Over saturated images on LR export.

Hi, just wondering if I can bend your ear and hopefully get an answer to an issue I'm having.

I know Lightroom uses ProPhoto RGB colour space and exports in sRGB as a default and this hasn't been an issue before as I have a calibrated monitor and what I see is what I get back but today I exported some images and they were extremely over saturated and not like I was viewing in Lightroom on the develop module.

I've tried on export changing the colour space to sRGB, ProPhoto RGB and Adobe RGB 1998 and nothing is making a difference?
I'm wanted to output what I'm seeing when I'm processing images but it's way off.

Help!

How are you viewing your exported images ?

What format are you saving as (jpeg TIFF)

How do they look if you reimport them back into lightroom? And as Peter says, how are you viewing the finished exports?

Viewing them using the built in picture viewer in Windows 10 but on the same screen / computer as Lightroom they were processed on.

Haven't tried reimporting them back in but I presume as they were ProPhotoRGB in develop and exporting as sRGB and then going back into Lightroom as a ProPhotoRGB then they'd look back to normal?

Your problem is Windows built in picture viewer which is now just called "photos". It is not a colour managed application. It does nothing with the sRGB profile tagged to your image. If you use a wide gamut monitor the oversaturation will appear even worse. Use something like "FastPictureViewer" freeware and set up colour management within it to get the same image as you see in LR.


No. Once you have exported an image as a sRGB jpeg that image retains the sRGB tag. On import back into LR it will be displayed as a sRGB jpeg. The colours will however be correct because LR is a colour-managed application.

Thanks Peter,
I'll get onto that freeware now and download it. Question, if I upload to Flickr with the 'as is' with what I'm seeing now which is incorrectly coloured, will Flickr also have that dodgy colour look or will it be like I see in LR?

Also, on LR export, should I keep it as sRGB as standard or export in PhoPhotoRGB?

One further thing to remember is that having worked on a raw file in LR in the native colour space (almost the same as ProPhoto, but not quite....google "Melissa"), when you export as a sRGB jpeg you are not getting an identical image colour-wise. The reason is that any colours in your working raw file that are outside the sRGB colour space will be converted on export into a colour that is in the sRGB gamut. Unless you are working with extreme "edge" colours, you probably will not notice a difference. But as an exercise compare the histograms and you will see they are not identical.

Thanks Peter, I'll get onto it

Wow! Not my problem, but useful to know nonetheless. Thanks.

If by now any readers are wondering why use a wide gamut colour space when the advice seems to be to output everything in sRGB.....here is the answer.....

Anytime you edit a file (colour;exposure;curves;cloning etc), you risk bringing artefacts into the image. The more you edit the higher the risk. By editing a raw file in a 16 bit capable application and a wide colour space you limit those artefacts because the image has so much more information in it to begin with. When all your editing has been done, and probably saved as a 16 bit TIFF or PSD file in a wide colour space, you then can convert the profile to sRGB; resize the image; perform output sharpening; and then save as a (8 bit) jpeg.

Your 16 bit TIFF or PSD file can be retained too so if you ever want to do further work you can do so on that file.

That pic viewer is amazing and now set to default image viewer on the desktop.

With built in Windows photo viewer



With the freeware FastPictureViewer



As a test I also drag and dropped a pic into Firefox address bar and this also was correctly coloured.

Now, is there a way that the thumbnails in the folder are also done through FastPictureViewer so these look correct also?