[Tuner571]

Hey everyone, I have been using Adobe lightroom for some time to edit my photos and I recently noticed that when I do certain things with my images the colors in the photo get dulled down. For example, when I set one of my pictures as my desktop backround or upload the photo to flickr the colors seem to lose some of thier brightness and I have no idea what is going on. However, when I view the photos in Windows picture viewer they look totally fine.

Any help will be appriciated,

Thanks, Cory

[augustmoon]

Are the images you are exporting from Lightroom in AdobeRGB, ProPhotoRGB, or sRGB?

For the Web and your PC Desktop sRGB will be the brightest and punchiest looking, and AdobeRGB will look very flat in these circumstances. If you are exporting for print purposes with Adobe RGB specifically, you can always export a second version from Lightroom embedded with the sRGB for those other purposes. Windows picture viewer (I don't know) might be correctly reading the other colorspace profile and thus displaying the conversion correctly, while I doubt the desktop has that sophistication.

Brian

[khardur]

I don't know all your settings obviously, but could it be your are saving your pictures (as to the desktop background) in Adobe RGB or something like that, - it may look fine in Lightroom but if you export it and it's still in Adobe RGB your colors may look screwy/muted etc. in a non-color managed application. If you're just exporting an image for use on your desktop background, for example - I would say to try a few tests to see if changing the color profile helps.

That's my first guess, there are many others on the boards who are much more knowledgeable about the subject.

Edit: darnit, Brian beat me to it.

[Tuner571]

Hey thanks for the help guys, I will have to give this a try and see if it works!

[Derridale]

To revive this thread, I have a question:

If I process all my DNG files from my K20D in Lightroom, then either edit them in Photoshop or export them as either TIFF or JPGs, the colours are all screwed up as has already been mentioned above. This occurs if I export in either AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB. I have to export in sRGB for the JPGs to look even half decent in eg. Picasa, or any other viewer or app.

My question is this, and please excuse my ignorance on this subject:

if I have to export in sRGB at the end of the workflow chain, then what is the point of staying in AdobeRGB from the camera to Lightroom? What apps will read AdobeRGB, or even ProPhotoRGB, and make it look as good as it looked in Lightroom?

The main things I want the photos to be able to do at the end of the chain is:

1. print out, either on my Epson R1900 printer, or via the local printing kiosk

2. load onto an SD card, then into the back of a digital photoframe, and run as a slide show

3. print in book format from eg Snapfish or similar

4. give the DVD with the JPGs to people who can load it into their PC and simply view in whatever album or viewer software they run.

Now - I know I can export twice from Lightroom, for example, once in sRGB and once in AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB, but is this any advantage for me? Will Snapfish, for example, or my local printing kiosk, read AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB files? Or will they just convert them to sRGB anyway?


I guess the second part to my question - you just KNEW there had to be another bit, right? - is how do I print from Photoshop to my Epson R1900, AFTER the files have been exported from Lightroom? In other words, which format do I load back into Photoshop - the sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB - to print out, without having to fiddle with any more editing? All those formats should look good in Photoshop, but is there any advantage of one over the others? And do I then tell Photoshop to manage the colour, or do I let the printer software do it?

As you can see, I have a lot to learn about colour management and colour spaces. I have my monitor calibrated using a Huey, and if I print out directly from Lightroom, or Photoshop, it emerges from the Epson R1900 printer looking just as it did on the screen. That's using EITHER Photoshop OR the printer software to manage colour - Lightroom needs the printer software to do it. But that's directly from the editing session - my question relates to which pictures to load back into the software AFTER they've been exported.

Any help here would be very much appreciated - thanks

[cputeq]

If I process all my DNG files from my K20D in Lightroom, then either edit them in Photoshop or export them as either TIFF or JPGs, the colours are all screwed up as has already been mentioned above. This occurs if I export in either AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB. I have to export in sRGB for the JPGs to look even half decent in eg. Picasa, or any other viewer or app

^ From my very limited understanding of color management:

If you're viewing an AdobeRGB image in a non-color managed application (which are the majority of apps, actually), you're going to get screwy colors. This is just the way the world works.

