Lightroom Help

I just started using Lightroom to process my RAW images and am having a hell of a time with getting accurate jpeg conversions. The images lose all "pop" and the colors just go flat.

I've tried both Prophoto RGB and Adobe RGB in Lightroom before exporting as a TIFF. Once exported I do a few minor adjustments (curves, saturation, dust removal) and then I save a master TIFF. Lastly I resize the image for the web, run a couple of actions to boost saturation and sharpen for the web and then I use "save for web". This workflow is exactly the same I use with ACR and haven't had any trouble at all with my conversions.

Thoughts?

So when you say they go flat is it when you upload to web and view via a browser? If so, I only ask this obvious question because you didn't mention this step above. Did you convert your color space to sRGB before saving the web version?

When I go from Lightroom (LR) to Photoshop (PS) I leave the ProPhoto and use the PSD option. From there I make the adjustments I desire in PS. Saving the PSD, and closing the file then puts the PSD back into LR. I haven't noticed any problems in doing it in this manner.

Guy: As soon as I save the jpeg it loses the color. I'm not converting to sRGB before saving as a jpeg. Should I do that? If so, how do I do that?

If you plan to upload to the web you should as sRGB is the defacto standard for web browsers. To do this you go to the Edit menu, Convert To Profile..., and specify sRGB in the destination space.

Guy: I tried that and I'm getting the exact same results. I've never had this problem. I downloaded Lightroom tonight and all of a sudden none of the photos look right when converted. There is a distinct change to the colors.

For example, the posted photo was shot at sunrise and has nice, warm light on the buttes. When saved as a jpeg it lost all the warm color, which was replaced with this boring brown. The sky even had some pink in it that is now non-existent. The photo you see here is exactly as it appears in Photoshop after I "save for web".

I'm going to be seriously pissed off if I can't get this resolved ASAP.

FWIW, I tried converting this image using ACR and the same workflow I've always used and ended up with the same crappy results. Lightroom must have screwed up something in my settings when I downloaded it...

If you set a system restore point before downloading and installing Lightroom, you should be able to bring everything back to the way it was before the install. I find that when I use lightroom, my images don't seem as colorful as using PS raw but then I'm still fairly new at the whole image editing thing. Good luck!

Sorry to hear that, Bret. I'm afraid this is getting beyond my expertise. I'd first try uninstalling Lightroom and seeing if this color issue still exists. I'm guessing that won't help, and if it doesn't then John's idea may be a good one. You didn't necessarily have to set a system restore point yourself as windows does it automatically on a periodic basis. You may even find that it set a restore point just before you installed Lightroom. You can do the restore from the Control Panel (Backup and Restore Center applet, at least that's what its called in Vista).

Brett,
I know you did the convert to sRGB, but did you check the jpegs to verify they're actually in sRGB?
This problem sure sounds like the sRGB issue.
Paul

Bret, I've not seen this problem. I'm at LR v1.1. But I'm feeling guilty because I this summer I was telling you how much I liked LR.

Another possibility and/or something to look into... I believe installing LR automatically upgrades Adobe ACR. Maybe you had settings in the old version of ACR that are not being applied in the new version? A stretch, I know.

It's probably worth throwing this out to a LR forum too - Official Adobe Lightroom Forum and Lightroom Forums .Net both contain a lot of useful info. The latter is a smaller more personable community, IMO.

Hope this helps.

Paul: Yep, the jpeg is in sRGB.

Scott: I love the LR interface and how easy it is to use. If I can get this problem worked out I'll be really happy. Thanks for the links. I'll check 'em out!

Hey Bret. Tried racking my brain a little bit. This is strange. The only thing I think of ... the latest adobe updates have a Save for Web option that can throw off color. See attached screen grabs. Probably not, but at least it sounds like the same effect ...

..

Boy, I'm not liking the color in that second screen shot Jesse. I wonder why that happens. You would think it would compress the shot but not remove color, huh.

Try using the 'Save as...' dialog in PS to compress and save your images instead of the 'Save for Web' feature.
'Save for Web' can strip off the color space info. for the sake of creating a smaller file.

Jesse,

I have seen the Save for web giving me wacky colors and I am in a full calibrated env...convert to SRGB etc. How can I get around that prioblem?

Thanks.

RV

First off - don't ever use Save for Web unless absolutely necessary. It strips out your metadata.

