From Raw exporting to JPEG

[snman]

Greetings

so I have a raw file I edited and when I export as jpg it's just completely different.

This is how this picture looks like after my edits at preview within Lightroom. I have captured it by pressing printscreen and pasting into mspaint

and this is the export

I'm not sure why this  is happening I am using the same color profile as my monitor at export

Thank you in advance

[JohanElzenga]

What do you mean 'I'm using the same color profile as my monitor on export'? You should export in sRGB (or AdobeRGB, depending on the use of the JPEG), not in a monitor color profile!

[TheDigitalDog]

What product are you using when you view the exported image and are you absolutely certain it's color managed (ICC aware)?  It has to be or you'll not see a match. mspaint is Microsoft Paint?

https://eskerahn.dk/wordpress/?p=1566

[snman]

To explain better:

I am using Lightroom Desktop Classic 8.0 Release Camera Raw 11.0 Build 1193777

I loaded a nef file which I edited within lightroom and then pressed to export as a jpeg. I exported by using all color spaces I could select. I included all metadata in the export as well.

My changes are not there. The JPEG picture is nothing like the edit and I'm not talking about a small quality distortion here.

The ICC aware question is a good one.

Assuming that Windows Photos is not ICC aware and somehow the windows preview on file manager is not displaying what it should, I tried to open this jpeg with GIMP and then Microsoft paint. The result was the same.

I have also chosen sRGB IEC61966-2.1 as a system default at color management which is the same with the color space I exported (sRGB).

This is a screenshot how it looks like for me within Lightroom:

https://i.imgur.com/L0KLb6i.png

This is how it looks like after exported:

https://i.imgur.com/qwscztH.jpg

I'm not sure what's the deal here. Maybe i m not using Lightroom properly?

Is Lightroom meant only to create metadata to save to xmp files and then you have to load this raw file and their metadata into photoshop to export it like a JPEG?

Thanks

[TheDigitalDog · Accepted solution]

IF you embed any ICC profile, sRGB or otherwise, an ICC aware application will match what you see in LR and Photoshop etc. If it doesn't match, that's your problem. Try with something quite different than sRGB (say ProPhoto RGB), the image will mismatch even worse. Using sRGB alone isn't the answer. Non ICC aware applications have no idea what sRGB means, they don't understand the profile that is used by the display to provide color managed previews etc. Not being a Windows user, I can't tell you for sure if the applications you're using are color managed or not, or if they've been configured for this if possible.

You have Photoshop right? Do the images you export from LR match in Photoshop? They should indeed. Again, if they do but not the other applications you mention, then those other applications are the problem. And again, here's why sRGB alone doesn't fix that problem:

sRGB urban legend & myths Part 2

In this 17 minute video, I'll discuss some more sRGB misinformation and cover:

When to use sRGB and what to expect on the web and mobile devices

How sRGB doesn't insure a visual match without color management, how to check

The downsides of an all sRGB workflow

sRGB's color gamut vs. "professional" output devices

The future of sRGB and wide gamut display technology

Photo print labs that demand sRGB for output

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/sRGBMythsPart2.mp4

Low resolution on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyvVUL1gWVs

[snman]

Your videos were insightful.

Thank you

Indeed Photoshop agrees with what I see in Lightroom.

I think things make more sense now.

The display result is not standard across displays,printers and image reading softwares

and coming to a wanted result requires lots of trial, effort and understanding of color profiles.

I guess sRGB is the web standard but if I'm looking my pictures at Lightroom's ProPhoto RGB profile, for example,

that will never match what I see in an exported sRGB.

Right?

[TheDigitalDog]

FWIW, sRGB really isn't a Web Standard or anything else. Many web browsers are color managed. Like LR and Photoshop and many other applications. If that's the case, then any tagged color space will preview 'correctly'. The reason sRGB is used on the web is two fold: many/most users don't have color managed browsers (or that was the case over the years) and most users have displays that are somewhat akin to an sRGB behavior. So with a non color managed browser, sRGB looks the least bad. Now take a wide gamut display that's closer to Adobe RGB (1998). And a non color managed browser (ugh). Now sRGB looks poor and Adobe RGB (1998) appears 'better'. But in the end, the web and browsers that access that data doesn't know anything but 1's and zero's like any other application and if the 1's and zero's have a defined color space and that color space is understood along with a display profile, color managed, all is fine. If not, anything is possible.

To put it another way: non color managed browsers receive the RGB numbers directly to the display as is. The numbers are meaningless in terms of a color space. The previews know nothing about the conditions of a display (via a display profile). So sRGB or anything else may or may not appear correct and probably will not match the same numbers that are color managed. Which is why you saw a visual disconnect above between numbers that are color managed and those that are not.

[snman]

This has been informational. I got to learn about color profiles.

My problem was elsewhere though.

I was able to solve my issue by going to edit > preferences > presets and reset all default development settings.

Seems like Lightroom applied some automatic settings when viewing the files , that were just not there when exporting.

I may have caused this something.

Now my exported jpegs look like my exported nef files.