JPG export color is over saturated

[AkiraLope]

Hello all,

In Lightroom, when I export JPGs from NEFs I shot on a Nikon D750, the color is more saturated. Even when I import the JPG in Premiere, it still looks over-saturated.

Similarly, in Lightroom if I click "Edit in > Photoshop", the colors look more muted in Photoshop. However, if I save a JPG from Photoshop without changing anything, I get the exact same over-saturated image. Photoshop color settings are set to NA General Purpose 2, and proof is Monitor Color.  I'm using Windows 10 if that makes a difference.

Any ideas? Thanks so much!

Gallery showing the issues: http://imgur.com/a/cFUf9

Andrew

[Rob_Cullen]

Are you exporting  JPG from Lightroom with the sRGB profile?

Are you saving a JPG from Photoshop with sRGB profile?

Should you instead be 'proofing' the image in Photoshop with the "Internet Standard RGB sRGB" profile? Maybe so- I would think using the 'Monitor profile' is only of use when calibrating your monitor.

The Windows "Photos App" is apparently not color managed, so its colors are unpredictable.

For some more knowledgeable information you might read articles by Andrew Rodney  (aka Digital Dog)

Digital Dog :: Main

And some discussion at dpreview-

Why do my colours look so different in Windows Photo Viewer?: Retouching Forum: Digital Photography ...

[AkiraLope]

Thanks much! I hadn't thought of that. However when I use sRGB proof the difference is even more pronounced: http://i.imgur.com/Ysjq1Fm.jpg

[AkiraLope · Accepted solution]

Oddly, after much testing I found a work around that is probably related to understanding the overall issue. If I export the jpg with the AdobeRGB(1998) color space then it looks exactly the same in Adobe Premiere as it did in Lightroom. ProPhoto and sRGB both resulted in the usual over-saturated look. For now this works for me since my end goal is to use the photos in videos anyway.

[D Fosse]

It sounds like you are using a wide gamut display. What make and model?

A wide gamut display can only be used in a fully color managed environment. It must be properly calibrated and profiled so that color managed applications have a valid display profile to work with.

This is the deal you implicitly accept when purchasing these units.

Don't proof to Monitor RGB, turn it off and keep it off. What that does is to simulate no color management in Photoshop.

[johnrellis]

If I export the jpg with the AdobeRGB(1998) color space then it looks exactly the same in Adobe Premiere as it did in Lightroom. ProPhoto and sRGB both resulted in the usual over-saturated look. For now this works for me since my end goal is to use the photos in videos anyway.

While the advice from Wobertc and D Fosse is sound for dealing with photos, the situation with Premiere is more complicated, which manages colors much differently.

Assuming you in fact do have a wide-gamut display, what may be "working" for you now when you view videos in Premiere almost certainly won't "work" once you publish your videos from Premiere and have others view them on other computers.  When you view the videos on another display that isn't wide-gamut, their colors won't match at all what you're seeing on your display.

I strongly recommend that before you spend any more time editing videos, that you publish a test video from Premiere and view it the way you expect it to be viewed by others. E.g. if the video is to be viewed from Vimeo or Youtube, publish the test video there, and then view it through a Web browser on a typical display, not on your wide-gamut display.  Almost certainly, the colors won't match what you're currently seeing within Premiere.

Premiere is not color-managed in the way that Photoshop and Lightroom are.  That is, it doesn't use the ICC color profile assigned to your display that often comes pre-installed and that calibrators produce.  Rather, Premiere just sends the color numbers of the video being edited directly to the display without converting them using the display's ICC color profile.  By default, Premiere's internal working space for the timeline is Rec 709, so when it sends the color numbers from the timeline to the display, the colors will only appear correct if the display is operating in the Rec 709 color space.

Traditional (non-wide-gamut) displays are close to sRGB, and Rec 709 is close to sRGB, so when most users use Premiere on a traditional computer display, the colors as seen in Premiere are close enough for their purposes to the colors seen in published videos on other computers.

