Exporting Question???? Need Advise

[smoke665]

My workflow is to start out in Lr, do the light editing and sorting there, then take the final picks to Ps for the final editing. I save them (as tiff) back in the same folder. Then I reopen them in LR, check my final edits, make fine adjustments and then export them from Lr as JPEGS. However when I do that it seems as if the quality of the JPEG is not the same as if I export it from Ps, or if I exported the file (minus any Ps edits) from Lr. I suspect that something got changed, either by accident or during an update.

What am I missing here???

 

[smoke665]

One possibility I just noticed. In Ps Color Settings>Working Spaces>sRGB IEC61966-2.1 . My source profile coming from Lr is ProPhoto RGB

 

[smoke665]

Bump. Anyone???

 

[adamhiram]

I did a quick test with some images I edited in LR, and opened in PS for cleaning up blemishes or compositing for group shots. No additional changes were made after the PS edits, other than bringing it back into LR, so the before and after versions should be identical other than the edits in PS. And that is exactly what I saw when I exported both - not even 1 single pixel was different in quality or color.

My color space in PS was ProPhoto RGB, while my default export in LR is sRGB. However this shouldn't really matter, since if you are exporting through LR, it will always use that setting regardless of whether or not it was edited in PS.

The only other thing I can think of is that when I edit in PS, I have it save it as a PSD file rather than TIFF, so perhaps it is that TIFF conversion that is changing the image quality or changing the color space.

 

[smoke665]

@adamhiram did you open the image in Ps "via" LR or did you "open" it from within PS. I need to check but I think when I do it in Lr it automatically converts it to tiif before sending it to PS

I'm pretty sure my working space has always been ProPhoto, so I haven't got a clue how or when it was changed

 

[adamhiram]

did you open the image in Ps "via" LR or did you "open" it from within PS

I always start in LR, and use “Edit in” if I need to open it in PS. You are correct that the default setting is Tiff - that is the only setting I changed, since I have always used PSD as my format of choice when working with multi-layered images in PS. Otherwise all actions and color spaces are left at the default values.

 

[smoke665]

@adamhiram Okay think I'm back on track. Changed the preference in LR to ProPhoto 16 bit. In thinking back, I might have changed this to tiff to try for increased speed in PS, and forgot to change it back. Also changed working space in PS to ProPhoto. Initial testing seems to have corrected some of the problems I was having with tonal range in saturated colors.

 

[Derrel]

@adamhiram Okay think I'm back on track. Changed the preference in LR to ProPhoto 16 bit. In thinking back, I might have changed this to tiff to try for increased speed in PS, and forgot to change it back. Also changed working space in PS to ProPhoto. Initial testing seems to have corrected some of the problems I was having with tonal range in saturated colors.

Smoke, I think the color space you are saving and exporting to is causing your on-screen images to look overly saturated and "excessive" in some cases. The recent tennis shot of Sadie is an example: the greens of the grass read as wayyyyyyyy over saturated. For web use, I think exporting with an sRGB profile tagged on your exports is the best way to ensure that Windows and Mac browsers will display your images more as you wish them to be seen. I am not quite sure how the latest Windows browsers are reading and displaying photos; there was a time when Macintosh browsers were profile-aware, while most Windows browsers were defaulting to an sRGB profile that was applied to images.

Bottom line: I'm not at all sold on the ProPhoto space, in any way....it's NOT the way the vast majority of people or devices will view the images. Despite all the theoretical advantages of a wider color space, in the real world, 95% of devices and applications will not display the photo with the photographer's intent. ProPhoto sounds good, but you have the raw files, for your own use, but over the past few months I've been in touch with you on some color issues; perhaps the real cause is in the profile space in which you have been working, and then the way the images are being seen, outside of your own,personal working environment. I personally make it a proactice to export into sRGB, so that Windows and mac users, and Android and iPhone users, so that in short, everybody, will see the photos the way I wish them to be seen, on the widest possible array of devices and under the widest number of operating systems.

 

[smoke665]

For web use, I think exporting with an sRGB profile tagged on your exports is the best way to ensure that Windows and Mac browsers will display your images more as you wish them to be seen. I am not quite sure how the latest Windows browsers are reading and displaying photos; there was a time when Macintosh browsers were profile-aware, while most Windows browsers were defaulting to an sRGB profile that was applied to images.

For the last several months, I've had a running battle with how images are displayed on the web. I've tried to pinpoint in my mind when it started but I can't say for sure. I want to say it happened somewhere around the time I let Windows talk me into updating to the 17134 edition, but who knows. There's also been a slew of Adobe updates along the line and vision problems adding to the confusion.

The problem I was having is when I edited in Lr, and exported to an sRGB there was a nice smooth gradient between colors, but when I took the file into Ps as a tiff, brought it back and then exported it, I was losing that smooth gradient. Now that problem seems to be cured.

Regardless where or color space used in editing, I always export as an sRGB. Most of the time it's exported from Lr as an sRGB. I've tried different quality settings from 70-100, and check the sharpen for screen - standard. I can't find anything in settings to either embed or not embed profile, so I don't have a clue what it's doing when it converts my file. If I export from Ps it gives you the option to embed color profile. Maybe I need to start exporting from Ps on web images????

I think I can explain the green saturation you referred to, it was a fun shot, not intended to be serious, in bright sun. Rather then move or wait for better light, I used the radial tool in Lr, to simply decrease the exposure in the overexposed yard. Given that Pentax is already notorious for saturating the greens, adding a little underexposure in the mix didn't help.

 

[Derrel]

Why not just WORK directly in sRGB? That's the simplest solution to all of the problems. Stop spending time adjusting images in an ultra-wide color space that's only good on one machine, and do the import and the adjustments in the final space, sRGB.

Set the camera to capture and write to sRGB. Work in that space. Export in that space. Have all your photos look one way, everywhere.

Drop theory for reality.

Shop in dollars, spend in dollars, get change in dollars. Eliminate the Yen and the Peso.

 

[smoke665]

Why not justd WORK directly in sRGB? That's the simplest solution to all of the problems. Stop spending time adjusting images in an ultra-wide color space that's only good on one machine, and do the import and the adjustments in the final space, sRGB.

Scroll up a few posts (see screen shot of settings), tried that wasn't working.

 

[Derrel]

But you ARE working in sRGB...at least in your copy of PS...but you've got Lightroom as ProPhoto RGB...

 

[smoke665]

But you ARE working in sRGB...at least in your copy of PS...but you've got Lightroom as ProPhoto RGB...

No you're misunderstanding. When I was sending a tiff to Ps from Lr, I had it set as sRGB, and I had the working space set to sRGB in Ps (this was the old setting screenshot). Now I'm sending the file to Ps as a PSD ProPhoto, and I have the working space in PS set to ProPhoto.

In any case I'm curious about the green comment earlier. When you get a moment I'd appreciate you looking at these on your monitor and evaluating the green.

The first shot is a SOOC shot, just cropped and exported in Lr.

The second is the same image processed in Lr, using most of the same things I normally would apply. There was no addition or subtraction in saturation, but a slight bump in vibrancy and clarity. Sharpening was dropped some from the first but a mask was applied and noise reduction added.

Both were exported using

Is the green still to saturated?????

 

[Derrel]

In this example, the greens are noticeably brighter and appear more vibrant in the second shot...but then...you mentioned that vibrance and clarity were elevated. In this scene, the green tones look quote acceptable to me, and I think the greens look fine here. By way of classifying these two, I would say that the original SOOC capture looks a bit flat, a bit muted, the way I would want my SOOC jpeg image to appear, and the second image looks very subtly-adjusted and improved. The shot of the dog catching the tennis ball was very much overly saturated and vibrant, with greens that were very "worked" looking, or very much over the top. This shot is perfectly fine on the greens, but the top highlight on the mushroom's cap (at the roughly noon position) looks a tad bit hot to me.

I dunno...I live in a very green area, Oregon's PDX-Vancouver area, and I see a LOT of photos these days from the Columbia River Gorge, forest shots, waterfall shots, in which many shooters are starting to use ridiculous amounts of green saturation and vibrance boosting. Yes, there is a very short window in the spring when the greens really POP!, but the remainder of the year, greens in grasses and foliage and plants are mostly natural-looking. Green is an area in nature photography where the addition of other color, like a bit of yellow, can make the greens appear more-pleasing to many people's eye. Fuji is sort of well-known for this, greens that have more yellow than do other companies' color palettes. I'm not that familiar with the general, company idea underlying the Pentax color palette.

 

[smoke665]

. In this scene, the green tones look quote acceptable to me, and I think the greens look fine here. By way of classifying these two, I would say that the original SOOC capture looks a bit flat, a bit muted, the way I would want my SOOC jpeg image to appear, and the second image looks very subtly-adjusted and improved.

Thank you for checking, that really helps having another set of eyes on it. Pentax has for years required you to pick a finishing tone. The only one which will give you a raw image without trying to second guess you is the "natural" setting. You should see the green explode in "landscape". LOL