Luminar and other Skylum products show colours incorrectly
Answered
Dear Skylum
You have great software and it is getting better and better, but you are failing in one of the most basic aspects of photo editing:
Luminar for Windows does not display colours correctly. None of the versions up to know have done this correctly. Even though images viewed and edited in Luminar may look great inside the program, as soon as they are exported to print or to email or to view in any other software, the colours are not the same as displayed in Luminar (therefore other software display images much closer to the accepted industry standard).
This is the most basic of functions a photo editing program should have!!! WHY ARE YOU KEEP ON IGNORING THIS??? It is completely unnecessary!!!
Because of this ERROR (yes, this really is an error...), anyone that takes their photos seriously needs to view and correct it further in another programs like Photoshop, Lightroom or Topaz, etc, before printing or sharing.
Again, why are you ignoring this issue???? I really love to completely stop using Photoshop and only focus on using Luminar and Aurora, but this most basic of errors in your software prevents me (and all other serious users of your software...) from doing so.
An honest reply will be most welcome please.
Kind regards.
Wynand du Plessis
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I see the same thing on my Windows 10 PC. Viewing the photos in the catalogue window, the colours seem fine but when I open up a photo for editing, the colours change to a very warm profile, even with the Luminar Looks panel turned off. I do not see this change in colour profiles in any other editing or photo viewing app. Even Microsoft Photos app does a far better job with the colours.
Is this an issue where the catalogue shows the JPEG and the edit is working on the RAW image and the different colour profiles between the two? How can we ensure that Luminar uses the same profile for all images, RAW or JPEG?
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I have extra news on this. This might be a Windows color management thing, I have discovered that some other raw processors and apps exhibit the same behavior, while others don't.
Out of the ones I have, Darkroom and Affinity Photo DO exhibit this behavior while Rawtherapee and FastStone DON'T:
I am now working with the dev team (thank you so much for the fast responses guys!!), I have sent them a screen vidcap of various apps in action.
I will update our findings here, maybe they could help some of you folks.
Cheers,
Mihai
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Luminar and Aurora are using sRGB colour space as the only option in their software (direct communication with Anna of Skylum Support Team). This is sort of acceptable if images ONLY are used on computers / internet / mobile devices.
However, most photographers and digital artists that place value on their images use camera and software setup with Adobe RGB because of its wider gamut than sRGB and it is the de facto standard in the industry, and completely necessary for printing. The most basic camera, monitor and software setup is to start with a colour space that will allows as much as possible uses. By starting with sRGB you are limiting your options down the line.
Skylum chooses NOT to use Adobe RGB as their standard, thereby degrading their very potent and innovative software to amateur level.
It would be rather nice to get a clear answer from Skylum why they choose this path...
Suggestion: Why does Skylum not add an option that users can choose the colour space when opening an image, and include sRGB and Adobe RGB. Even better would be if you make the gigantic step to include image editing in CMYK mode as well (Photoshop and all other software still rather fail at properly optimizing images for print in the cmyk colour space).
Regards.
Wynand
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Hello everyone,
I am experiencing exactly the same issue: Luminar is not showing me the end result. What I export is not what I see. What I see in the edit mode is an extremely warm color cast. What I see in the crop tool is the correct color. Same with the output. But I obviously cannot work if i don't see the final colors.
Here's a couple of screen shots showing a clear b+w image as soon as i click on the raw file on the left image column. After a few seconds (processing) i get a very warm cast image. Is it some sort of automatic camera profile applied?
I'd like to make it very very clear that the result of this is pure b+w, no sepia or warm monochrome here, simply zero saturation. The image I see in the crop tool and the image exported are both correct: b+w, but the edit / develop panel is simply wrong:
It's clearly showing a b+w image with en extreme warm color cast.
I am running on latest Luminar 3, Win 10 64bit and factory calibrated ViewSonic 4k monitor dedicated to colour correction.
I shoot a Sony a7r3 (ARW + JPG).
Like all the users here, the images look right in all other apps.
I simply love Luminar's develop mode, you guys have so many lovely filters and tools and looks and what not. Basically you are great! But the fact that you let color management get in the way of your brilliant software is simply puzzling. I have read these forums extensively in the past week (getting frustrated that I basically cannot use the software -- I even pre-purchased Luminar 4 and a bunch of look packages) and you seem to keep ignoring all these users that mention this show stopper: colour management!
Skylum, you make amazing software, please don't let a "simple", modern and extremely necessary feature like this ruin your reputation. Please listen to your users, we all love you, clearly, since we are spending so many hours here and trying to make things work. We all chose you over the other developers, please chose us as well.
All the best,
Mihai
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Referring to the original post in this series, Luminar and Aurora are using sRGB colour space as the only option in their software (direct communication with Anna of Skylum Support Team). When I used the suggestions from Anna, therefore changing my Windows system colour space to sRGB as well as doing that in Adobe Bridge and Photoshop, then opening an real sRGB image in Luminar and exporting it, it DOES look the same between these applications.
