This is normal. You’re seeing the camera generated JPEG saved within the raw, then LR has to update it using it’s engine and build a higher quality preview. You can update your LR defaults to produce a rendering that is closer to the camera generated JPEG or at the very least, one that doesn’t look ‘dark’ to you, then the updated preview will appear more to your liking.

I'm sure you understand why they turn different now, but just to clarify, the main reason they turn so much darker is due to Active D-Lighting. Nikon software compensates automatically for ADL exposure reduction, Lightroom doesn't. ADL is still just as useful when using Lightroom, but:

* you need to compensate manually

* it's more obvious when you shouldn't have had it on.

Ideally, ADL should be:

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

On to preserve highlights at the expense of shadows. call it: "expose to the left".

Off to allow brighter highlights to be blown out if need be in the interest of "exposing more to the right".

Rob

jim01403 wrote:

 

So it is often suggested that disabling ALO is a good idea if using Lightroom as the primary raw converter. Same applies to Highlight Tone Priority.

I'm not so familiar with these, but I can imagine these possibilities:

* They should be turned off, because they do things that trip up Lightroom, like maybe some thing that makes the camera profile not work so well (I doubt this is the case).

* Like ADL, they are equally valuable whether using Lightroom or not, as long as one knows how to compensate properly.

People often recommend ADL be off if using Lightroom, so that there are no exposure surprises. Fair enough, but you are no longer taking advantage of a potentially valuable camera feature if you do that.

Again, I dunno 'bout Canon's intelligent contrast handling, but it may be worth learning more and making an informed decision if you shoot Canon.

"Experts" are often wrong...

Rob