John Wheeler
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 p.1 #8 · Color discrepancies from Lightroom to Flickr, Imgur, Windows Photos, firefox, and chrome/brave browsers. | |
BigBabyMoses06 wrote:
Hi friends. Having some color constancy problems. I did upgrade to Win 11 recently, not sure if that's relevant? I've only noticed this after doing so...
1) Main Issue: Light Room Images once exported and opened in windows photos and imgur/flickr all have varying levels of saturation and contrast, compared to LR dev panel. This makes it difficult to post for social media and knowing what are accurate colors. I have ASUS Pro-Art monitors and a Calibrite 123 monitor calibation tool, that's all good to go. The problem is less severe as the crazy color differences between firefox and chome that I found and fixed (shown in second link below), but it's noticeable to me. Am I being too critical?
Here is a clip showing the discrepancy between LR and photos app:
- Windows Photos - Less saturation/contrast than LR.
- Flickr/Imgur using brave/chrome - Less saturation/contrast than LR, but more than windows photos.
- Imgur when using Firefox - Way more sat/cont than LR, by a crazy margin.
- When downloading the imgur and lr photo back to my computer, then viewing them on windows photos, they look 100% identical to each other, and identical to to source image used to upload to those places, but still less sat/cont than photos.
This is important: I compared a set of photos that I took and edited PRIOR to upgrading to windows 11, and I can see no difference between Lightroom, windows photos, flickr, and instagram on brave/chrome browser.
2) Another issue I found and have since fixed: During my research into this problem, I discovered that Firefox has crazy color inconsistencies, and is often very over saturated. The difference between imgur on firefox compared to brave/chrome is insane.
Check out this quick clip see what I'm talking about:
The Fix: You have to change the color management mode and change the number to 1. To do so follow these instructions:
"To change color management in Firefox, type about:config in the address bar, search for gfx.color_management.mode, and change the value to 1"
Appreciate any input anyone has.
-Confused...Show more →
Let me frame this using a couple of basic color-management ideas that help explain all the behaviors you’re seeing.
Think of a color space like a temperature scale.
Different scales (sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto) describe the same colors, but they use different numbers to represent them.
Also, some “scales” are wider than others:
Lightroom uses a very wide gamut working space (similar to ProPhoto)
sRGB is a much smaller gamut
Because wide gamut spaces have to cover more colors using the same 0–255 numbers, they effectively assign smaller numeric values to represent the same visual color compared to sRGB.
What’s happening in your case
Inside Lightroom
You’re viewing in a wide gamut space
On a wide gamut monitor, this allows you to see maximum saturation and color range
This is essentially your “full fidelity” view
Exporting to sRGB
When you convert to sRGB, you are compressing that wider gamut into a smaller one
The most saturated colors simply cannot fit and are reduced
So the image will naturally look less saturated than Lightroom
If the viewing app is color managed (best case)
The app correctly interprets sRGB
It converts from sRGB → your monitor profile
Result: accurate color, but less saturated than Lightroom (because of the sRGB limitation)
If the viewing app is NOT color managed (common issue)
The app just sends the RGB numbers directly to the display
Your wide gamut monitor expects different (smaller) numbers for those colors
So the same sRGB numbers get interpreted as more saturated than intended
This is why sites/apps like Imgur often look overcooked on wide gamut displays
Why older images seem more consistent
If your earlier images were already created/exported in sRGB, then:
The “extra” wide-gamut colors were already gone
Color-managed apps will all show them consistently (just at sRGB saturation levels)
Non-managed apps may still oversaturate slightly, but the effect is often less noticeable
Bottom line
What you’re seeing is the combination of:
Lightroom using a wide gamut space
Exporting to sRGB (smaller gamut)
Whether the viewing app uses color management or not
Those three factors together explain nearly all the differences you’re observing.
Hope this information is helpful
John Wheeler
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