Lightroom desaturation issues

smash

Has anyone found a solution to this problem? For those who don't know what I'm talking about... If I take a RAW photo with bright colours and good depth to the scene I import it to Lightroom and it looks fine for about 3 seconds, then lightroom adjusts it and desaturates it.

It's really annoying me now because I can never get the colours back to how they should be!

Paulw

You might want to join the Adobe support forum and you can ask there. You might have better luck getting a correct answer.

smash

I've tried but nobody seems to know... I just can't get my head around how Adobe can create an application especially for photographers, and then have it not interprete RAW files correctly!

Paulw

Well, I'm not sure about that.

Lightroom works brilliantly for me, and I don't have an issue with saturation/colour. To me, it seems that it does process my raw files correctly.

Maybe you should remove/uninstall the raw plugin, and then download and reinstall the latest version? Maybe something is corrupt?

AllMyOwnTeeth

Chances are it's a contrast issue. What type of RAW files are you producing? What you are witnessing is Lightroom rendering the preview image - takes a second or so after each image is imported. To counter act it applying its default Camera Raw settings you can create a preset which you can apply when importing.

To see if you can get your images back to the way you like them I'd recommend you take a look at a couple of different areas

1. Try using the Auto button (Under the histogram in the develop module) - this might bring the data back inline with what your camera is capturing (I personally think this button is the spawn of satan but it might prove a useful starting point). You can try tweaking the Blacks, Contrast and Brightness here also.

2. Tone curve (in the develop module). Try tweaking that or changing the point curve being used (typically it defaults to Medium for Raw files).

3. Go to the HSL / Color / Grayscale Section (again in the Develop module). Click on Color. Here you get very precise control over the colours in your image - experiment to your hearts content. Remember there's a History panel (bottom left handside of the screen - in develop) which will allow you to roll back easily.

When you find a combination you like try creating a Preset (click on the + Icon on the Presets panel) and check the items that you changed. Again this will take some experimenting as some changes that you make may suit some images over others (White balance and Exposure for instance are probably best determined and applied image by image). When you have a preset that you like and find that it works well with your images then you're set when importing new stuff - on the Import screen just select this preset from the Develop Settings drop down and you're set.

I hope this helps.

smash

there's loads of threads about it, like http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00Mn2n or http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc48913

I've tried loads of different things but it still happens, I'll have to just keep trying I presume.

bovril

I've seen something like this before specifically with images I have taken with custom white balance settings. I think it might be something to do with the white balance. Absolutely no idea how to fix it though, I always alter the images quite a bit to get them how I want them.

AllMyOwnTeeth

Just as a matter of interest - what camera are you using?

smash

Canon 5D, always shoot in RAW with manual settings.

Covey

Have you set your camera to high saturation or a custom setting that contains high saturation ?

GristlyEnd

I have this problem with my NEF files. What I do now is convert to TIFF and use them in lightroom.

Fajitas!

It sounds like one of a few things:

Colour spaces. What colour space is your camera using, and what colour space is Lightroom using?

Camera Presets VS Lightroom's Preset. While shooting RAW means you can change everything afterwards, you can still apply what Canon call Styles, playin with the contrast et al in camera. When you upload to Lightroom, it has it's own preset which can overright these.

See if either of those are causing the trouble, and come back and let me know!

shepthedog

Its sounds like you have a Pre-set applied in lightroom, so that when you import it automatically makes the changes.. Remove your pre-sets and try that..

DjDangerousDave

As mentioned above, try changing your coulor space to AdobeRGB on the camera.

nilhg

steve06 wrote: »

Has anyone found a solution to this problem? For those who don't know what I'm talking about... If I take a RAW photo with bright colours and good depth to the scene I import it to Lightroom and it looks fine for about 3 seconds, then lightroom adjusts it and desaturates it.

It's really annoying me now because I can never get the colours back to how they should be!

I've seen complaints like this before, my understanding is that what you initally see is a preview jpeg which is built in to the RAW, its what the camera uses to display the image on its screen, once the image reappears its LR's interpetation of the image based on the develop preset selected at import.

smash

I'll try adjusting setting, but it's really annoying as photoshop never does this when I import RAW

nilhg

steve06 wrote: »

I'll try adjusting setting, but it's really annoying as photoshop never does this when I import RAW

The settings in ACR are the same as LR, it uses exactly the same engine.

smash

ok, well I don't remember ever having this issue with photoshop

CabanSail

I had this problem too ......

It bugged the crap out of me for a few days too.

Let me open LR so I can remember what I did to solve it.

CabanSail

OK - The problem that I had, which sounds very similar to that the OP has, was to do with settings in "Quick Development" under the "Library" tab.

If you have one of the "Creative" settings selected then LR will process all the imported RAW images to that setting. Reset it to Default.

Let me know if that sorts the problem.

FreeAnd..

Is what you're seeing not supposed to happen? As stated earlier, what shows up for a few seconds is the jpeg i.e. as you saw it on the camer however the raw in Lightroom has all that stripped away and you will have to re-do it manually...thats what happens with Raw, or so I always assumed...I would have always like to keep the image exactl as i seen it in the camera but just assumed everything was working as supposed to because i was working in raw as apposed to jpeg...

If there is a way to keep the camera settings (i.e. what gets displayed on the screen) and have them applied to the raw that gets imported to LR I would like to hear it...I can never get mine exactly the same but i put it down to having a sh*t monitor...

eas

Not sure if the below applies to Canon, but....

In camera settings are not applied to the raw file itself. It gets stored as metadata in a sidecar file. At the moment (has been this way since I started using Nikon digital) Nikon do not share the method to decode the metadata with other software developers. Hence, when you open a .NEF file in lightroom, you are getting 100% unprocessed data. AFAIK, only Nikon RAW converters can take a NEF from camera and display it as it looked on your camera LCD.

I have a pre-set in "camera calibration" (bottom tab in the develop menu) that gives me a good starting point with my Nikon RAW files, but no where near as nice as if I opened one in Capture NX


sorry, just read the original post again - I guess what I've written above may have nothing to do with your question - maybe the camera calibration bit)

Roen

FreeAnd.. wrote: »

Is what you're seeing not supposed to happen? As stated earlier, what shows up for a few seconds is the jpeg i.e. as you saw it on the camer however the raw in Lightroom has all that stripped away and you will have to re-do it manually...thats what happens with Raw, or so I always assumed...I would have always like to keep the image exactl as i seen it in the camera but just assumed everything was working as supposed to because i was working in raw as apposed to jpeg...

What that man said. It's just rendering the embedded jpeg. Then a sec later the plain old raw.

If there is a way to keep the camera settings (i.e. what gets displayed on the screen) and have them applied to the raw that gets imported to LR I would like to hear it...I can never get mine exactly the same but i put it down to having a sh*t monitor...

On Canon, RIT will do that for you.