LR5 - Export quality issues...

[lolage]

For some reason when exporting from LR my pictures lose quality substantially when using exporting at 1024 pixels. If I however export at 2048 its fine, but this file size is too big really to upload large amount of images to facebook.

1024px:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11365869/1 Websites/1024 (1 of 1).jpg

2048px:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11365869/1 Websites/2048 (1 of 1).jpg

Any idea? The only setting changed is the resolution, everything else looks fine?!

Thanks!

 

[Pookeyhead]

Exporting as JPEG? What quality settings you using? What sharpening settings?

 

[Pookeyhead]

No such problems here

JPEG maximum quality, no sharpening applied.


If your image is noisy (which it seems to be as it was taken in low light) then low JPEG quality will add artefacts to the noise in the areas that lack detail.

 

[lolage]

Not using sharpening, and quality 100...

It's very strange...

 

[Pookeyhead]

Weird. Dropbox the RAW and I'll see if it does it here. The problem, or cause rather, may well lie within the file, so seeing if I can replicate the problem here will help work out what's happening.

 

[Tony101]

You appear to be using version 5.0 of Lightroom, the current version is 5.3, it might be wise to update.

One of the things they fixed in the updates is "Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction were not applied to exported images that were resized to less than 1/3 of the original image size." This may be causing the problems you're experiencing. I thought it strange that there were definite visual differences between the two files, which just shouldn't happen if you're not changing anything other than export size.

Just a thought, I'm happy to accept I could be completely and utterly wrong.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[Pookeyhead]

One of the things they fixed in the updates is "Output Sharpening and Noise Reduction were not applied to exported images that were resized to less than 1/3 of the original image size."

I think that should solve the issue then. It's the only explanation that makes any sense.

 

[ivan86]

As stated before this was an issue with the release version of LR 5.0 and was later fixed in following updates. Updates within the same version are free so you should easily be able to resolve this

 

[lolage]

Brilliant thanks guys, downloading 5.3 now - makes perfect sense!

 

[lolage]

Works perfectly now, thanks a lot guys.

 

[Tom Tom]

Hi guys, Thought id bump this as experiencing the same exporting problems. Once exported to hard drive they don't appear as sharp and i just uploaded some to FlickR and definitely lacking the colour viewing them in Lightroom develop module. Is that maybe a FlickR issue?

I have the recent software 5.3 and I've tried many export settings but still finding the same. Exporting JPEG, SRGB, 90% Quality, Resized to long edge 1024, 72dpi, sharpen for screen, standard & high.

 

[Pookeyhead]

What colour profile are you exporting them with? It should be sRGB for screen use. If you use Adobe RGB1998, they can appear desaturated in some non-colour managed browsers.

As for sharpness, that may just be Flickr's compression.

Also, once exported to your hard drive, how are you viewing them? Some viewers can make images look soft depending on how big you view the images. To see an image as it should, and to check sharpness you need to view it 1:1, or 100% so each pixel of the image = one pixel of your screen. Viewing images smaller can result in them looking soft sometimes. Even in photoshop, you're not seeing a true representation unless it's a 1:1 view.