Colour Managment Issues

[Etienne Cassar]

I have just set up a new PC system running Windows 7 64bit and realized that the pictures look somewhat flat when opened up in photoshop while they have more pop in Lightroom/Camera Raw.  I have a NEC Spectraview 2690 Reference display calibrated with the Eye one Display.  Is this difference normal or is there some setting in Lightroom that I am missing?  I think that the correct colour is that in photoshop because I print from photoshop and get quite accurate print to screen matches.

Thanks

Etienne.

[BradSmith]

The images should look alike.    There is an active thread in Color Management about the problem of images looking different in Lightroom and Photoshop.  That might help you (although the Photoshop images look darker) in that thread.

But before you get to that, be sure that you aren't applying some preset upon import to Lightroom that is darkening/saturating the images.  Under Presents in the Develop Module, choose "General Zeroed" when you first import an image from Photoshop.   Also, check to see what colorspace the image has that you are bringing into Lightroom.  As the other space points out, Lightroom uses ProPhoto RGB.  That might make a difference.

Try this:  Take an image.  Don't open it in Photoshop.  Import it into Lightroom and use the zeroed preset.  then "Edit in Photoshop".  Don't do anything to it there either.   Just compare how they look on your monitor, side by side at the same time.   Strangely on mine, Photoshop image is darker, not lighter as you report.

I'd suggest you follow the discussion in Color Management as it has a number of posts, but no solution so far.

[jenbenn]

I am seeing the same, but I believe its a fata morgana. The dark background of Lightroom betrays the eye into believing that an images has more contrast and higher color saturation than itr actually has. When you view the image on the light grey background of Photoshop you think it lost contrats. Its the same effect you expereince when mounting an image with a white or black passpartout.

[BradSmith]

In my case, it isn't visual "trickery".  It is very, measurably real.  Here is my post in the Color Management Forum:

I'm having the same problem. When I "edit in" Photoshop, I "Edit a Copy Using Lightroom Adjustments" and they come across per my Lghtrm Prefs as 16 bit ProPhoto (it is showing that in Photoshop). Yet images in Photoshop are darker than in Lightroom by a noticeable amount. For example, in a commercially produced tif file of the ColorChecker that I use for this sort of thing, I import it into Lightroom, Zeroed Presets. Edit in Photoshop. I measure both images side by side on my NEC 2690 calibrated monitor using the Digital Color Meter that comes with the Apple OS. Here are the RGB readings for one of the colors:

Lightroom 198 152 128
Photoshop 183 132 109

The amount of variance is not constant from color to color, but in all cases is at least 10 points darker (usually 15-20) in R,G and B for every color on the ColorChecker. The middle two gray scale patches, are respectively 17 and 19 points darker in Photoshop.

This is weird.

I am seeing the same, but I believe its a fata morgana. The dark background of Lightroom betrays the eye into believing that an images has more contrast and higher color saturation than itr actually has. When you view the image on the light grey background of Photoshop you think it lost contrats. Its the same effect you expereince when mounting an image with a white or black passpartout.

[madmanchan]

skeedracer, can you please provide your test image? I'd like to see if I can repro it here.

[BradSmith]

Hi Eric,
Here is the site where I downloaded the test file a couple years ago.

http://www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor/downloads.html  

It was the ProPhoto image.

Thanks for the interest
Brad

skeedracer, can you please provide your test image? I'd like to see if I can repro it here.

[BradSmith]

Eric,
Here is some more info on what I'm experiencing.

I open the ProPhoto tif tile in photoshop.   With the Photoshop sampling eyedropper, Photoshop measures the same readings as shown in the image plus/minus 1.   After bringing the image into Lightroom with General-Zeroed Presents, when I "edit in Photoshop", again, I get the same readings with the eyedropper.  So running it through Lightroom back out to Photoshop doesn't seem to effect the result I get in Photoshop.   But inside Lightroom, I'm getting higher readings with the Lightroom image than the side by side image displayed in Photoshop when I read both image using the Apple OS Digital Color Meter utility.  And it appears noticeably lighter than the image in Photoshop.  I don't necessarily trust the precision of the RGB values the Utility shows, but it reliably shows a difference in readings between the Lightroom displayed and the Photoshop displayed images.

Brad  

Hi Eric,
Here is the site where I downloaded the test file a couple years ago.

http://www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor/downloads.html  

It was the ProPhoto image.

