Is it a monitor calibration issue?

[leighton w]

Hello,

After I export my images, they never look the same as they do inside of LR. When I look at them on line, they look darker then what's showing in LR, but ONLY on my computer. When I view them on my wife's computer, they look like what I have in LR. Some have told me it's a monitor calibration issue. But here's my question. IF it WAS a calibration issue, wouldn't it be off inside of LR as well?

I hope I'm explaining this well.

[Alan Goldhammer]

It depends on the application that you are viewing them in and whether that application is color managed or not.  Within LR you are viewing things in Prophoto which is a very wide gamut viewing space.  You say you are viewing them on line; how did you get them online and what browser are you using on your computer vs your wife's computer.  Chances are that you have exported JPEGs in sRGB which are going to be different from LR.

[leighton w]

It depends on the application that you are viewing them in and whether that application is color managed or not.  Within LR you are viewing things in Prophoto which is a very wide gamut viewing space.  You say you are viewing them on line; how did you get them online and what browser are you using on your computer vs your wife's computer.  Chances are that you have exported JPEGs in sRGB which are going to be different from LR.

Thanks for the reply Alan,

I did export them as jpegs using sRGB. I also am using Firefox as my browser and my wife is using IE. Should I be exporting using Prophoto RGB? I just viewed them using IE on my computer and although it seems better, it's still not matching what I see in LR.

[luxborealis]

No - keep exporting them as sRGB jpegs - that's the only colour space available for jpegs and sRGB is also the colour space of most computer monitors/displays.

Firefox seems to have an issue reading icc profiles - images with icc profiles appear darker than those without. Use Safari or Chrome and you shouldn't have a problem.

[Ellis Vener]

No - keep exporting them as sRGB jpegs - that's the only colour space available for jpegs

Not true.

and sRGB is also the colour space of most computer monitors/displays.

Also not true and for two reasons.
1) ICC specified RGB Color Spaces are sets of device independent values  describing  how the numbers that make up color in the digital world color values are and the limits for  . I won't go into the details but the important thing to note is that ICC specified color spaces such as  sRGB, Adobe RGB(1998), and Pro Photo RGB are device independent sets of abstract values.

1) A display is a device, a very specific device with innate characteristics and limitations as to how it reproduces color. This is why it is advisable to use a colorimeter or photospectrometer and its related software to characterize ( otherwise known as calibrating and profiling) a display so that corrections can be made to the signal the video /graphics processor is sending to the display that adjusts the signal to compensate for those characteristics.  While a device's RGB profile is a type of colro space, it only describes a very specific, unique way of reproducing color values.

While many manufacturers say their displays are "sRGB" what that only means is that the gamut (palette) of the device is large enough to contain the gamut described by the sRGB specification.

[eliedinur]

No - keep exporting them as sRGB jpegs - that's the only colour space available for jpegs

Not true.

and sRGB is also the colour space of most computer monitors/displays.

Also not true and for two reasons.
1) ICC specified RGB Color Spaces are sets of device independent values  describing  how the numbers that make up color in the digital world color values are and the limits for  . I won't go into the details but the important thing to note is that ICC specified color spaces such as  sRGB, Adobe RGB(1998), and Pro Photo RGB are device independent sets of abstract values.

1) A display is a device, a very specific device with innate characteristics and limitations as to how it reproduces color. This is why it is advisable to use a colorimeter or photospectrometer and its related software to characterize ( otherwise known as calibrating and profiling) a display so that corrections can be made to the signal the video /graphics processor is sending to the display that adjusts the signal to compensate for those characteristics.  While a device's RGB profile is a type of colro space, it only describes a very specific, unique way of reproducing color values.

While many manufacturers say their displays are "sRGB" what that only means is that the gamut (palette) of the device is large enough to contain the gamut described by the sRGB specification.

While what you say is very true, it is also the case that sRGB was developed nearly 20 years ago by HP and MS to represent a rough "average" of the span of CRT monitors in use at the time, the idea being that it would be reasonably close to the individual spaces of most devices and the display error would be tolerable. LCD monitor makers have until recently continued to use the sRGB space as a rough target, although if any device reproduced it exactly it would be a matter of unlikely luck. Still, they are close enough so that even an uncalibrated monitor and a non-color managed application will display an sRGB image with an amount of error that is acceptable to the casual viewer. However, they are nowadays also making "wide gamut" monitors and these will not display sRGB properly without c.m.
As long as "narrow gamut" monitors continue to be in the majority, sRGB is the best choice for the web.

[luxborealis]

Ellis,

Thanks for the explanation. You are right, but in being correct you may have lost many readers in the details.

Simply put, photographers should stick to sRGB for jpegs being viewed online. While other icc profiles may be used, photographers are no further ahead since most computer displays cannot possibly show the colours.

[Ellis Vener]

Ellis,

Thanks for the explanation. You are right, but in being correct you may have lost many readers in the details.

Perhaps, but is it better to  give those readers more power by increasing their knowledge or shackling them to their ignorance?

[jbrembat]

Are you using a V4 profile for monitor?
Firefox doesn't support V4 profiles.
IE: depends on version.
I don't know if Adobe is able to honor V4 profiles, as well.

Lightroom is supposed to use perceptual intent for monitor compensation.
So, if in your monitor profile the perceptual intent is implemented you can see the difference between perceptual and relative.

There are many variables.

jacopo

[Wayne Fox]

It depends on the application that you are viewing them in and whether that application is color managed or not.  Within LR you are viewing things in Prophoto which is a very wide gamut viewing space.  You say you are viewing them on line; how did you get them online and what browser are you using on your computer vs your wife's computer.  Chances are that you have exported JPEGs in sRGB which are going to be different from LR.

Except you don't "view" your images "ProPhoto".  Prophoto is the internal working space of LR, but you are viewing the images transformed to your displays profile. If you export the image and view them in a color managed application, they also will be viewed transformed into the displays profile.  If you export an image, and apply an appropriate color space, it should look very similar to what it looked like in LR - they really shouldn't look darker.  There is a chance that clipping the colors into the sRGB space may cause a slight visual difference, but it should be very minor.

[leighton w]

Thanks everyone for the help.

[digitaldog]

Simply put, photographers should stick to sRGB for jpegs being viewed online.

Unless they are working with Adobe RGB like (wide gamut) displays. Even today, LR3’s web galleries are not color managed and do not preview properly on wide gamut displays (in the host app or on the web with a web managed browser). It goes to show that as technology moves forward, as more users including photographers use wide gamut displays, the old ‘use sRGB because it is close to the typical display’ becomes the wrong answer.

What do we do in X number of years when sRGB like displays very unpopular and the norm is extended gamut LCD’s? All the sRGB images will look poor and Adobe RGB (1998) images will be what is recommended for uploading.