Images Loosing Quality after Exporting from Lightroom 3

Pudding

Pudding

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kim
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Hi there,

I'm having a slight problem,

I have Lightroom 3.

Whenever i empty my memory card the images go straight into Lightroom 3 automatically.

In there they look sharp, vibrant and just generall really good quality.

The problem is, the second i export them from Lightroom they loose sharpness, the colours are completely washed out.

Which means when i upload them onto the internet, they look rubbish and i can only appreciate them in their full glory by scrolling through my Lightroom 3 gallery...

Does anyone else have this problem?
Or know of a solution?
 
Do you see the same problems on the files you export from Lightroom to, say, your computer's desktop, before uploading them to your image hosting site?

On export...

Pudding said:
The problem is, the second i export them from Lightroom they loose sharpness
Click to expand...

What JPEG quality setting are you using? I usually knock mine out around 80%. Low settings (e.g. 20% or 30%) will adversely affect sharpness and colour fidelity and likely cause unwanted JPEG artefacts (blockiness) and tonal banding to appear in the image.

If you're reducing size for posting, it may be worth trying the 'Output Sharpening' option in the Export dialog.


Pudding said:
the colours are completely washed out.
Click to expand...

Colour Space: choose sRGB for posting on the Internet. If you are using Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB, some browsers may not know how to handle the colour space and render it incorrectly.

edit: I assume you're seeing the problem on the same computer screen that you use for editing in Lightroom. If it's only on other computers, then you may need to look at getting a screen calibrator (you'd probably be well advised to anyway).
 
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As above check your colour space. I had this issue when I upgraded or reinstalled my lightroom once and didn't notice the colour space had changed.

It's under the export dialog, in the file settings section. I use format jpeg, quality 70% and colour space to sRGB
 
Hi, thankyou for your replies but the problem occurs before exporting.

When i click Develop, my photos appear at their best but then second i click Library they lose sharpness, but the colour doesn't appear to be affected that much.

When i export, the photos look the same as they do when i click library.

I think you're right about the settings though for when it comes to uploading photos on the internet. Thankyou, i'll change that.

Although everything i do and change won't allow my photos to stay as sharp as they were in 'Develop' and its quite a difference in some photos.

So upset :(

The only way i can keep the sharpness is by pressing 'print screen' and pasting it into paint but then the image looses other qualities doing that.

Can't seem to win when it comes to it....

I've googled it and read someone having the same problem but i've not managed to find a solution as of yet.

If anyone has any idea, please let me know

Thankyou :)

I've tried allsorts to render this
 
It sounds like you are viewing the lower quality previews in the Library rather than the full res images perhaps? No idea why it would be exporting at that quality though. You do usually need to sharpen on export if you are resizing.
 
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What exact export settings do you use?

A typical set of settings would be sRGB JPEG at 85%, no resize, no extra sharpening, no file size limit.

Library is just a quick preview mode, and may make 'mistakes'. Use normal photo viewers to inspect exported JPEGs.
 
are you shooting raw+jpg? If so, it is using the jpg to make the preview, that you see initially on import to lightroom. The degradation that you then see is when lightroom loads and makes the updated preview from the raw file, hence with none of the in camera sharpening, contrast and saturation etc adjustments that your camera does when making the jpeg file.
 
Can you post a print screen of your export settings?
Make sure you haven't accidentally changed some of these settings.Pay particular attention to the ones that I have circled in a screen grab off my computer below.

1089817563_4V3gi-L.jpg


Make sure the jpeg setting is set high and that you aren't resizing to a very small size in the resize box.

Cheers
Gary
 
If you're really stuck, there is a lightroom user forum as well. Can't remember the name, but they were incredibly helpful with me....one guy took it upon himself to solve my problem, it took ages, and he wouldn't accept a "token of my appreciation", no matter how hard I tried to offer it!
 
jerry12953 said:
If you're really stuck, there is a lightroom user forum as well. Can't remember the name, but they were incredibly helpful with me....one guy took it upon himself to solve my problem, it took ages, and he wouldn't accept a "token of my appreciation", no matter how hard I tried to offer it!
Click to expand...
http://www.lightroomforums.net/

That's the one I believe, Jerry.:)
 
Pudding said:
Hi there,

I'm having a slight problem,

I have Lightroom 3.

Whenever i empty my memory card the images go straight into Lightroom 3 automatically.

In there they look sharp, vibrant and just generall really good quality.

The problem is, the second i export them from Lightroom they loose sharpness, the colours are completely washed out.

Which means when i upload them onto the internet, they look rubbish and i can only appreciate them in their full glory by scrolling through my Lightroom 3 gallery...

Does anyone else have this problem?
Or know of a solution?
Click to expand...


The problem usually happens when you're importing raw files.

The best option is to apply the camera profile in the develop module-camera calibration panel. These camera profiles imitate the camera presets that would have been applied to your jpeg images in camera but would have been ignored when you shooting in RAW.

Once you do that you'd have a better starting point for your images in terms jpeg.

And this is apparently a common problem

And the above mentioned is a solution suggested by Scott Kelby and you might consider investing in Lightroom 3 for Digital Photographers.

I bought the Lightroom 3 book couple of weeks ago and I must say its made my lightroom 3 experience so much better
Hope this helps
 
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