Lightroom, difference in colour between library and develop modes

[sirch]

Just editing an image in Lightroom, and I noticed that flipping between Library mode and Develop mode the colour/saturation/vibrance/whatever changed. Below are a couple of screen grabs which hopefully show the difference. Is there a setting or something that I am missing. Export seems to come out looking like the library version rather than the develop version.

View attachment 94075 View attachment 94076

 

[Craigus]

Is the soft proofing box checked at the bottom?

 

[sirch]

Is the soft proofing box checked at the bottom?

Thanks, I can't see a check box but it is off in the View menu. Anyway I closed Lightroom and reopened it again and the problem seems to have gone away, weird!

 

[Craig_85]

Lightroom uses adobe rgb in library mode. But in develop it uses its own Melissa rgb, which is like the wider gamut pro photo rgb space with a different gamma. I believe your monitor profile and gamut of the monitor itself will play a part in these visible differences, certain pictures will show it more or less too.

My advice is to actually process your RAWS with soft proofing enabled in lightroom because it will give you the most accurate histogram for what your converted tiff in photoshop will be or your outputted jpeg. The only decision is wether you soft proof and output in srgb or adobe rgb.

What sort of monitor do you have and what do you output for usually? Web use?

 

[Lemaildetom]

I always thought soft proofing was for printing to emulate paper?
I've kept it off at all time.
Am i missing something then?

Sorry to hijack this thread but interested to hear more about it.

 

[Craig_85]

I always thought soft proofing was for printing to emulate paper?
I've kept it off at all time.
Am i missing something then?

Sorry to hijack this thread but interested to hear more about it.

That is exactly what I used to think.

With embedded colour profiles and a calibrated monitor I never thought it necessary.

I had to change my thinking regarding lightroom. Soft proofing is basically a way of ensuring consistent viewing from lightroom into Photoshop. I was converting raws which in develop didn't look clipped but as adobe rgb tiffs in Photoshop they were. By enabling soft proofing as Adobe rgb what I see in develop matches my outputted tiff. If you are going to export as srgb JPEG instead for example soft proofing to srgb in lightroom develop will show you how your picture will look within that smaller colour space so there are no nasty surprises after export.

 

[Lemaildetom]

Thanks Craig, really appreciate your input. I've done a bit of googling and realised what i had already looked in the past. For simplicity my whole workflow is set to srgb, my camera is set to srgb too so no chance to mess up for me.

 

[Craig_85]

Thanks Craig, really appreciate your input. I've done a bit of googling and realised what i had already looked in the past. For simplicity my whole workflow is set to srgb, my camera is set to srgb too so no chance to mess up for me.

Not a bad choice if most of what you do is output for web use, especially if you don't have a wide gamut monitor.

Just make sure your monitor is calibrated

 

[droj]

That is exactly what I used to think.

With embedded colour profiles and a calibrated monitor I never thought it necessary.

I had to change my thinking regarding lightroom. Soft proofing is basically a way of ensuring consistent viewing from lightroom into Photoshop. I was converting raws which in develop didn't look clipped but as adobe rgb tiffs in Photoshop they were. By enabling soft proofing as Adobe rgb what I see in develop matches my outputted tiff. If you are going to export as srgb JPEG instead for example soft proofing to srgb in lightroom develop will show you how your picture will look within that smaller colour space so there are no nasty surprises after export.

Well. My digital camera is set to output raw files in Adobe rgb colourspace, as I understand it. From LR I normally export them as archival resource tiff's with that same colour space. The same tiff's may then be tickled / repurposed in PS whose working colour space is the same. I've never noticed any detriment. Have I by chance chosen a system that works, with the implication that what you describe above is a catch-all?

 

[Craig_85]

Well. My digital camera is set to output raw files in Adobe rgb colourspace, as I understand it. From LR I normally export them as archival resource tiff's with that same colour space. The same tiff's may then be tickled / repurposed in PS whose working colour space is the same. I've never noticed any detriment. Have I by chance chosen a system that works, with the implication that what you describe above is a catch-all?

