# Exported JPGs much brighter



## RogerThornhill (Oct 19, 2013)

Hello,


Here is once again a problem that (I guess) has to do with color management, and I'm having a hard time figuring out my mistake...

I'm editing my RAW files in Lightroom 5.2 and then export them to JPG (my settings are JPEG 100% / sRGB / no sharpening).
My problem is that the JPGs are much brighter than the RAW files. To compare the RAWs and the JPGs, I imported those JPGs back into Lightroom to make sure I'm seeing them with the same color profile. (see screenshots)




I found some similar threads on that topic, but usually the problem was that the users were checking the JPGs in a tool that was not color managed, and so it would not match what they saw in Lightroom, but since I do check my exported JPGs in Lightroom, I assumed they would be represented within the same color space, with no noticeable differences...

I didn't calibrate my MacBook Pro's monitor with dedicated hardware (I'm only using Mac OS' standard color-LCD profile), and I'm not expecting other users to see my pics exactly the way I see them on my screen, but I thought that on my own computer I wouldn't see such a big difference between my RAW files and the JPGs I exported from those RAW files.

I'm also aware that Lightroom's developing module's color space is ProPhotoRGB and that the exported JPGs are in sRGB which has a smaller gamut, but does this explain such a huge brightness and noise difference?

In an attempt to find out which edit in particular caused the pictures to turn so bright I also exported the picture as a jpg after every single editing step (i.e. after exposure, shadows, highlights, contrast, sharpening) and found out that the jpg I got after adding some sharpening (step 5) was brighter than the jpg I had just before (step 4, contrast). Why? Is it a bug?  (see screenshots)



I'd appreciate if someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong!

Thank you!


----------



## sizzlingbadger (Oct 20, 2013)

Its probably a combination of the noise in the image and the jpg compression algorithm. Sharpening it makes the noise more apparent and thus it has more effect, I have seen similar issues like this in the past and not just with Lightroom.


----------



## RogerThornhill (Oct 26, 2013)

Thank you for your comment sizzlingbadger! (and sorry I couldn't reply earlier)


It seems this problem only occurs with high ISO (higher than 800).


Unfortunately, even if I don't sharpen the picture at all, the exported JPG is still brighter than the RAW.
And if I export the RAW as a TIFF (16 bits), the result is also much brighter than the RAW.
So it's not due to sharpening alone, but sharpening would make it even brighter!


If I take a screenshot of the picture displayed in Lightroom's Developing Module, everything is fine - even if the screenshot is a JPG.
So far, that's the only way I found to get accurate JPGs of my edited RAWs...


This bothers me for quite a while now. 
I'd be really happy if someone has any idea how to avoid exported JPGs becoming so bright.


----------



## Bryan Conner (Oct 27, 2013)

Could you show us a screen shot of your export panel for an image that suffers from this problem?  Maybe there is something there....


----------



## RogerThornhill (Oct 27, 2013)

Thanks for helping.
Here's a screenshot of my export panel. This is how I export all my pictures.



I sometimes use the Mogrify plug-in (to add white borders) and I have this brightening problem with or without this plug-in.


I tried to export as a TIFF (8 and 16 bits) and as a JPG (color space: sRGB, ProPhoto RGB and AdobeRGB), the export are always too bright (but the JPG export is brighter than TIFF one).
"Post-Processing" is always set to "Do nothing".
"Output Sharpening" is always Off.


----------



## sizzlingbadger (Oct 29, 2013)

You haven't accidentally set soft proofing on in Lightroom have you ?


----------



## RogerThornhill (Nov 14, 2013)

Damn, it took me two weeks to answer! Sorry for that, I’m too busy lately...
Anyway, thanks again for trying to solve this annoying problem!

To answer your question: No, I didn’t set soft proofing on.

But speaking of soft proofing, I just realized that when I turn it on, the profile is set to sRGB - which surprises me since in the Develop Module, the photos are supposed to be displayed in ProPhotoRGB color space. If I click on the Profile list (drop-down list), I can only choose between sRGB and AdobeRGB, "ProPhotoRGB" is not even listed.
I have read that if an imported RGB image has no profile, Lightroom assumes the profile to be sRGB, so I guess my photos (RAWs taken with a Nikon D300) didn’t have any embedded color profile. But how come?


----------



## clee01l (Nov 15, 2013)

RogerThornhill said:


> ...I can only choose between sRGB and AdobeRGB, "ProPhotoRGB" is not even listed.
> I have read that if an imported RGB image has no profile, Lightroom assumes the profile to be sRGB, so I guess my photos (RAWs taken with a Nikon D300) didn’t have any embedded color profile. But how come?


When you enter SoftProofing you are emulating the look and feel of a print on paper.  AdobeRGB is a *print* profile. sRGB can be but is usually a generic *screen* profile.  In addition to these generic profiles, you can add additional printer specific, paper specific profiles in the Printer profile folder (/Library/Printers/[Your Printer]/Profiles) and they will show up here too. 
Setting a colorspace in the camera is only going to apply to the JPEG produced by the camera. RAW files do not have an RGB colorspace because they are not RGB files until they are demosaiced and converted to RGB by the RAW conversion software..  If this is done by ACR/LR, then the ProphotoRGB Colorspace is used.  It is the preferred colorspace for all Adobe image processing because the gamut is widest, wider than AdobeRGB which is wider than sRGB. 

Print software that prepares a JPEG for printing on paper will not understand ProPhotoRGB color space and will ignore it.  It may ignore sRGB as well.


----------



## RogerThornhill (Nov 18, 2013)

Thanks a lot Cletus D. Lee for taking the time to clear this up! 

Back to topic, my JPG export problem is still unsolved... So far, the only solution I found to get accurate JPGs of my RAWs is to take a screenshot of the photo displayed in Lightroom's Developing Module. 
But if a screenshot can do the job, an export should be able to achieve the same result...


----------

