# Poor quality exports



## akiratheoni (Aug 17, 2013)

When I export from RAW to JPG, generally the resulting JPG looks 99% the same as the RAW that appears onscreen. But generally the biggest difference is the sharpening done by Lightroom. It's not as defining in the resulting JPG as it is in RAW. I understand that there is compression in JPG, but I exported one of my files to TIFF and I still had some "softness" to the image.
Here's a sample, a screenshot of the RAW and the JPG next to each other (I feel weird uploading it as it's a photo of me testing out my new radio flash triggers/reflector): http://i.imgur.com/Kcv4YSf.jpg
I hope I'm not crazy but the Lightroom preview definitely looks sharper than the JPG in the Windows Photo viewer. I thought it just might be the photo viewer, so I switched to photoshop, but no dice. Same softness. The TIFF also had the softness. And I've turned up the JPG to 100% quality in Lightroom; originally it was 80% but I figured I'd try it out. The 80% and 100% version looked the same.
How can I make the resulting exports closer to the sharpness I see in Lightroom? I have Lightroom 5.0.

Also, I'm not using output sharpness, nor am I using noise reduction, so that bug that was fixed in Lightroom 5.2 RC doesn't apply to me (I also installed Lightroom 5.2 and tried it out to see if I was affected by the bug, but it still resulted in the same softness)
Thanks.


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## sizzlingbadger (Aug 17, 2013)

Are you downsizing the file ?  If so then the loss of sharpening would be expected and can be compensated via output sharpening.


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## Mark Sirota (Aug 17, 2013)

This could also be the known bug in 5.0 that sharpening is not applied if the output is less than 1/3 the size of the original (fixed in 5.2RC). Or it could be that the file was not downsized on export, but was then downsized for display in Windows Photo Viewer.


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## akiratheoni (Aug 17, 2013)

No, I'm exporting at full size. I also viewed the JPGs and TIFFs in Photoshop and I'm still seeing the softness of the images. I suppose it could just have been downsized for display in Windows Photo Viewer but then that would mean the same thing is happening in Photoshop.


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## Mark Sirota (Aug 17, 2013)

I'm out of ideas. The only other one I've got doesn't seem to apply here -- we do see people exporting as Original instead of as JPEG, and being surprised at the results. But in this case you say you're starting with a raw file and that you see the same thing in JPEG or TIFF, so that can't be it.

Can you be more specific about your sharpening and clarity settings? To my eye the left photo is oversharpened and the right is very soft; the difference is so dramatic it seems unlikely to just be output sharpening or just be Develop sharpening, so I'd like to try to narrow it down a bit.


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## akiratheoni (Aug 18, 2013)

Here are the settings I used for that particular photo, turns out I literally just sharpened it and that was it.

http://i.imgur.com/EK1Gtfp.png

Here are my export settings:
http://i.imgur.com/1wNp8d6.png


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## sizzlingbadger (Aug 18, 2013)

and your comparing them at 100% ?  if not then the viewing app is downsizing be that Windows Photo Viewer or Photoshop.


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## akiratheoni (Aug 19, 2013)

Hm, is there another photoviewer that might be able to view it in full quality then? I've been comparing them at 100% and they seem the same but who knows.


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## sizzlingbadger (Aug 19, 2013)

If your comparing at 100% it should be ok. Do you have another camera you can try. Maybe it's a bug/issue with that particular raw file. What camera model is it?


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## akiratheoni (Aug 19, 2013)

No, I just have a Nikon D90 as my only camera. I compared some other RAW files to their exported equivalents and I still see the same softness. :(


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## Replytoken (Aug 20, 2013)

You could try FastStone Image Viewer to compare them.  It will compare the images at the same % and will allow you to zoom in on the exact same location in each image (assuming they are the same size).

--Ken


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## akiratheoni (Aug 20, 2013)

Thanks for the suggestion. 

Well I managed to compare the JPG to the edited RAW in Lightroom with FastStone Image Viewer and they look to be the same (I just screencapped Lightroom's image and compared it to the JPG) at 100% so I guess it really just is Windows Photo Viewer and Photoshop not displaying the RAW file to its fullest.


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