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Lightroom to sRGB
robertades
Registered Users Posts: 8 Beginner grinner
This is another one of those, "my pictures look different after they're uploaded" questions.
I'm using Lightroom 2.3, in Windows, with the SmugMug plugin. My monitor is calibrated (but I don't think that should matter for this situation). Lightroom works in ProPhoto and SmugMug works in sRGB (I understand colorspaces).
After my images are fully tweaked in LR, and I upload them, the skintones shift toward the red/magenta. The shift isn't horrible, but I'd like a close match to what I see in LR.
What's the trick to accomplishing this, or is there nothing I can do?
Thank you,
Robert Ades
I'm using Lightroom 2.3, in Windows, with the SmugMug plugin. My monitor is calibrated (but I don't think that should matter for this situation). Lightroom works in ProPhoto and SmugMug works in sRGB (I understand colorspaces).
After my images are fully tweaked in LR, and I upload them, the skintones shift toward the red/magenta. The shift isn't horrible, but I'd like a close match to what I see in LR.
What's the trick to accomplishing this, or is there nothing I can do?
Thank you,
Robert Ades
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After my original post, I did a little follow up test, by editing the image in Photoshop. In the conversion process (from Lightroom), I first selected the sRGB colorspace.
When the image opened in PS in this colorspace, the colors appeared the same as in Lightroom with no added reds. Then, I saved it as a jpeg and uploaded it to Smugmug. The skin tones then shifted toward the red. So, I'm a little confused. I must be missing something, or else Smugmug is doing some added post processing to my color images.
Help would be appreciated!
Are you on Mac or PC?
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I'm using Capture NX2 with AdobeRGB. In NX2 when I'm done editing, the .nefs look good. However, when viewing in Nikon View skin tones tend to look orange and often the converted .jpgs uploaded tend to be a bit too saturated. I ordered a matted and framed 11x14 from Imagekind and wasn't entirely satisfied with the results (orange skin tones). The receipient didn't know the difference but I sure did.
So, since I'll be using either Bay Photo, or ImageKind, should I convert my working spaces to sRGB?
For some reason, color management is like talking Egyptian to me. I've read numerous articles but it's just one of those subjects that totally baffles me. Probably another reason I'll probably convert back to medium format film. :hang
This leaves me still in a quandary: It appears that Photoshop interprets sRGB jpegs differently than Windows, even through the image is already saved in the sRGB colorspace. Oddly, when I "assign" the profile Adobe RBG to the image, the image starts to look more like the one in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.
...so I'm still confused.
My goal is to work on images in LR, upload them to Smug, and have there be no colorshift.
I see no difference between my images in LR, PS, or Smugmug which I view in Safari in OS 10.5
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You can have accurate color display on Windows, but it ONLY comes when you have an accurately calibrated and profiled monitor (using a hardware calibrator) and when you are using color-managed software that can accurately interpret the colorspace of your image and the monitor profile and thus send bits to the video card that have been adjusted (using both the image colorspace and information from the monitor profile) so that they will display accurate color on your monitor. Photoshop is one such color-managed app. So is the Safari browser and so is Firefox 3 (when color-management has been enabled). IE is not color managed and will NOT display accurate color. BTW, this has absolutely nothing to do with Smugmug because Smugmug is already doing what it is supposed to to give the browser accurate data for doing color management. It is an image preparation issue, a browser issue and a local screen calibration/profiling issue.
On my system, I can get identical color display between Firefox 3 on Smugmug, Safari on Smugmug, Photoshop and Lightroom. If someone views my photos on their system using IE, they will not get accurate colors (how much they are off depends upon their system) and there is nothing I can do about it. My job is to create images that look good on a properly calibrated and profiled system and contain all the right information to look good there.
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My monitor is fully hardware calibrated.
The problem arises because Lightroom and the Internet use two different color spaces, Prophoto RGB and sRGB. I think this is the cause, but I just don't know how to fix it.