That is what I do. But lightroom will still be displaying those adobe rgb raw files which are soon to be adobe rgb riffs in Melissa rgb whilst in the develop module if soft proofing is not enabled.

The differences are minor and perhaps without a wide gamut monitor you will not see them.

But with certain photos close to clipping on the histogram you can end up with oversaturated (out of gamut) colour channels by accident if basing your processing decisions on the Melissa rgb histogram in lightroom develop with soft proofing off.

In reality it is rarely an issue, but for absolute constitiency throughout i soft proof to my output colour profile in lightroom develop.

 

[PaulButler]

I was under the impression that LR uses Profoto as a colour space throughout and that what you see in the library module initially is the embedded jpeg in the raw file, until LR has built the previews.

I don't quite follow Craig's explanation above, but that could be me as it is late and I have had a tiring week! I've only ever used soft proofing when I print and never when I output to PS (as a 16 bit tiff) I use the same colour space in PS and never see any colour differences between the two. The only time I use a smaller colour space is final output be that printer or jpeg.

fwiw raw files do not have a colour space, they cannot as they are data files and have to be processed to become an image. Setting a colour space on the camera will only affect the in camera generated jpeg. With Nikon all raw files contain a small sized embedded jpeg, I believe the same holds for other makes too (though am not 100% sure).

 

[droj]

The differences are minor and perhaps without a wide gamut monitor you will not see them.

My monitor is wide gamut - can accommodate and is set to display Adobe rgb.

But with certain photos close to clipping on the histogram you can end up with oversaturated (out of gamut) colour channels by accident if basing your processing decisions on the Melissa rgb histogram in lightroom develop with soft proofing off.

Funnily, then, I find that I can 'crop' the histogram endpoints very tightly in LR (on the raw image), and find that I have a slight headroom and tailroom leniency when the resulting tiff is opened in PS ...

 

[droj]

fwiw raw files do not have a colour space

Apparently there's a choice in the (Nikon) camera menus regarding raw files, for their colour space - srgb or Adobe rgb. That's it (without mentioning bit depth), but there's an impact on the amount of colour info that is saved. So the choice is to maximise it so that more options are available further down the line ...

 

[sk66]

Lightroom is rather complex in color space use... if the file is not a raw file it will be displayed with whatever color space is embedded in the image (if known/available to the system). If it is a raw file it will be displayed in Adobe RGB in the library and edited in pro-foto in the develop module. Soft-proofing transposes the display/histogram to replicate what the image will (should) be when converted/exported.

 

[sk66]

Apparently there's a choice in the (Nikon) camera menus regarding raw files, for their colour space - srgb or Adobe rgb. That's it (without mentioning bit depth), but there's an impact on the amount of colour info that is saved. So the choice is to maximise it so that more options are available further down the line ...

sRGB is 8 bit, Adobe is 16 bit, but many/most cameras are only capable of 8bit (or slightly more)... but that's not really an issue as 8bit/channel is still more colors than we can see.

 

[ecoleman]

That is exactly what I used to think.

With embedded colour profiles and a calibrated monitor I never thought it necessary.

I had to change my thinking regarding lightroom. Soft proofing is basically a way of ensuring consistent viewing from lightroom into Photoshop. I was converting raws which in develop didn't look clipped but as adobe rgb tiffs in Photoshop they were. By enabling soft proofing as Adobe rgb what I see in develop matches my outputted tiff. If you are going to export as srgb JPEG instead for example soft proofing to srgb in lightroom develop will show you how your picture will look within that smaller colour space so there are no nasty surprises after export.

I've never seen and difference between library and develop and exporting to PS looks the same to me.

I've also never seen anybody suggest you should use soft proofing for anything other than printing.

