Colourspace difference when editing a LR doc in PS

[skyhawk-steve]

Hi folks,

I'm using the latest Lightroom Classic and Photoshop versions (7.4 and 19.1.5). In LR I'm selecting an image and choosing "Edit in Photoshop CC 2018". Pretty standard stuff. BTW I'm not new to LR or PS and I have a background in IT, not that the obvious answers don't occasionally elude me 🙂

Doing the above has always been fine. No issues. However, suddenly it is no longer working properly. I have recently updated to the latest versions so that's the main suspect at the moment.

The colours in PS are seriously out of whack!. The obvious answer is a difference of colour-space between LR and PS. However, they are both set to ProPhoto RGB. If I set them both to something else (e.g. Adobe RGB) the result is the same.

If I export to JPG from LR, the image is fine - the same as it is in LR.

Anything bleedin' obvious that I'm missing?

Thanks

Steve

[JohanElzenga]

The working space in Photoshop has nothing to do with this. That only applies to new documents, not to documents that are opened. When you send an image from Lightroom (or any other source) to Photoshop, then the 'Color Management Policies' determine what will happen. If you have set 'Preserve Embedded Profiles', like you have indeed, then the image will be opened in its original color space, regardless of what color space that was. That means that something else must be going on. Is the version of Camera Raw compatible with Lightroom?

[skyhawk-steve]

Thanks Johan, that's interesting. All web articles I've rummaged through on this subject refer to the same suggestion: that the "Color Settings" dialog being different from the settings in Lightroom. So I pasted the above to demo that, in this case, they are aligned. But what you say makes sense to me.

I just opened the raw file direct into PS and it shows incorrectly (as per the above image). So that would suggest a PS (or Camera Raw) issue rather than LR. My Camera Raw ver is 10.4.

[JohanElzenga]

Yes, this the probably the biggest misconception about Photoshop. Even many ‘Photoshop gurus’ still have that wrong. Maybe your camera raw default settings are not correct. When you have an image open in Camera Raw, click on the icon with the small stripes (in the upper right corner) and choose ‘Reset Camera Raw Defaults’. See if that solves it.

[JohanElzenga]

And one more thing: check your Camera Raw preferences! If Camera Raw is set to use sRGB for example, then that is where the color space setting goes wrong, not in Photoshop itself.

[skyhawk-steve]

Fixed!

I think your suggestion would have resolved it, but I managed to get there by other means.

For some strange reason, the colour correction profile, although set to the correct setting in LR, was loading differently in ACR - it was loading an old colour profile that I had generated months ago with my Color Checker Passport. It was only by chance that I spotted it. I set that back to Adobe Color and hey presto, fixed. Now all other images are loading correctly too.

The thing is, I have never knowingly set that value inside Camera Raw...I've only ever set it in Lightroom and that's done on a photo by photo basis. So how that has got itself jammed into ACR as a default, I really couldn't say.

Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

Steve

[Per Berntsen]

This is a case for D Fosse​ – let's hope he sees this.

[D Fosse]

This seems to be yet another case of the camera profile mismatch, when Lightroom and ACR are not in perfect version sync. Make sure both are fully up to date and at corresponding version level!

Camera profiles were completely reworked between 7.2 and 7.3 (ACR 10.2 and 10.3), with some new profiles and, most importantly, a new default.

And as Johan pointed out in no uncertain terms, Lightroom and Photoshop color settings do not need to match.

[skyhawk-steve]

Thanks for this.

My LR and ACR (and PS for that matter) are at the latest releases (7.4, 10.4  and 19.1.5) so all should be good on that score.

I think the confusing thing is, when you select "Edit in Photoshop" from LR, the images pass straight through ACR and into PS. If you then select the Filter->Camera Raw Filter option in PS, you don't see the list of available profiles. There is just "Color" or "B&W".

If however, you load up the raw file directly into PS, then ACR does popup with the full list of profiles. This is how I spotted that the profile being used was one of my old color checker passport generated ones (even though I have never selected or saved that as a default).

Now, annoyingly, I can't remember whether I changed this custom profile back to the standard Adobe one IN camera raw for the specific image. If I did, I certainly did not re-save it as my new default. What I DID do, was go back to LR and re-select the Adobe Color profile there (it was already set to this, and I chose the same profile again...i.e. set it to the same thing). After that, everything was fixed when using the "Edit in Photoshop" function.

Sometimes there are too many moving parts in these systems for us outsiders to keep a handle on

Cheers,

S.

[D Fosse]

Ah...this is a lot simpler than you think. The ACR filter doesn't work on raw files, it works on rendered RGB files. Camera profiles don't apply to RGB files, so there are none.

You need to appreciate that a raw file and a processed RGB file are two very different things, and that the ACR raw processor and the ACR filter are two very different things.

[skyhawk-steve]

Ahaa, ok, understood.

So that, in a way obfuscates things even more.

The sequence appears, to the naked eye, to be

     LR -> "Edit in Photoshop" command -> (something magical happens) -> rendered RGB file in PS.

The (something magical happens) part is not accessible to the human participant in the workflow but I assume would have to involve ACR in some capacity. Presumably LR and what we know as ACR adopt the same underlying raw processing engine, so whether LR was doing something (or failing to) I don't know. The particular symptoms I had, and how I resolved it, would suggest that the fault may possibly have lain with the parameters passed by LR to the ACR engine as part of the "Edit in Photoshop" command. Reselecting the color profile and hitting "Edit in Photoshop" again sorted it.

But then again, who the hell knows

S.

[D Fosse]

skyhawk-steve  wrote

Presumably LR and what we know as ACR adopt the same underlying raw processing engine

Yes, that's exactly it. Lightroom has ACR built in. They are the same - one as a standalone program, the other as a Photoshop plugin.

"Edit In Photoshop" launches a background script that reads the settings and sliders in Lightroom, and then passes those settings on to ACR which opens it into Photoshop. The ACR interface is supressed here and you don't see it - there's no need.

[skyhawk-steve]

Well guys, my problem has returneth'ed...and I have further revealing info.

Earlier I said I couldn't understand how Camera Raw was applying a custom profile to a shot when I had never set that profile. Well here's the reason....there ARE no other profiles!! So it is selecting the first one off the list. So where have the standard and camera ones gone?? Clearly they came back for a while, I was looking at them in earlier posts above, but they be gone again! There is definitely something buggy here.

[JohanElzenga]

That is indeed very strange. You didn't hide them by any chance? Right-click next to 'Legacy' or 'Profiles' and choose 'Manage Profiles' from the contextual menu. Make sure that all groups are checked.

[skyhawk-steve]

Hey Johan,

Thanks for the suggestion, but no. Just the two "Profiles" and "Legacy", both ticked.

S.

p.s. I should add, all the standard raw, artistic and camera specific profiles are present and correct in LR.

[JohanElzenga]

  wrote

Hey Johan,

Thanks for the suggestion, but no. Just the two "Profiles" and "Legacy", both ticked.

S.

p.s. I should add, all the standard raw, artistic and camera specific profiles are present and correct in LR.

That makes it even stranger, because these files are shared between Lightroom and Camera Raw. I would uninstall Photoshop / Camera Raw and reinstall it.

[skyhawk-steve · Accepted solution]

Yeh that's what I thought too.

They were supposed to be in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\CameraRaw but that folder is empty.

Uninstalling and reinstalling is rapidly becoming a way of life with Adobe products, but I've now done that. I uninstalled PS (and LR too for good measure) and reinstalled. The profiles are back. And they do reside in the above folder.

Fingers crossed, we are sorted.

Thanks again

S.