But when you run Premiere on a wide-gamut display, Premiere takes the color numbers from the timeline (in Rec 709) and sends them directly to the display without using any ICC color profile assigned to the display.  Since there's a big difference between Rec 709 of the timeline and the color space of the display, you get severe color mismatch.

Further, when you import a photo into Premiere, it ignores the color space of the photo, assuming it is already in the color space of the timelime (Rec 709).  So when you imported a photo in Adobe RGB (1998) into Premiere and then viewed the timeline on your wide-gamut display, the video colors looked OK, since Premiere was sending the photo's Adobe RGB color numbers directly to the display, which is close to Adobe RGB (or at least, much closer than sRGB). 

Moving forward, to get published videos with correct colors:

- Always export photos from LR in Rec 709 before importing them into Premiere.  

- Preview your published videos the way they will be viewed by your audience, on a traditional computer display, not a wide-gamut display.

If you want colors as viewed in Premiere to match the colors of published videos as viewed by others, you have some options:

- Attach an external "broadcast standard" display and configure Premiere to preview the timeline on it.  (The broadcast-standard display will be running in Rec 709.)  This is the way Premiere was designed to be used.

- Some wide-gamut displays have a firmware option of running in other color spaces, e.g. sRGB.  While you edit in Premiere, change the firmware setting to sRGB.  That will be close but not exactly the same as Rec 709, and the colors in Premiere will be much closer to those of the published videos viewed on traditional displays.   (But when you change the firmware setting, the colors in LR and Photoshop will no longer be accurate unless you also change the assigned display profile to sRGB.)  When you're doing editing in Premiere, don't forget to change the firmware setting back to its wide-gamut default.

- Some more-expensive displays (e.g. Eizos) have the capability of being calibrated to Rec 709.  While they're running in Rec 709 mode, you'll lose the benefit in other applications of having a wide-gamut display.

[AkiraLope]

Thanks very much. What you're saying makes sense. I'm using a BenW SW2700pt which is capable of displaying AdobeRGB color space, however when editing photos to be used in Premiere and also when editing in Premiere I always keep the monitor in Rec709 mode. Also, in the case where I exported a jpg with AdobeRGB color space from Lightroom and it looked the same in Premiere, after I exported the video and uploaded it to YouTube the photo still looked the same on my iPhone.

[D Fosse]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Using a wide gamut display in non-color managed environments (like Premiere Pro, Windows "Photos", etc etc) simply won't work.

My point was that customers should be aware of this before purchasing, or rather, be made aware. Vendors should take much more responsibility here, instead of just pushing these units to unsuspecting users. Dell is a case in point (yes, I've seen their marketing). Eizo can probably be excused, as their customers presumably know what they're getting into.

[AkiraLope]

I'm using a BenW SW2700pt. I was aware before purchasing what I was getting, but perhaps am not using it correctly. When editing photos in Lightroom which will be used in Premiere, and also when editing in Premiere, I always keep the monitor in Rec709 mode. Is this a mistake? When I turn on simulate no color management in Photoshop it looks dull and washed out which is opposite to the over-saturated issue I've been having when viewing the photos in Premiere. Thanks for all the insight.

[johnrellis]

When editing photos in Lightroom which will be used in Premiere, and also when editing in Premiere, I always keep the monitor in Rec709 mode.

When you're running the display in Rec 709 mode, you need to ensure that you've assigned an ICC profile to the display in Windows that corresponds to Rec 709 mode.   If you don't do that, then LR and Photoshop won't correctly display colors in that mode.

To produce that ICC profile, just use your calibrator to produce a profile when the display is in Rec 709 mode.

[D Fosse]

Yes, very important point. The monitor profile needs to be an accurate description of the monitor's actual, current behavior.

Not only that, but when you change profile to reflect new monitor behavior, you also need to relaunch Photoshop and Lightroom. They load the monitor profile at startup and continue to use that profile regardless of what you do in the OS dialog, until next launch. A full reboot, however, is not necessary.