Exporting from Lightroom 4.3

[Josh]

Hello everyone I am hoping someone or even a few of you could provide some guidance on the proper setting from Lightroom 4.3. I am pretty darn new with my Camera (d3200) and obviously Lightroom. However, I have been noticing that the pictures I have sent in to get printed for me out of Lr always seem off. Today was kind of the ultimate when as a test I a file that I shot in jpg (so that I didn't need to do any processing in Lr) and then made a copy of the file and opened it in Lr increase my exposure by about 1/3 stop, did a Lens correction and then exported. When I got the two images back there was such a noticable difference it was really disturbing.

I'm hoping that someone might be able to give some guidance.

Thank you

Josh

[Andrew76]

Hmmm, well I guess that really depends on what you mean by 'off'?? Like colours?

First off, is your monitor calibrated? That's the cause of a lot of pain for photographers who go to print. Especially if you're shooting jpeg images in auto white balance.

But before we jump to conclusions, it's probably best if you clarify what these differences are.

[Josh]

In this case I shot JPG so that I wouldn't have to do any processing in Lr. However normally shoot in Raw.

But as far as "off" I would say that first the colors seem washed out and not as crisp. In this example there were people involved and someone was wearing a gray shirt standing next to someone wearing a pink shirt. In this case the pink shirt looked like it had been washed 10,000 times and the gray actually had a pink tint to it doesn't actually exist.

However in in my raw files the pictures all look like very blah, not crisp at all!.


As far as my monitor goes it is not calibrated.

[Andrew76]

That IS odd. I'll leave this one to someone who has more experience than I, as I don't want to give bad advice. It almost sounds as though it's a printer issue though. I'm not sure where you've had them printed, but I know I've had very, very bad experiences with box-type stores (Walmarts, Costcos and the sort), and I've heard (although they're not in Canada) Walgreen's are terrible. So I stick with photo labs now.

But, I can assure you of 2 things! 1) It's definitely NOT Light Room, I print from LR all the time. And 2) Someone here will be able to give you a definitive answer!

[Manfred M]

A few thoughts for you Josh:

1. Jpeg files receive in-camera processing, and depending on your settings there will be sharpening, contrast and vibrance / saturation adjustments, so it is quite possible to get jpegs with a lot of "pop" versus your RAW files. Any RAW file needs to be processed manually, especially for sharpening to get the image up to snuff. Other effects that your camera adds automatically, based on your preferences have to be manually adjusted in post-production, in your case using Lightroom.

2. A lot of Nikon shooters (including me) have found that the out-of-the-box Adobe RAW engine, which is shared by both Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW does not produce accurate colours. For serious work I use Nikon View NX2 which comes with Nikon cameras while others use Nikon Capture NX2 and do their exposure and colour temperature settings in that software, output a file in TIFF format and then do further processing in Lightroom or Photoshop in order to get better colours.

3. Andrew's point on having a calibrated displays is important too. This requires a fairly pricey piece of hardware and software. You also have to remember that not all displays are created equal and lower end units are just not particularly good at colour reproduction.

4. Prints will NEVER look the same as what you see on your screen. Anything you see on a screen is an additive transmitted RGB image that has a much higher dynamic range versus your print. A print is a reflective subtractive CYMK image with a much reduced dynamic range, and is also dependent on the printer and paper used. Photoshop and Lightroom 4 have a soft proof feature that attempts to emulate what a printed image will look like, but you have to load the ICC profiles for the printer / photo paper combination that you are planning to use.

I'm not sure if that answers your question.

[herbert]

Hi Josh,

You are right. If you import the JPEG and have not done any editing in Lightroom then it should be able to export the JPEG to look the same. This will not be true for a raw file though since Lightroom will apply colour processing to the image that will be a bit different from your camera.

If talking about a straight JPEG in then out situation my guess is that the export is changing the colour profile.

Check your export settings. The colour profile settings have the option to change the profile and whether to embed it. For prints to send to an external printer service it would be best to use sRGB as the profile and also to embed the profile. sRGB is the default assumed by everyone. You may have been exporting using AdobeRGB. The prints would have looked a bit washed out if the printer then assumed sRGB.

You can experiment with this by exporting the same photo with:

sRGB + profile
sRGB + no profile embedded
AdobeRGB + profile
AdobeRGB + no profile embedded

Then open the images back into Lightroom and notice the colour shift of the AdobeRGB image with no profile.

Hope this helps.

