# My photos appear dull outside of lightroom (ie when exported to HD or my blog)



## luchia (Jan 19, 2012)

Lightroom offers a choice of different color spaces when you output photos, but Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB will look odd in programs that aren’t color managed, such as web browsers. Use sRGB for screen output, emailing or uploading to the web.

I read this in the starter kit info...so by reading this I thus understand the image colors will pop more if output is RGB. What I want to grasp is why is it that 1/ Images edited pop in rgb 2/ I have not had issues with my colors popping when sent off in Adobe setting to the commercial printer (I have noticed they might be a littler duller) 3/ If I am viewing on a calibrated screen  will the photo I edit in LR print true?

Sorry if I am not up with the jargon (learning here) but I am trouble understanding the why behind this tip in the starter kit.


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 19, 2012)

Hi, welcome to the forum.

You're probably reading more into that tip than was stated....nowhere does it say that images will 'pop' more if using sRGB. The issue is that once images leave your colour-managed workspace you have no control over how those images will look when viewed on other computers which may or may not be colour-managed. So given the fact that sRGB is the most prevalent colour space in use on the web, your best chance of having them look as close to accurate from a colour perspective is to output in sRGB when uploading to the web or emailing. If you are only viewing them on your own system, and your screen is colour-managed, and the viewing app supports colour management, then you should be able to output in AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB and see accurate colours.

Have a read of this article to see if it makes things clearer.


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## Hal P Anderson (Jan 19, 2012)

luchia,

Welcome!

Jim is absolutely correct. I'd add that if you output in AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB, those images _will _look dull when viewed on a non-colour-managed application. Sending your photos that were exported in those colour spaces to a commercial printer works OK because the printer is using proper colour management.

Hal


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## luchia (Jan 20, 2012)

So now I see that IE doesnt recognise embedded profiles, but firefox does. Now next question when I look upon my online shots (with firefox and IE side by side there is no difference even though I have been uploading shots adobe rgb. Am I missing the point? Does this mean my pics arent embedded with info on export ? Do I need to change settings? Is there a preferred setup for export in LR3? Thanks for your patience...Im so much more a visual person than a info on a page person (if that makes sense)


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## Hal P Anderson (Jan 20, 2012)

luchia said:


> So now I see that IE doesnt recognise embedded profiles, but firefox does. Now next question when I look upon my online shots (with firefox and IE side by side there is no difference even though I have been uploading shots adobe rgb. Am I missing the point? Does this mean my pics arent embedded with info on export ? Do I need to change settings? Is there a preferred setup for export in LR3? Thanks for your patience...Im so much more a visual person than a info on a page person (if that makes sense)



Actually, _both_ IE9 and Firefox are colour-managed, so you will see identical colours on each of them from a properly tagged image, no matter what colour space it is converted to. To have the best chance of people seeing the colours you do (or close, anyway) you have to export in sRGB.

Here is a web tutorial on colour management in Web browsers, with handy _visual_ tests:
http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html

Hal


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 20, 2012)

The other thing to bear in mind if you are looking at these shots from an online hosting service, not from your computer hard drive, is that some web hosts will, IIRC, strip the metadata and the colour profile so that even if you exported with AdobeRGB you could be back to a default sRGB.


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## Hal P Anderson (Jan 20, 2012)

Jim,

Good point. And the data would still be Adobe RGB being displayed as sRGB, which wouldn't be pretty. 

Hal


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 20, 2012)

Agreed, so unless there's a specific requirement of the recipient of an exported file for something other than sRGB, my advice would be to follow Victoria's advice and export using sRGB.


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