Thanks for the interest
Brad

[madmanchan]

Thanks for the details, Brad.

Follow-up questions:

- When you are doing the tests inside of LR, are you using the Library module (e.g., Loupe view) or Develop?
- Are you using a version 4 or version 2 ICC monitor profile?

[BradSmith]

Eric,
It doesn't matter.  I get the same readings inside lightroom using the Utility  and the same visual look whether in Library, Develop, Slideshow or Print.

And I'm not sure I know enough to be able to answer your question about what version my monitor profile is.  How can I figure this out to be able to help?  I just looked at the profile using Colorsync Utility and see that it is Version 2.0.0.   Is this what you meant?

 And here is a screenshot jpg showing you what I'm seeing.   Photoshop window on top with Lightroom below.
Brad
[attachment=21063:Screen_s...hotoshop.jpg]

Thanks for the details, Brad.

Follow-up questions:

- When you are doing the tests inside of LR, are you using the Library module (e.g., Loupe view) or Develop?
- Are you using a version 4 or version 2 ICC monitor profile?

[AlanRei]

Hi everyone,
don't know if this can be directly related to this topic but I found a sort of solution for the inconsistency of color rendering between LR2.6 and CS4/CR on my Mac.
I turned off Advanced Drawing in the OpenGL settings panel and after I restarted PS it displayed images exactly the same as LR (I used "Edit in" function with opened image in LR as a background).
During my testing I found that the OpenGL settings are affecting color rendition differently in different systems (we have many Mac computers in my studio), so I decided to turn off advanced drawing everywhere, but OpenGL drawing in general is turned on.
My setup is MacOS 10.6.3, PS CS4 10.0.1, LR2.6, all displays are hardware calibrated to 6500K, 2.2G,100L.
On my personal MacBook Pro 17" the difference was really strong and I had an image with evident color casting in PS. Same picture was perfect in LR.


Hope this will help someone.

Ciao
Alan

[BradSmith]

Alan,
I'm also on a Mac.  OS 10.6.2.   I'm not familiar with the OpenGL issue or how to find a setting panel for it.  Can you tell me where to find it?
thanks
Brad

 

Hi everyone,
don't know if this can be directly related to this topic but I found a sort of solution for the inconsistency of color rendering between LR2.6 and CS4/CR on my Mac.
I turned off Advanced Drawing in the OpenGL settings panel and after I restarted PS it displayed images exactly the same as LR (I used "Edit in" function with opened image in LR as a background).
During my testing I found that the OpenGL settings are affecting color rendition differently in different systems (we have many Mac computers in my studio), so I decided to turn off advanced drawing everywhere, but OpenGL drawing in general is turned on.
My setup is MacOS 10.6.3, PS CS4 10.0.1, LR2.6, all displays are hardware calibrated to 6500K, 2.2G,100L.
On my personal MacBook Pro 17" the difference was really strong and I had an image with evident color casting in PS. Same picture was perfect in LR.


Hope this will help someone.

Ciao
Alan

[digitaldog]

I just looked at the profile using Colorsync Utility and see that it is Version 2.0.0.   Is this what you meant?

Well its not a V4 profile so that answers that. Are you working with dual display systems? In Display Control Panel, are you certain the correct display profile is assigned (Color)?

[AlanRei]

Alan,
I'm also on a Mac.  OS 10.6.2.   I'm not familiar with the OpenGL issue or how to find a setting panel for it.  Can you tell me where to find it?
thanks
Brad

In PS CS4 menu just go to Preferences, then to Performance, on the right area of the panel there is GPU Settings. I enabled Open GL Drawing, but in advanced settings I checked only Vertical Sync option, otherwise I have incorrect color rendering.

Ciao
Alan

[BradSmith]

Andrew,
Thank you for your questions. I'm on a single display.  But the answer to my problem looks like it was in your second question.  Somehow, somewhere, I did not have the correct monitor profile assigned.  When I changed it back to what it should be, the "edit in" image in photoshop is identical to the image in Lightroom.   That seems to have resolved it.   But I don't understand why, since I was looking at them both, simultaneously on the same monitor and there was the difference.   Seems that the colors should have still been the same between the two images, just not "correct" if I had the wrong monitor profile selected.  

Seems strange to me.
thanks
Brad


   

Well its not a V4 profile so that answers that. Are you working with dual display systems? In Display Control Panel, are you certain the correct display profile is assigned (Color)?