Before you go uninstalling software or restoring system points, There are a couple of places where the workflow is going wrong here:

- In Lightroom and ACR there are default develop settings. This is most often the cause for unpleasant and unexpected changes to your images. All you need to do it make settings you like and set those as the defaults.

- Here are the steps to go from LR to PS and save a JPG:

1. Process the image in LR to your liking. LR is color managed and if your display is calibrated you can trust what you see in LR.
2. Use the Edit in Photoshop command to export a TIF in 16-bit ProPhoto and open the file in PS.
3. Do whatever editing you need to in Photoshop ans SAVE THE TIF FILE BEFORE PROCEEDING
4. Manually prepare the image for web:
a. Flatten
b. Resize
c. Sharpen
d. Convert to sRGB; try both Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric to see what works best. Always use Black Point Compensation and Dither (if available)
e. Convert to 8-bit
f. Do a Save As... and save your JPG

If you follow the right steps you will get perfectly predictable, accurate color from Lightroom and Photoshop.

Nat,

With the drum scans I find that the color shift is even worse. Usually i am working from images that i have saved as .psd. My experience has been that I see the same color shift when i do a 'save as' straight from PS and bypass the 'save for web' . I dont tend to see the problem with images from the Canon. What is the importance of using tif and do you think that will help me out?

Thanks in advance.

RichieV

Rich-

Many images contain colors that don't exist in the sRGB space, especially dependent on the scanner software and the color space you're using.

Sometimes it's helpful to do more than one color space conversion. If you try to go straight from ProPhoto to sRGB, you're making a huge step down in available colors. You might try going from ProPhoto to Adobe RGB then to sRGB.

Also, you can soft-proof for these spaces to see how the colors will shift and make adjustment layers as necessary to compensate.

Ultimately, there will be colors that you can't reproduce perfectly in an sRGB JPG file. The trick is massaging it towards acceptability.

TIF is currently the best file format to use for master files and print files. I've been going back through my library and converting all my PSDs to TIF. This is because with the advent of Photoshop CS (v8) Adobe made some changes to the PSD format that are undesirable. Even the Adobe engineers now believe that TIF is the best in terms of long term viability. It's an open, documented format and supports everything a PSD does.

That said, you shouldn't see any difference in color between a PSD and a TIF.

I am no expert on LR but when I make my changes and export to PS my exports go in as PSD files and look exactly like they do in LR. Once in PS I can then do what I need to and save as needed. I am not one to mess with saving as a jpeg or tiff unless that is what I want. Right or wrong I do all my file saving extensions in PS.

Nat,

Can you give us a link to the discussion on .psd vs .tif. I switched completely to .psd after you made that recommendation to me ealier this year. What problems am I going to face?

Thanks.

RichieV

yes, I too would like to hear the differences, especially since you mentioned PSCS which is what version I am at. Because I am not too excited about going back and changing everything thing to a tiff. But if it is a worthy argument I can certainly add this change going forward.
Here is my problem with all this LR PS file saving, storing, back up. It changes with every conversation, magazine article, book and web article. Depending on who you are reading or listening to, everyone has the "recommended" way of doing things. I own every Scott Kelby book on PS and LR I also own every book by Colin Smith (a graphic designer and ps expert). I have 2 books by Deke McClelland and about a million magazine articles from all the greats in our field. I have learned both programs by using tutorials on the web and by reading the books I have. I have used workflows from George Lepp to Debbie Grossman. Who am I to believe what is the best, safest, easiest, most comprehensive way of doing things. Where does it all end? If my workflow gives me the reults I am after isn't that the best workflow for me?

Sorry just a small rant, but something I needed to ask.

Using Nat's suggested workflow the issue seems to be resolved (see attachment, which does have too much magenta that I haven't yet removed). However, I've never had this issue with "save for web" when using ACR. Thanks for taking the time to explain it, Nat!

Jesse: I checked my settings and I don't even have the same options in the fly out box that your screen grab illustrates. I'm on CS2, if that matters. At least until I can get the "save for web" thing figured out I should be able to use Nat's workflow to continue processing images.

Glad you got something working! My suggestion was for CS3 ... sorry. And really only if you were saving to web from a non-sRGB file. It just sounded very similar. Good luck troubleshooting. This color stuff is such a pain!

