Still have issues with color translation between Adobe Editing to Jpeg

PaulWog · Dec 19, 2013

I have a 27-inch LCD monitor that I edit photos with. Colour accuracy is mediocre. In Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Lightroom, jpeg and RAW files look lighter than when I load them up online, view them with picture viewer, etc. I consider myself to be extremely tech-savvy, I know photoshop and lightroom very well, and yet I cannot fix this issue. I've set all of my color profile stuff inside of photoshop & lightroom to the best settings -- however, there's something built into the programs to try to adjust for my screen (I'm not sure what it is, but it can't be turned off). In the end, I don't know if the jpeg/raw file I view in windows picture viewer, uploaded to the internet, loaded in windows paint, etc, represents the colors more accurately for the finished file, or whether the Adobe programs represent the pictures more accurately (or if the Adobe programs are simply attempting to adjust to make them more accurate).

The end result is I have to compensate when editing. If I finish a photo up perfectly in Lightroom (so it looks like I want it as a finished product when viewed in Lightroom), I'll export it to jpeg and I'll usually notice these problems (if anything at all):
- contrast is slightly higher once outside of Lightroom/Photoshop (I'll refer to them as Adobe together from here on in)
- the picture is slightly darker across the board
- sometimes dark areas are blown out and just become much closer to inky black (so details can be lost in extreme circumstances)
- noise can come out much more exaggerated once I export to jpeg

What I currently do is I usually back the contrast down a slight notch, bump my shadows/blacks up just a tiny increment from wherever it looks proper in Lightroom (if I edit them at all), export, and review the photo, then go back if I need to switch things around. Very inefficient.

Note that I'm exporting the picture properly. This is just a loss in translation between what I'm seeing in Adobe (with adjusted color representation), and what I'm seeing in any other program. If I edit using my iPad as an extra screen, I usually don't have this issue (it has better color accuracy, but the program to connect it to my computer is slow so I don't use it to edit anymore).

Is my only solution to pick up an IPS panel color-accurate monitor?

KmH · Dec 19, 2013

Yes, you can rely on Adobe Photoshop's color accuracy. Adobe has no way to sample your display and adjust for it.
Your OS may have some color management settings you can adjust.

Not all basic image viewing applications, like picture viewer, or internet browsers are color profile aware.
A minor detail -Blacks in an image that have no detail are called 'blocked'. Whites that have no detail are called 'blown out'

Even IPS panels have to be re-calibrated about once a month, and/or if the ambient light falling on them has changed, to remain accurate.
For TN type displays the issue is the narrow color accurate viewing angles a TN type display provides, not that they can't accurately show colors within that narrow range of angles.
In other words, even TN type displays can be accurately calibrated.
An issue relative to color accuracy is the color bit depth a display can provide. Many TN displays can only display 6-bits of color depth, which is why for image editing many want a display that can display 8-bit color depth and a a color gamut that is an appreciable % of the Adobe RGB color space. sRGB has a smaller color gamut than Adobe RGB does. 6-bits can't display all of the sRGB color space.

Plus you have to consider that most people online will not be using a calibrated display, and will not have any clue what a color profile is.

So unless you are going to make a physical print, there is no across the electronic display world standard you can rely on.
Prints have other issues based on the fact prints are fore lit while computer displays are back lit.

If you don't already have them, you might find some of the information in these resources helpful:
Tutorials on Color Management & Printing

The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop
The Digital Print: Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers
Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: A professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC