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Archive 2014 · LR exports look soft. Please help.

  
 
RogerC11
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Whenever I export my photos after editing them, the exported jpeg looks soft and doesn't match what the file looks like in LR after I have processed them. I'm using LR5 and exporting as jpeg with no image resizing or output sharpening applied. Can someone please point me in the right direction?


Jul 19, 2014 at 06:35 PM
howardm4
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


what sub-version of LR5 are you using? There was an issue w/ early versions of LR5 that exported images didn't apply sharpening. Make sure you're up to date w/ LR5.5


Jul 19, 2014 at 07:32 PM
RogerC11
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Currently using 5.4. Will update to 5.5 and try again.


Jul 19, 2014 at 07:58 PM
RogerC11
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Updated to 5.5. Same result. Soft export.


Jul 19, 2014 at 08:46 PM
Lars Johnsson
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Do you sharpen it when export ?


Jul 20, 2014 at 06:09 AM
pr4photos
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Did you sharpen it in the develop module? If not, they will be soft!


Jul 20, 2014 at 06:47 AM
RogerC11
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


pr4photos wrote:
Did you sharpen it in the develop module? If not, they will be soft!


Yes I did. I used the adjustment brush and sharpened to 100.



Jul 20, 2014 at 07:56 AM
Alan321
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Do the exported files have the same pixel resolution ?
Have the fine details been compressed into oblivion ?
Have you made the exports for emailing, or similar low-grade purpose ?
Are you viewing them or printing them at the original size ?
Are you viewing them with Lr, or something else ?
If not Lr, is the other program applying its own default settinngs ?

- Alan



Jul 20, 2014 at 08:04 AM
RogerC11
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Alan321 wrote:
Do the exported files have the same pixel resolution ?
Have the fine details been compressed into oblivion ?
Have you made the exports for emailing, or similar low-grade purpose ?
Are you viewing them or printing them at the original size ?
Are you viewing them with Lr, or something else ?
If not Lr, is the other program applying its own default settinngs ?

- Alan


1. it's set to 300ppi
2. I have exported as jpg and tiff files…both look exactly the same but the tiff files are much larger in size
3. exporting without any of those presets selected but the image quality set to 100
4. viewing them as the exported jpeg on mac. LR on my PC never did this.
5. viewing them with LR and comparing with the exported jpeg saved to the folder on the mac desktop.
6. Not that I am aware of.



Jul 20, 2014 at 08:22 AM
mogud
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


I use Jeffrey Freidl's plugins to export to jpegs from Lr. I agree that Lr export can export somewhat soft jpegs.

Edited on Jul 21, 2014 at 04:46 AM · View previous versions



Jul 20, 2014 at 12:19 PM
Eyeball
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Are you absolutely sure you are not down-sampling (reducing the pixel dimensions of the exported image)?

I know you said initially that you weren't re-sizing but everything you are describing, including being on a Mac, sounds like the classic response of someone who has a Retina screen and is comparing a down-sampled version to the original, hi-res version.



Jul 20, 2014 at 03:15 PM
hugowolf
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


RogerC11 wrote:
1. it's set to 300ppi


It is really immaterial what the resolution field is set to. What matters is that the pixel dimensions should not be restricted. You can set the resolution to 360 ppi, 100 ppi, or even 50 ppi, it will have absolutely no effect on the image, except that the Exif resolution field will contain a different value.

In the Image Sizing block of the Export dialog, just make sure that Resize to Fit is unchecked.

Brian A




Jul 20, 2014 at 03:57 PM
RogerC11
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


hugowolf wrote:
It is really immaterial what the resolution field is set to. What matters is that the pixel dimensions should not be restricted. You can set the resolution to 360 ppi, 100 ppi, or even 50 ppi, it will have absolutely no effect on the image, except that the Exif resolution field will contain a different value.

In the Image Sizing block of the Export dialog, just make sure that Resize to Fit is unchecked.

Brian A



It is unchecked.



Jul 20, 2014 at 04:06 PM
hugowolf
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


RogerC11 wrote:
It is unchecked.


And the Limit File Size box in the File Settings block, that is also unchecked?

Brian A



Jul 20, 2014 at 05:42 PM
Alan321
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Just to clarify things a little more, try exporting the image from Lr but use the options to put the exported image into the same folder as the original, and add it to the catalog, and stack it with the original. When Lr gets warns of a duplicate file name tell it to make them different. Then you'll be using the same program to view each image and will be able to tell us whether or not the exported image looks the same as the original in the same environment. Looking at the exported image with Finder does not count

If they look different in Lr then use the <i> key to display the pixel size of each one.

Both the same resolution but still look different in Lr ? Then I'm running low on ideas but I wonder if the exported image has a different colourspace and the conversion has trashed some details.

Different resolution ? Then something has happened in your export process.

Only look different between the Lr view and the Finder view ? Then I wonder if Finder is processing the image differently by enlarging it to compensate for the retina-grade screen resolution.

If you use Finder to view both the exported copy and the original do they look the same as each other ?

Do they both look different to how Lr shows them ?

Do Finder and Lr display the images at the same physical size on the same screen ? i.e. are you forcing one application to shrink the image to fit a smaller window and thus make it look sharper than the other ?

- Alan



Jul 21, 2014 at 08:40 AM
Alan321
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Perfectly clear now, Roger; a classic case of apples and oranges. Lr is displaying one image while Preview is displaying the other one. They may be using different colour spaces but ought to be using the same colour profile. A colour space difference could account for different tonal levels at certain values and hence affect the apparent sharpness in some areas.

Try importing the exported jpg file back into Lr and see how sharp it looks compared with the original image in Lr.

Make sure that the file exported from Lr was assigned a suitable colourspace (e.g. sRGB) and do a soft-proofing preview of the original one in Lr with the preview set to sRGB. By default, Lr will be using an enormous ProPhoto colour space that can't fit smoothly into the 8-bit-per-channel data limits of a jpeg file. sRGB is a better match for jpegs. AdobeRGB is probably ok too.


Also make sure that you actually exported the processed file from Lr and not a copy of the original unprocessed file. That sort of error would easily account for lack of sharpening and so on in Preview.

- Alan



Jul 24, 2014 at 11:56 AM
RogerC11
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Alan321 wrote:
Also make sure that you actually exported the processed file from Lr and not a copy of the original unprocessed file. That sort of error would easily account for lack of sharpening and so on in Preview.

- Alan


I am exporting in srgb color space, but how am I sure that I am not exporting the original unprocessed file? I usually just right click the photo after I'm finished processing and click the export option. Is this not the right way to export?



Jul 24, 2014 at 05:27 PM
RogerC11
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


Could this be an issue with Olympus files? I have just exported a could of files from my Canon 70d in the same way and the processed files in the jpeg preview look exactly like the processed LR files shown in the develop module. Strange that the problem shows up only on my Olympus files.


Jul 26, 2014 at 10:36 AM
Eyeball
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


I've been following the thread and I am pretty stumped.

While your screen shot has been down-sampled, it does appear that the exported image is softer / has less detail than the original and that is something that really shouldn't be impacted by color space. Just to be absolutely sure and to remove an extra variable, I would suggest comparing both the original and exported images inside Lightroom instead of using another viewer.

There was a bug in earlier versions that would would not apply sharpening correctly on export under certain conditions but that should be fixed in 5.4 and above.

I suggest calling Adobe or posting the problem on Adobe's Lightroom forum. I suggest including 100% crops of the same area of detail from the two files and explain from the start exactly what Export options you are using.



Jul 26, 2014 at 11:16 AM
Alan321
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · LR exports look soft. Please help.


RogerC11 wrote:
I am exporting in srgb color space, but how am I sure that I am not exporting the original unprocessed file? I usually just right click the photo after I'm finished processing and click the export option. Is this not the right way to export?


It is the right way. I was confusing myself with file options for Edit In... instead of Export. Sorry. Export always takes the current edited version.



Jul 29, 2014 at 01:36 PM
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