Johnmcl7
Distinguished Member
Edit -Unfortunately I can't get the forum software to load most of the images, it seems to be tripping up on the URL and leaving a broken link in its place so I've had to put direct links instead.
I realise this is opening a massive can of worms but it's something that's frustrating me so I'm hoping it's worth asking. The problem I'm having is with a specific camera which is the Sony A9 and Lightroom 6.14 and on some photos the exported jpeg looks pretty hideous. I realise this is partially to be expected because the colour space in Lightroom is different to the export but it's not just the colours are a bit inaccurate, they just look wrong and I've never had this issue with many other cameras. I realise these images will look different on every device but I'm hoping these will show the difference, the bottom left image is the original Lightroom version, the lower right is the soft proofed version to sRGB and the one at the top is how the image looks in Windows Image Viewer with a much brighter fake tan like orange (I realise it's not sharp and there's noticeable motion blur* but it shows the colour issue well):
Curiously when I upload the image to Smugmug, it loses the horrible vibrant orange colour even though it's the same image and looks fine:
But on my phone looking at the Smugmug image, it's the hideous orange, on my PC when I compare AdobeRGB and sRGB processed images they look the same in Windows Image Viewer (both bad), they look different in irfanview (srgb looks bad, AdobeRGB looks good) and they look the same on Smugmug (both good)
Straight out of camera:
This is the image with the default processing options in Lightroom:
Processed with a lens profile, sharpness and shadow/highlight adjustment but no contrast changes:
Fully processed setting contrast to medium, clarity/vibrance to +20 and using sRGB export:
Fully processed using AdobeRGB export:
I was originally thinking I had a setting wrong on the A9 that was clashing on export since it was the only camera I had issues with but I'm now wondering if it's the way I'm processing some of its photos and misusing Lightroom controls because others look fine in their exported jpeg form. Some of the A9 images look flat to me at default which I'm now wondering is why I'm hitting these problems, there were a couple of other images I took today and I also didn't like the exported versions so did them again with no contrast options which leaves them flat but no garish colours.
I guess ultimately my question is should I avoid certain settings to avoid the risk of the colours looking too garish and overprocessed and what options should I use to improve an image like this one? From what I can see I have to export to sRGB because that's the web standard, the camera is set to sRGB (which I assume is for its jpegs) and the raw mode is compressed.
* This was just the first in a comedy of errors and screw ups today.
I realise this is opening a massive can of worms but it's something that's frustrating me so I'm hoping it's worth asking. The problem I'm having is with a specific camera which is the Sony A9 and Lightroom 6.14 and on some photos the exported jpeg looks pretty hideous. I realise this is partially to be expected because the colour space in Lightroom is different to the export but it's not just the colours are a bit inaccurate, they just look wrong and I've never had this issue with many other cameras. I realise these images will look different on every device but I'm hoping these will show the difference, the bottom left image is the original Lightroom version, the lower right is the soft proofed version to sRGB and the one at the top is how the image looks in Windows Image Viewer with a much brighter fake tan like orange (I realise it's not sharp and there's noticeable motion blur* but it shows the colour issue well):

Curiously when I upload the image to Smugmug, it loses the horrible vibrant orange colour even though it's the same image and looks fine:
But on my phone looking at the Smugmug image, it's the hideous orange, on my PC when I compare AdobeRGB and sRGB processed images they look the same in Windows Image Viewer (both bad), they look different in irfanview (srgb looks bad, AdobeRGB looks good) and they look the same on Smugmug (both good)
Straight out of camera:
This is the image with the default processing options in Lightroom:
Processed with a lens profile, sharpness and shadow/highlight adjustment but no contrast changes:
Fully processed setting contrast to medium, clarity/vibrance to +20 and using sRGB export:
Fully processed using AdobeRGB export:
I was originally thinking I had a setting wrong on the A9 that was clashing on export since it was the only camera I had issues with but I'm now wondering if it's the way I'm processing some of its photos and misusing Lightroom controls because others look fine in their exported jpeg form. Some of the A9 images look flat to me at default which I'm now wondering is why I'm hitting these problems, there were a couple of other images I took today and I also didn't like the exported versions so did them again with no contrast options which leaves them flat but no garish colours.
I guess ultimately my question is should I avoid certain settings to avoid the risk of the colours looking too garish and overprocessed and what options should I use to improve an image like this one? From what I can see I have to export to sRGB because that's the web standard, the camera is set to sRGB (which I assume is for its jpegs) and the raw mode is compressed.
* This was just the first in a comedy of errors and screw ups today.
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