Alex

[loosecanon]

First I agree you should calibrate your monitor, however if you don't wish to spend cash then download a test file from a site (lots on web - search google for "image calibration file") This will enable you to set up your monitor so it looks ok with a standard image rather thanone of yours.
Washed out images are often a result of wrong profile, so make sure you are using sRGB for everything as this is what every external printer will use (unless publications when they may use a CMYK file) Make sure not Adobe RGB or ProphotoRGB. Both of the latter have a wider spectrum covered than sRGB, which means if printed as an sRGB file they will be flat.
Lightroom by default processes as a 16bit ProPhoto file, whilst the library display is in AdobeRGB. When exported from lightroom you can specify as sRGB.
So I suspect your problem is the files are not sRGB and so are printed flat and lifeless.
Have a look at your files with say windows file viewer, see if they are shown flat.

[loosecanon]

First I agree you should calibrate your monitor, however if you don't wish to spend cash then download a test file from a site (lots on web - search google for "image calibration file") This will enable you to set up your monitor so it looks ok with a standard image rather thanone of yours.
Washed out images are often a result of wrong profile, so make sure you are using sRGB for everything as this is what every external printer will use (unless publications when they may use a CMYK file) Make sure not Adobe RGB or ProphotoRGB. Both of the latter have a wider spectrum covered than sRGB, which means if printed as an sRGB file they will be flat.
Lightroom by default processes as a 16bit ProPhoto file, whilst the library display is in AdobeRGB. When exported from lightroom you can specify as sRGB.
So I suspect your problem is the files are not sRGB and so are printed flat and lifeless.
Have a look at your files with say windows file viewer, see if they are shown flat.

[Josh]

Thank you for the feedback. I did do a little playing around today and exported photo's how Alex had mentioned and did sRGB, AdobeRGB. But part of with being new I am not sure what you mean by "+ Profile"

But even with the limited test today with where I was having them printed the sRGB did look better so I think that was part of it. However, most places you get pictures printed use sRGB and if so why do we have the option to export in Adobe RGB and Photopro RGB?

And with the Nixon View NX, is this something that I should also start using with Lightroom since the adobe raw engine doesn't work as well with Nikons?

Thanks again everyone, this novice appreciates the assistance!

[Manfred M]

Thank you for the feedback. I did do a little playing around today and exported photo's how Alex had mentioned and did sRGB, AdobeRGB. But part of with being new I am not sure what you mean by "+ Profile"

If you have the icc profile for the paper / printer combination being used you can soft proof your images in Photoshop or Lightroom to get an idea as to what the print will look like.

But even with the limited test today with where I was having them printed the sRGB did look better so I think that was part of it. However, most places you get pictures printed use sRGB and if so why do we have the option to export in Adobe RGB and Photopro RGB?

Commercial printers tend to use sRGB, but if you print your own or go to a printer that prints in one of these colour spaces, you can use one of them. They will provide more vibrant colours, especially in the greens. In a lot of images, you may not see a lot of difference.

And with the Nixon View NX, is this something that I should also start using with Lightroom since the adobe raw engine doesn't work as well with Nikons?

This is something that I and a number of other Nikon shooters I know (including some at CiC) do.

[wobert]

Hi Josh and Others in the thread,
Noticing you are using Lightroom 4, I have to mention the Camera Calibration feature in LR.
I am still a novice when understanding this but it may provide some answers to your question.
Open an image (I am talking a RAW .nef or .dng file for myself) in the 'Develop' module.
Go to base of the develop pallettes until you reach 'Camera Calibration'- This module determines how your images are rendered on your screen, and you can change this. LR identifies your type of camera from metadata and gives rendering choices for that model of camera. The list does not refer to specific camera models but rather the 'rendering' method.

The 'Process' should be set to 2012 (Current)
The 'Profile' may show "Adobe Standard" -but this can be changed by clicking on the current profile for a drop down box to appear with options.

I will include two images to show how the two different profiles give different screen renderings with subtle changes in colour saturation and shadow detail, etc. I hope there is a visible difference on your screen (the grass is more vivid).

The screen image (as rendered by a profile) is then the starting point for further development or editing. I have simply exported the same file to jpgs using the two different profiles- no other editing whatsoever.
It will take you a bit of research reading the 'help' files and Google searching.





Keep on 'Shooting'
Regards

[Boatman]

Josh:

One item I haven't seen mentioned is the actual exporting function in Lr. I've been using Lr for about a year and always shoot RAW, so my situatuion is a bit different then yours, but the export feature still works the same. When you export, you are taking an original document and converting it to some new document, including the virtual changes make in Lr. For example, I might take a .dng file and export it as a .jpg for printing (full size), or I might export it for viewing on a monitor, decreasing its size to 96dpi with some maximum viewable dimension. Lr allows you to have many types of export that you can call up quickly for whatever requirement you have.

I'm wondering if you are having an issue when you export, one of the .jpg parameters is being set differently, hence you get a different look to your image when it shows up at the printers. I'm not at my home computer where I can review the available settings, but I'm pretty sure there is an option to keep the image in and the image out pretty much the same. Still, you are creating a new .jpg each time you do this, so there will always be some (possibly insignificant) change. The key lies in minimizing the change.