Flickr. The key problems are that the tones seem more saturated and darker. This leads to detail being lost in the shadows quite often (happens when starting from either JPEG or RAW). Also, the gradients in tone become quite "blotchy" for want of a better word. They are nice and smooth going from dark to light on lightroom but there are almost layers where the tones noticeably change when you look at the exported images. Can anyone give me any ideas where I should start looking? This is all being viewed on the same Dell U2711 monitor so the monitor isn't the issue.
Click to expand...

This sounds a lot like "color banding" to me. Image compression can cause that (i.e. displaying at smaller size than it is). It could also be due to converting from a 16bit color environment (LR/ProPhoto) to an 8bit color environment (jpeg/sRGB). Try softproofing in sRGB to see if that shows the difference.

Also note that LR's develop module gives a more accurate representation of the image than the library module does.
 
PaulButler said:
A slightly off the wall suggestion, assuming you are exporting with an sRGB profile, is to reduce the quality setting. Try 75% - 90% for high quality.
Click to expand...

Yes exporting with sRGB profile, I might give that a go next time I'm exporting.

Chappers said:
You could try exporting a smaller file. Many online photo sharing sites reduce the size of the image to save space. Try sending it as say a 1200 pixel ( long side image,) sRGB profile and medium compression. See if this makes any difference
Click to expand...

The problem occurs when I look at the pictures on my desktop after opening through the windows picture viewer, but if I open the exported image back up in lightroom it looks fine (as in the actual output file which was edited not the original in the lightroom catalogue) so nothing to do with Flickr.

ancient_mariner said:
OK, in my case it was the external editing colour space under the preferences tab - needed to be set to sRGB. Once that was done images then came out in sRGB colourspace when exporting (note: prior to that, the exif data showed sRGB even when they were clearly not).
Click to expand...

I'll try that and see if it works next time round.

sk66 said:
This sounds a lot like "color banding" to me. Image compression can cause that (i.e. displaying at smaller size than it is). It could also be due to converting from a 16bit color environment (LR/ProPhoto) to an 8bit color environment (jpeg/sRGB). Try softproofing in sRGB to see if that shows the difference.

Also note that LR's develop module gives a more accurate representation of the image than the library module does.
Click to expand...

Not sure about colour banding from viewing too small as if I view it using windows at 100% it still comes up with the same issue. I've tried softproofing in sRGB and it looks exactly the same as the original - no problem. It is only an issue when the files are viewed outside lightroom, as said, if I import the output files back into lightroom they look as they should. The tones just darken when I view on windows or in a browser. Still rather confused. :)

Thanks for all the help though folks.
 
You wouldn't happen to have dual graphics in your machine would you? Some programs will switch between graphics processors and I've heard of the different processors using different monitor calibration profiles... I'm running a MBP with dual processors and I don't have that issue.

Also, have you tried viewing in Firefox? It's better color managed than IE.
 
I've actually come here looking for an answer to the same question!
 
I'm going to have to guess it's monitor calibration and particularly the gamma setting along with color space.
LR uses ProPhoto with a gamma of 1.0 for raw edits and displays it with an sRGB tone curve applied to the wide gamut Melissa (pro photo) color space in the develop module. In the Library module the image previews are Adobe RGB with an assumed gamma of 2.2.

In the slide show module raw files are Adobe RGB and non-raw files are whatever they have native (i.e. sRGB for jpegs). And in the web module everything is sRGB.

As you can see, it's REALLY convoluted. And most of the functions of LR are using wide gamut color spaces (Adobe/pro photo) which far exceed sRGB.

The best you can do is calibrate your monitor to gamma 2.2 (or L*) and then evaluate the exported jpeg. I have this gamma issue a lot w/in LR when working with very dark images... I find that the develop module is the most accurate, but not 100% reliable because the image I'm seeing is an "interpretation" of how it will convert to the smaller 2.2 sRGB color space. BTW, ink printing will often be less prone to showing gamma issues (other than overall brightness). The best solution I've found for adjusting in LR in order to minimize the issue is to use the black and white point sliders (while holding alt). But the output jpeg still doesn't usually exactly replicate the preview (more drops to "black" in sRGB).
 
Hi
You'll find the problem lies with Windows Picture Viewer......apparently it's quite a common problem. I've experienced the same......Picture Viewer increasing contrast and darkening the image quite noticeably. Photoshop and Lightroom shows the true image (to me).
JohnyT
 
Johnytuono said:
Hi
You'll find the problem lies with Windows Picture Viewer......apparently it's quite a common problem. I've experienced the same......Picture Viewer increasing contrast and darkening the image quite noticeably. Photoshop and Lightroom shows the true image (to me).
JohnyT
Click to expand...
Again sounds like colour profiles. Picture viewer I believe handles anything other than sRGB.
 
May be worth checking, although it may not be the issue you are having, but Windows Photo viewer really doesn't play nice with V4.0 ICC profiles... only V2.0
 
My guess is you have a wide gamut monitor which will result is sRGB images being displayed overly contrasty and over-saturated (particularly reds) in non-color managed applications and on sites that use Adobe Flash (also not color managed) to display images.

If Flickr isn't using Adobe Flash (pretty certain it does for slideshows) then it could be that the images are sRGB but "untagged". If that's the case then (for Windows anyway) only Firefox can be configured to display the untagged images properly. There's a hidden switch that has to be set, or just download an add-on called "Color Management" and in it's Options, Enable Color Management for All Images.

Safari, Internet Explorer and Chrome cannot be configured to handle untagged images properly. It's too bad, because I really prefer Chrome :(

There is absolutely nothing you can do to make images displayed by Adobe Flash look correct when viewed on a wide gamut monitor calibrated to full gamut.

Color management has been a real weak point for Microsoft in my opinion, so I wouldn't base any conclusions on how things look in Windows Picture Viewer.
 
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Bob_a said:
There is absolutely nothing you can do to make images displayed by Adobe Flash look correct when viewed on a wide gamut monitor calibrated to full gamut.
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Yes there is. Use Firefox and set it up to force all output to your working screen profile.


http://ntown.at/2013/12/28/firefox-color-management/


Currently, Firefox is the only browser that truly colour manages instead of trying to force untagged content to sRGB,
 
Pookeyhead said:
Yes there is. Use Firefox and set it up to force all output to your working screen profile.


http://ntown.at/2013/12/28/firefox-color-management/


Currently, Firefox is the only browser that truly colour manages instead of trying to force untagged content to sRGB,
Click to expand...

What you are referring to is the hidden switch(s) that I already mentioned in my post. The "Color Management" add-on just does all the work mentioned in your link instead of going into the about:config screen. However, this does not fix the issue with Adobe Flash ... and it shouldn't, since the Flash Player is is a separate application that is called by your browser, and it's not color managed. The issue with Adobe Flash not being color managed is well known, and is one (not all) of the reasons that sites like Smugmug have finally got rid of it.

What Firefox does that no other browser can do is display untagged images properly (but only after setting the switches in the site you linked to or by using the "Color Management" add-on), which is really important, particularly on a camera forum where we'd really like to view an image the way the poster intended it to be seen. Lots of folks aren't aware that the ICC profile is sometimes stripped from the image either due to the way they upload or by some of the image sharing sites. If the same poster has a standard gamut monitor they'd never know that anyone viewing with a wide gamut monitor is seeing an over-saturated, overly-contrasty version of their image.
 
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Something is not as you describe it. I can definitely see a difference in the saturation of flash content when using that firefox switch. You using a wide gamut screen?
 
Pookeyhead said:
Something is not as you describe it. I can definitely see a difference in the saturation of flash content when using that firefox switch. You using a wide gamut screen?
Click to expand...

Yup. A NEC PA241 calibrated to full gamut with SpectraviewII/i1 Display Pro. What I'm seeing is what I'd expect to see. :)
 
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Got a link to anything in particular that demos this? Got me curious now.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Got a link to anything in particular that demos this? Got me curious now.
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I'll try to find an example. I also sent an email to Zenfolio a couple of days ago and got the following response from their tech support this morning:

Hi Bob ,

The flash slideshows are still not color managed. Flash slideshows are used on our classic homepage layouts, but we have moved away from flash for our newer full screen layouts. These use HTML 5 for the slideshow playback and Flash is only for a soundtrack if one is selected.
Click to expand...
Honestly, I'm kinda hoping that the latest version of Flash is color managed. I'm not anti-Flash ... I just want people to see my images reasonably close to how I see them. I can't do anything about another persons brightness setting or calibration, but I can control where I host my images and if the ICC profile is intact.

Happy New Year David! :)
 
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Bob_a said:
I'll try to find an example. I also sent an email to Zenfolio a couple of days ago and got the following response from their tech support this morning:


Honestly, I'm kinda hoping that the latest version of Flash is color managed. I'm not anti-Flash ... I just want people to see my images reasonably close to how I see them. I can't do anything about another persons brightness setting or calibration, but I can control where I host my images and if the ICC profile is intact.

Happy New Year David! :)
Click to expand...


Happy new year to you too.

I've never used flash thankfully. I'm glad HYML5 is gaining ground actually.

I have noticed a difference in saturation when forcing You Tube into HTML5 and ten switching back to the old method though. Never noticed before. Very annoying, and something they need to sort out ASAP. I take colour management seriously and hate the thought of anything I put out there being beyond my control.
 
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