Problems with exported files being darker than in LR

[Mjollnir]

About a week ago, on the advice of someone who thought the files I was exporting after post (as .jpegs) were too large, and thus took longer to upload and were not ideal in size to avoid possible online-theft, I changed the settings around in LR3 and have, ever since, got export results that simply do NOT resemble what LR shows me as the final product once I've finished.

I.E., what I see on the screen in LR, when I'm finished with PP, is NOT what I see in the folder I export them to.

What I'm getting after export are shots that look much, much darker than what I see in LR. Like someone went rather wild with the 'blacks' slider.

My current settings are:

Quality 100%
Resolution 72
No sharpening
sRGB

Any ideas?

[John R Smith]

What I'm getting after export are shots that look much, much darker than what I see in LR. Like someone went rather wild with the 'blacks' slider.

This sounds very strange. If you export a file from LR as a TIFF, JPEG or whatever, the export routine should make no changes to the file whatsoever in terms of its gamma values (or colour values either, come to that). I export all the time from LR as TIFFs and JPEGs and they always look exactly the same as the LR version. I presume that you are viewing the exported files on the same PC and monitor that you use for LR? Have you tried re-installing your monitor profile?

John

[Mjollnir]

You presume correctly, and your suggestion, unfortunately, had no effect.

I tried another suggestion in that I use the 'for email' option for export.  Same thing happens.

I'll post two images later today to show what exactly is happening.

This is driving me nuts.

[Nacnud]

Several thoughts spurring some questions.
What colour space are you exporting the JPEGs? (correct andswer is sRGB)
What application are you using to view the JPEGs? (if first answer wasn't sRGB this is very important)
What operating system, screen calibration system, Lightroom version and what graphics card? (I had a similar problem)

The last question is prompted by a very similar problem I had with a laptop.
Turns out there bug in my combination of Windows, profile type and display card which meant some applications were double profiling the displayed image. This was a while ago and I had support requests on Adobe and XRite which never got me any joy. I never found a solution which didn't mean changing my OS. I currently use my laptop unprofiled, luckily the colours and tones are close enough that it is usable and I do my real work on a proper calibrated wide gamut screen back at base.

[Nacnud]

Oh yes..
Some tips I worked out for testing which applications are using the display profile correctly and which are being double colour managed.

1) Remove all display profiling - if an sRGB JPEG looks the same in all applications then display profiling is the problem.

2) Calibrate the screen with a lightly tinted gel between the sensor and the screen.
If everything is OK then the screen should look fine viewed through the gel.
Viewed directly...
Any application not being profiled will look 'normal'.
Any application being correctly profiled will have an inverse tint from the gel used during calibration an will look fine through the gel.
Any application being double profiled will have a strong tint and will be pretty obvious.