As far as I can remember, Safari (Mac/Windows) is about the only color-managed browser you can use. You might want to download it and give it a try with some images in both AdobeRGB and sRGB to see if it helps.

I think Vista's image browser is also color-managed, although Internet Explorer isn't (go figure). I'm unsure of any other built-in application in Vista or Windows XP that is color managed, and I don't know about Mac OSX at all. I'm pretty sure Picasa is not color managed.

Generally, you're going to want to keep AdobeRGB for things like outputting to screen / printer, assuming you

1) have calibrated the monitor to the AdobeRGB space and

2) Allow the printer's color management features to use AdobeRGB color profiles

In theory, I think, this will give you the most consistent output from the time you see the photo in lightroom / Photoshop until the time you decide to print it, etc. Exporting to sRGB ensures pretty much everyone else in the world will see it as it "should" be, whether they're using a color-managed app or not.

Viewing AdobeRGB profile images using non-managed apps is a bad thing and of course results in the washed out look, dull, etc.


---------------------------

Disclaimer -- I only have a small, tiny clue about what the heck I'm saying here, so anyone with corrections feel free to lay the smack down on me (heck, I'll appreciate it!)

[Derridale]

Thanks for that info I posted the same questions on the Lightroom group in Flickr, and got a lot of help there too.

Basically, for those who may be reading this thread and want the answers too, it boils down to:

- export in sRGB for everything except pro magazine or book printing

That's it, really. There are a lot of minor points about whether or not to stay in AdobeRGB within Lightroom or Photoshop, but at the end of the day, and the end of the workflow chain - export into sRGB. Simple!

Then, whatever you do with the photos, they should look OK.

If you're a pro, and you're producing for magazine (glossy type) or formal book presentation, then export to AdobeRGB, which the printers will convert to CMYK anyway.

All very confusing, but condensed down - stick with sRGB.

Thanks for the help

[gpaual]

just some thoughts.......i have set all my color spaces to adobe rgb 1998, across the board.....
the only prgm that gives me any trouble is bridge which seems to enjoy screwing up images....then for awhile after reading an article i switched lightroom to adobe pro, but always forgot to revert which resulted in minor problems,...the biggest headache came when my monitor dies and i had to calibrate it to everything else......printing is another story, sometimes i will outsource projects like books etc, most on-line services do image enhancement which will kill your images faster than a speeding bullet, unless you inform them to NOT photo enhance.........anyway, with all that, i have not had any problems using adobe rgb on any web site, or monitor, or dvd......perhaps i am lucky, for i am certainly not a pro

[sewebster]

That's it, really. There are a lot of minor points about whether or not to stay in AdobeRGB within Lightroom or Photoshop, but at the end of the day, and the end of the workflow chain - export into sRGB. Simple!

Sorry for reviving this old thread... I don't think it is really that simple. At least for me, even if I export in sRGB, if I use a non-colour-managed browser, the images still look dull. For example, Firefox 3.0 without a colour management add-on installed.

My conclusion is that if there are people out there that don't deal with colour management on their computer (99% of people) then they aren't going to see the proper colours in your photos and there isn't really anything you can do about it. Kind of lame.

Also, I assume that the colourspace setting in my camera (K200D) doesn't do anything when I'm shooting RAW... ?

[RollsUp]

For example, Firefox 3.0 without a colour management add-on installed.

Firefox 3 doesn't need a color management add-on, it is color managed. One just needs to enable it.
Instructions on enabling color management in FF 3

[fishy]

Reviving again.
Have the very same thing, when exporting in sRGB the image is still less vibrant and more dull.
If that was that then so be it, but WHY are so many other (say, Flickr) images not impacted? Saturated blues and reds all over the place! There must be another trick.. Is it Lightroom that messes up here?

[nupentaxian]

Firefox 3 doesn't need a color management add-on, it is color managed. One just needs to enable it.
Instructions on enabling color management in FF 3

nice, thanks just upgraded to firefox 3 and enabled the color management on my browser.