I save TIFF files, mostly because I know that PSD is adobe's proprietary format - and I've heard that they're always tweaking the format. TIFF just seems "safer" - today anyway. Although I'd be surprised to see problems using PSD files 10 years down the road ...

Regarding TIF vs PSD: I recently switched my files from uncompressed TIF to PSD, because the file sizes seemed much smaller. However, it turns out the PSDs are only smaller because I turned Maximize Compatibility off. With Maximize Compatibility turned on, TIF and PSD are nearly the same file size. After my conversion, I also found that LR doesn't like PSD files with Maximize Compatibility turned off. So, I'm about to re-convert all my images back into TIF.

Joe Finn you've hit on something important; more on that in a bit...

Re file formats:

I've used Photoshop since 1992 and have ALWAYS saved my master layered work files as PSD. Until now.

My thoughts on the benefit of PSD - native format to the application, comparatively smaller file sizes, keeps all the layers etc. Has always made sense.

My thoughts against TIF (until now) - slightly larger files (flat without LZW); mainly the idea of layered TIF files seemed like an abomination. Especially since PS is one of the very few programs that can actually read layered TIF files.

(On the other side of the twisted coin, TIF actually supports multiple pages... clearly problematic and also only supported by rare programs (like irfanview).)

So I always thought TIF was weird. And PSD was safe. Until I read a post on Luminous Landscape by Jeff Schewe (whom I believe is as close to the source as you can get) about the recent "bastardization" of the PSD format.

Apparently, during the move from PS 7 to CS (v8) the Adobe team made some changes to the PSD file format. Not sure why they did it, but the end result is a file format that cannot be trusted for long-term viability. This is the reason for the "Maximize Compatibility" option that you now see. (Which if you are saving PSDs you MUST have enabled for compatibility with other apps including LR).

I have struggled with this long and hard; I didn't want to give up PSD. But the fact is that TIF is an open file format, well documented and supports all the things you can do in a Photoshop file. Believe it or not, looking decades down the line, TIF has a better chance of surviving that does the current iteration of PSD.

And yes, it hurts. But I want to have the best chance of opening my files in the distant future, and TIF is the only viable format for this.

Rich, I know I emphatically said to use PSD and I hope I explained my rationale for this. I've changed my position.

As Joe pointed out, we're all dealing rapid change, overload of information and trying to figure out what matters. Sometimes change comes fast, and sometimes the change overtakes things we've become accustomed to over many years.

But with digital imaging, there's only one way to look at it - Adapt or Die.

It's important to nail down a viable workflow for today. But you have to be prepared and willing to accept the rate of change. In digital photography, there is nothing you're doing now that you will do the same way 10 years from now. The important thing is to have a system that works for you today and stay closely tuned to what's around the corner.

I'm putting together an eBook and classes specifically about the current state of pro-level digital workflow - end to end - that I will be rolling out in the spring. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my blog updated with all the most relevant points of the current state-of-the-art workflow.

With all the hype, confusion and misunderstanding, there really is a "right" way to do things... thought the "right" way will change over time.

Wow, not only is this a great place to see fantastic photos and meet great people, it's also a helluva tech support place as well!

WOW, Schewe certainly doesn't hold back:
"Look, I'll make it REAL simple... TIFF = Good, PSD = Bad "

Thanks, Nat, for keeping on top of things. I had missed this discussion and will be changing my workflow.

Nat, thanks for the explanation. Workflow changes are sometimes difficult to accept, but in this case it sounds like it is a change that I do need to make. Appreciate your time in ghiving us the lowdown.

And to Bret E. sorry for hijacking the thread.

Man, disappear from the forum for a couple of days and look what happens!

Bret, I'm glad Nat's workflow worked for you. It looked to me like you were having a color space conversion issue. Remember to use "convert to profile" and not "assign profile" so you don't change the color info in your image! Also, I always do the conversion on a duplicate of my master file. It's too easy to mistakenly do a save and then realize you've just flattened or converted your master file.

Nat, I follow LL pretty closely and missed the thread about tiff and psd. Wow. I was exactly like you in my opinion of tiff vs psd but I guess I'll have to shift things. Kinda interesting. I ran into the 2GB file limit with some recent multi-layered 4x5 images. The 4GB tiff limit probably would have helped me but I was stubborn to keep my master in psd.