BUT, what I said already above, no serious photographer doing image printing/publishing would want to do this. You do not start off with a small colour space in professional image processing, but rather with a wide colour space like ProPhoto or Adobe RGB 1998.
THEREFORE, my suggestion is still as before that Skylum add an option that users can choose the colour space when opening an image into Luminar, and includes sRGB, Adobe RGB and ProPhoto. This will only be meaningful when Luminar then uses that chosen colour space (and don't "adapt" the imported image to a smaller colour space so that the slider effects on an image look more dramatic than it really is on a wider colour space...).
Still have not heard any commons from Luminar on this issue... Maybe it is because they hate Windows & Photoshop (who does not - at least partly...), and do not really want to address the issue...
Regards.
Wynand
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More news, I managed to make Luminar "work", but I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing. Here you can see Luminar and Rawtherapee displaying the correct colors, while Darktable and Affinity Photo are still "busted":
I did the following:
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Open colorcpl.
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Find your affected monitor in the top drop-down list.
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Uncheck "Use my settings for this device", if not already so.
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Click on Advanced tab.
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Click on "Change System Default" button. A new "System Defaults" window will show up. Note that this requires admin privilege. If you don't have admin privilege, let me know and I'll give you further steps on how to workaround the issue.
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Find your affected display on the top drop-down, if you have multiple monitors hooked up.
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Select the currently associated profiles. Mine was "ViewSonic VP2768-4K". (In most likelihood, there'll only be one profile.)
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Press "Remove". Note that this will only disassociate the profile from your display, not permanently remove it. (So you can still get back to the original state if you want to later on in time.)
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Go to Advanced Tab.
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Uncheck "Use Windows display calibration."
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Close both colorcpl windows.
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Reboot.
In the end my color management window looks like this:
Let me know what you think.
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Those who are using DELL XPS 15 OLED with Cinema color - i think this solution should work - it worked for me. (i found it myself - not because skylum support helped there - the steps they suggested does not work simply)
Change the settings as follow: Go to Color Management -> Advanced -> click Change system default -> click Add -> and select and add profile "sRGB IEC1966-2.1" -> don't check the box "Add as advanced color"
Now close this advance (system default) tab and go back to ->device-> and check the box "use my settings for this device" ( by now the default A029 profile should disappear and actual screen should look like this.
If this setting don't work - then repeat the above steps carefully with 1 extra step ( check the box "add as advanced color")
And don't forget to restart the laptop after the setting.
Thanks
Gajender Verma
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Hi, have a look at this post I posted early on in the discussions which summarizes the real problem behind Luminar / Aurora, which is that their colour management system only works if you change the colour management of your operating system and all relevant applications to sRGB
( https://community.skylum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360048326272/comments/360006762731 ).
No serious photographer or artist would want to do that, therefore they are obviously only interested to please the uninformed crowds that only uses Instagram or the like...
This is so totally unneccessary dear Skylum...
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Hi Kate
I did now contact support as you suggested including the treat to this post and added a screenshot.
However, I am now seriously worried about Skylum. Do they not understand the problem or do they not want to understand it??!! Many people over the last years have mention the problem as well.
Do they not understand that if they do not change their "colour management" system so to be the same as the industry standard, serious photographers and digital artist will not keep on using Skylum because people always have to go to another software as well to do the final checking before actually using/printing/posting an image ???!!!
Skylum is ruining their reputation with professional photographers/artist by not changing to the industry standard image display methods/ colour management.
Regards.
Wynand
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Hi Andrew
Looks like Skylum is repeating the same steps (see further up) and avoids answering the question why they choose not to adapt the industry standard colour space for professional software, which is Adobe RGB 1998.
If they give users the option to choose the colour space (like many software / apps are doing), it would be best, and then professional photographers will take them serious again...
Good luck!
Wynand
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Hi, Andrew,
As a long time user of different colour managed photo editors, I can assure you that Luminar respects the colour space of sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB embedded in your photo.
The colour difference I believe you are seeing in your comparison above, is that it's Windows 'PHOTOS' that isn't colour managed, and therefore is not showing the correct rendition.
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It is rubbish being talked, I’m aware Windows applications do not colour manage. I’m aware Firefox needs setting up for it to colour manage the images I see online. PS & LR are set up as Pro Photo. JPEG images after export do so in sRGB, for online viewing. TIFF files are saved as Pro Photo. Images when edited without Luminar between LR and PS show no difference when exporting between each application, but when Luminar is added to the mix, they look noticeably different. So when I’ve edited an image in LR, then export to Luminar the image looks noticeably different? Why is that? When I followed the procedure that I was asked to follow by support, why is it they could not resolve it? My screen is calibrated with Color Munki Display, using DisplayCal.