Keep in mind that monitor calibration issues come to light primarily when moving from one device to another (i.e., monitor to monitor, or monitor to printer).
This is not the case here. I'm displaying an image using one monitor, but in one instance in Lightroom, and in another instance, in Firefox after uploading it to the Web.
It should work. All elements are in place for it to do so.
-Robert Ades
It has to do with what software you are using to view those images. If the software you are viewing the images with is color-managed and your system is profiled properly, you will see accurate color no matter what the colorspace is. When you use non-color-managed software like Windows image viewer or IE, you will not see accurate color - period. You need to just understand that and believe it. Accurate color only comes (even on a hardware calibrated system) when you are using color-managed software.
Where most people get confused is that they assume that when their monitor is "calibrated" that it is set to some standard so that color-managed software is no longer needed. While monitors can be adjusted some in the calibration/profiling process, this is not the main purpose of using a hardware calibrator. What these systems do is they create a profile that describes the color output of your monitor. They describe the relationship between a given RGB value sent to the monitor and an actual color produced. Color-managed software can then use that profile information to "change" the values that are sent to the monitor so that a given color in the colorspace of the document (no matter what it is) is produced accurately on the monitor (as long as it's within the range of what the monitor can produce - e.g. not out of gamut).
I will repeat this one more time. Non-color-managed software will not show you accurate colors. On an appropriately configured system, color-managed software will show you accurate colors for an image in any colorspace (as long as the image is appropriately tagged with it's colorspace).
The ONLY reason it is recommended that people upload sRGB images to the internet is that historically, sRGB was the closest colorspace to the color characteristics of a typical color CRT computer monitor so when non-color-managed software was used on non-color-profiled computers, an sRGB image would display better than images in other color profiles. It wouldn't be correct, but it would look better than an ProPhotoRGB image. So, it was recommended that people upload only sRGB images.
If however, someone uses color-managed viewing software (like Firefox 3 with color-management turned on or Safari), then I can view accurate colors on the internet, even for a ProPhotoRGB image. There is no native internet requirement that things be sRGB, it's just that sRGB was the least bad on older monitors when viewed with non-color-managed software.
Ironically, today's LCD monitors are much more likely to be a wide-gamut-type monitor that isn't as close to sRGB. In fact, some are closer to AdobeRGB.
In any case, the solution is to prepare your images with accurate colors on a profiled system using color-managed software. Then on your own system avoid using an non-color-managed software or, if you do, avoid making any color judgments when using it (because it won't be accurate color).
The parts of the world that view your images in non-color-managed software will, on average, get the best result when you put accurately colored images on the web that were prepared as described above. Beyond that, there is NOTHING you can do to make your images look better on non-color-managed systems with non-color-managed software. Those systems have a wide variance of color and, by definition, are not calibrated or profiled so there is nothing you can do to aim for them. Putting up accurate color gives you the best chance of creating a good viewing experience.
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The problem, as others have stated is your browser. Try FireFox with color management invoked* or Safari on Windows, the two previews will match (for you, not necessary anyone else).
Lightroom is doing everything correctly assuming you're exporting to sRGB.
*Type "about:config" on the address bar on Firefox without the quotes, filter for Color to find the o gfx.color_management.enabled;true (by double clicking on it). Quit and restart the application.
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I was unaware that Windows, and most browsers by default, didn't read the color space. At least with sRGB. I assumed that images reduced down the that narrower colorspace would read the same in most any application.
As someone else recommended, I have now turned "on" color management in Firefox, and there' s a much closer match now.
My only remaining question is, how will prints turn out? Will they be reasonably faithful to what I'm now seeing under an sRGB color managed browser?
Well who knows. You're not using color management for this process so anything is possible. Ideally you'd have the output profile to both soft proof and convert, post edit if necessary. That's not allowed. You are expected to send sRGB which is really not an ideal color space for print output, someone, somewhere is going to do the conversions without you having any control over that process.
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