Colors are looking better in PM than in LR

[rbuchner]

HI,
My pictures are just fine in PM, the background has a nice warm looking (tungsten), but when I view it in LR those warm tones get a ugly greenish tones, specially on blond hair.

For a moment, LR shows a good color, but right after it it "corrects" itself giving me this ugly color...

I know theres something to do with color management, but what to do in order to synch colors in both softwares?

Thanks!

Ricardo

[Kirk Baker]

Ricardo,

My pictures are just fine in PM, the background has a nice warm looking (tungsten), but when I view it in LR those warm tones get a ugly greenish tones, specially on blond hair.

For a moment, LR shows a good color, but right after it it "corrects" itself giving me this ugly color...

I know theres something to do with color management, but what to do in order to synch colors in both softwares?

It may not be a color management problem at all but a difference in how the images are rendered.  Lightroom is using its own RAW rendering and PM would be by default, using the embedded JPEG preview that was generated at the time the image was taken.

-Kirk

[rbuchner]

Thanks!

Is there a way (in color management) that I can match in LR exactly the color as seen in PM?

Ricardo

[Kirk Baker]

Ricardo,

Thanks!

Is there a way (in color management) that I can match in LR exactly the color as seen in PM?

You'd have to ask either Adobe, or a Lightroom user.

-Kirk

[FVlcek]

Simply put, PM is not a RAW converter. It either uses the camera-generated jpeg which is embedded in all RAW photos by default, or (on Mac OS X) it can use Apple's rendering of the RAW photo (which is quite different from both Adobe's and the camera makers'). Unless camera makers agree to some common file format for RAW files, there is not exactly much to do as RAW files are by definition "raw" and "uncooked" (i.e. "digital negative", like with film) and it's up to the software to display them as the software sees fit. But if you are using Adobe products with either Nikon or Canon RAW files, you can get a much better rendition of the RAW files when you install the new Adobe colour profiles which should better match the intent of the camera maker. See http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/DNG_Profiles , and then set Photoshop/Lightroom to use your preferred profile (e.g. I use Canon, and have set Adobe to use Camera Faithful as the profile). This should give you a good starting point so your RAW files have colours more similar to those intended by the camera maker, as well as similar to the embedded JPEG (if you set the same colour "profile" in your camera). If this is too much information, I really suggest some more reading about RAW format and colour management. Basically, RAW can look anything you want, but these new profiles from Adobe tell their software to look at the photos in a way that more resembles what the camera maker had in mind, and also resembles more the inside JPEG preview file most RAW files have embedded right from the camera.

Hope this helps, Frantisek. Feel free to ask more

[thermarest]

I'm guessing you're shooting Canon? Its a familiar problem that I haven't seen/found a solution to. Adobe renders certain scenes in a very unpleasing way just as you describe. I've fiddled with all the LR settings and can't force Adobe to match Canon's in-camera jpeg. The dng profiles haven't helped much. Using Canon's DPP will get you the result you want converted into TIFFs or JPEGs. I am loathe to do that myself, because I'm a DNG fan.

[rbuchner]

Hi!

Sorry for the long delay in reply, Im back.

Thanks for all the input.

I just installed the profiles you told about, and I noticed theres some options to chose (acr 4.4 or 4.3, different D2X profiles, etc...)
Im nikon, so I work with D300, D200 and D80... Theres no profiles for these cameras... so which one should I choose?

Thanks!