I’m not viewing these differences between LR, PS. Only when viewed within Luminar, therefore there must be an issue with it.
Thanks for your response btw I appreciate it.
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Hallo,
i have for a long time the same problem. When i work my images in Luminar, i must to return in Lightroom for adjusting some colors. I really like Luminar, and i use it with great pleasure,but i think there's a touble with color management.
I use Windows 10
monitor calibrated with Datacolor Spyder 3 elite
Regards
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Are there any news concerning Luminars ability to work with different ICC-profiles? Luminar 4 behaves just like L3.
Joris Mak once described it perfectly -> https://community.skylum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360043531972/comments/360006049612
I don't understand why Luminar offers AdobeRGB and ProPhoto for export on windows. Makes absolutely no sense as it doesn't understand those color spaces. L4 exports files flagged with AdobeRGB but in reality it's just sRGB marked as...
How could it do different while you have to use sRGB color space with your display?!
I had to disable my display profile adjusted by my Spyder 3 Pro.
They clearly took a rest on the Mac OS integrated color management.
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Hi Everyone,
Please contact us via http://www.skylum.com/support and we'll be glad to assist you in a more effective way.
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A big facepalm and a huge thank you to the Skylum tech team, they have been so helpful and responsive!All I needed to do was to set the Color Profile to System Default sRGB in the Advanced Section of Color Management:
Here's Luminar, Darktable, Rawtherapee and Affinity Photo showing correct colors for the same raw ARW file:
Thank you Skylum! -
I feel like I may be onto something here for both Aurora 2019 and Luminar 3. If I export the image in sRGB, it always looks wrong. If I export the image in Adobe, and then open it with Windows 10 photo viewer or with chrome, everything looks fine. I've never thought to try exporting in adobe prior to this.
When I open the file, one thing that I notice is that "Color Representation" is blank. When using other software, the image exports with a Color Representation listed, such as sRGB. Thoughts??
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Hi, I have contacted you on the support for the same issue. The image show different color in default window app but when opened in Luminar - the color gets warm in 2 sec time. Again, when the photo is opened in crop mode - the color changes back to same as window display. My system is windows 10 running on DELL XPS 15 OLED.
This back and forth fluctuation in the color create hurdle in working on edits with true color. Here is the image.
Left is Luminar pic (no change applied) , right is window app display and bottom is my color management profile.
You can clearly see the sea water color is different. Please suggest some fix.
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Hello Skylum support. I have the entire Skylum array of software and for the most part do like using it. With the latest updates to Luminar 4 my portraits are so easy and look great......until I export them back into Photoshop to finish.....and the colors are no where near the same. \What are you planning to do to correct this? SRGB is not acceptable for pro work and printing and until you fix this issue in your software it is useless and I could never recommend it to anyone.
A response to this issue would be great. This thread is full of people with the same issue and not one response from you has addressed the problem. You ask for screen shots of monitor color management and the monitor isn't the problem. The problem is that Luminar is only good for using online or viewing on a computer display.
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Hi Mike,
Luminar 4 is color-managed. It means that Luminar 4 interprets, which color profile is selected on your OS and adjusts to it.
Please choose these settings in Photoshop and see if the issue with non-matching colors is resolved:
- View > Proof Colors (it should be ticked)
- Proof Setup > Monitor RGB
If the issue persists, please get in touch with our support team via https://skylum.com/support
In your request, please provide us with the following information:
- Press the Windows logo key + R.
- Type colorcpl in the dialog box that opens and press Enter on your keyboard.
- Make a screenshot of the window that opens and send it to us.
If you have more than one display, select each display you use in the Device dropdown and send us screenshots for each display.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Stay safe and healthy.
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It's not just colors. I'm working on some old scanned images where the detail in the sky is completely lost. I used sky replacement to add some subtle sky detail. In the application it looks great. As soon as it's exported it looks completely different. Look at the sky in the first snip, which is from the application, and compare it to the 2nd exported snip. That's pretty disappointing.
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David are you comparing Apples with Apples? In other words, is the exported copy the same resolution as the original?
If I take a RAW image or high res TIFF and export it as a compressed JPG then unless my JPG is a not compressed very much I will see differences. That is why when I send files to my printing company to print 18"x12" prints I send them 5-10Mb files. Anything less than 2Mb and I start to see a difference in the finished product.
The first thing I would do to that sky is reduce sharpening and maybe reduce noise.
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Alfred, the original file is a high resolution jpg scan of an old picture so it's quite large. Luminar will import it just fine, but when trying to export it will not let you export at original resolution so it had to be reduced slightly (there are red boxes around dimensions and the export button is disabled). That is another problem, but not my primary concern. So yes, it's jpg to jpg...apples to apples.
The snips you see above are not the original files. I just used the windows snipping tool to grab a sample so illustrate the difference in what you see in the product vs what you get when you export. It's not related to sharpening or noise reduction...it's just a severe degradation of quality on export.
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