I doubt very much if Adobe would allow colour shift when moving and image from LR to PS

 

[Craig_85]

Lightroom is rather complex in color space use... if the file is not a raw file it will be displayed with whatever color space is embedded in the image (if known/available to the system). If it is a raw file it will be displayed in Adobe RGB in the library and edited in pro-foto in the develop module. Soft-proofing transposes the display/histogram to replicate what the image will (should) be when converted/exported.

Thank you. This 100% is what happens and what I've been trying to say. Melissa rgb is lightrooms own profile which is very close to pro photo rgb as used in the develop module.

I've never seen and difference between library and develop and exporting to PS looks the same to me.

I've also never seen anybody suggest you should use soft proofing for anything other than printing.

I doubt very much if Adobe would allow colour shift when moving and image from LR to PS

Adobe certainly allow all sorts of options with colour profiles, which is why it is good to have ps set up to warn of profile mis matches when opening files.

If you guys are happy with what you are doing then please carry on. But what I am talking about is well documented on the web and I can create and post up some real life examples tonight if you like.

 

[Craig_85]

This explains it better than me;

http://www.colourspace.xyz/the-truth-about-lightroom-colour-management/

Funnily, then, I find that I can 'crop' the histogram endpoints very tightly in LR (on the raw image), and find that I have a slight headroom and tailroom leniency when the resulting tiff is opened in PS ...

Are you looking at the actual lines in the histogram or the little triangle warnings? The reason being the triangle warnings seem quite conservative.

I've never seen and difference between library and develop and exporting to PS looks the same to me.

When you export are you doing an actual export to create a new tiff. Or are you right clicking and telling not it to edit in Photoshop? If the first then obviously you will be burning in your new colour space or argb or srgb I presume. If the second option then check your lightroom preferences, it defaults to use prophoto rgb when using the edit in ps feature. If you are doing that you won't see any differences.

 

[BrynBoru]

Thanks Craig, really appreciate your input. I've done a bit of googling and realised what i had already looked in the past. For simplicity my whole workflow is set to srgb, my camera is set to srgb too so no chance to mess up for me.

The biggest limiting factor for most of us who are not professionals with high-end monitors, is the display itself. So when people complain that they don't see on screen or in print what they shot, perhaps this is down to having unreasonable expectations of how colour management works.
Most monitors have quite a small colour space gamut compared to the actual gamut of the image files being edited. I believe my own 27 inch iMac has not even 75% of 1998Adobe RGB gamut quality. A typical LCD is apparently not that far off the common sRGB space. So many of us are capturing raw images with a wide gamut of colours and perhaps even making prints on printers that are capable of reproducing quite deep colours, but we are editing in LR or PS with a display that constrains the colours to quite a small colour space. I myself am guilty of buying expensive camera kit, using calibration techniques, etc and professional software but not investing in a decent display!
My only excuse is that most times, if anyone bothers to look at my images, it's usually on-line using a standard computer display. I can claim as a saving grace that if I think I have something worthwhile to print, I'll use my local friendly photolab, who will happily tweak my files on their Eizos.

 

[sk66]

I've never seen and difference between library and develop and exporting to PS looks the same to me.

I've also never seen anybody suggest you should use soft proofing for anything other than printing.

I doubt very much if Adobe would allow colour shift when moving and image from LR to PS

Much depends on your preferences... if you should choose to transfer to PS in sRGB then you might want to softproof in sRGB. I most often see issues/differences in gamma between library and develop modules, and sometimes between LR and PS (same issue). This is most common with very dark images and shows as banding. Part of the issue is also with the monitor's gamma display capabilities (i.e. sometimes I *see* banding that isn't actually in the image).

 

[sk66]

Thank you. This 100% is what happens and what I've been trying to say. Melissa rgb is lightrooms own profile which is very close to pro photo rgb as used in the develop module.

Yes, Melissa *is* ProPhoto, just with a different gamma curve applied... I simplified to "ProPhoto" as that is going to be what most have heard of and it's the most applicable color space (i.e. for use w/in PS).