I’ve had this problem before every time I install Rawtherapee,not sure how I fixed it before. But the edited photo is different than the saved photo. I’m enclosing a screenshot as proof they are different. I first uninstalled 5.9 using Revo, then did fresh install without changing anything in preferences of 5.10. Windows 10.
Did you clear the cache by going to Preferences, File Browser and scroll down?
My… What a beautiful image!
That out of the way, the difference you are seeing has to to with working profiles, or color spaces. RT works in ProPhoto, which is a much larger color space than sRGB is, which is what you are most likely exporting to, so the differences in tone and color is because sRGB simply can’t “hold”, for lack of a better term, as much a variety of tone and color as ProPhoto.
This video by @Andy_Astbury1 is a must watch if you want to have a proper understanding of what all this is about.
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Thanks for the replies.
I cleared the cache, no effect.
So how do I save photo so it looks the same as what you see in Raw therapee? I tried playing around with all of the color management options, exporting into all different types, etc etc etc, still Im getting the same dulled out result?
Is your image viewer color managed? What app are you using to view images?
I tried microsoft paint, affinity photo 2, and gimp.
Aside from color management issues, the output image could look different than the preview if you use certain tools that cannot give accurate previews unless viewed at 1:1. Dynamic Range Compression is a good example.
I tried about 150 solutions,none of them worked.
I searched google for similar problems, " preview photo not same as export photo" etc etc etc and tried all the solutions recommended.Nope.
I tried manually installing color management in windows 10 to sRGB, no effect. I tried disable/enable each effect in RT to see if thats the problem, nope. I tried every white balance option in RT, nope.
I’m at a loss as to how to fix this.
Since the difference still occurs when you disable all adjustments, it is likely a color management issue. You can verify by opening the saved image in RawTherapee. It will match the preview. Next you need to determine which program is not properly color managed. For RawTherapee, check your monitor profile. If you have a system-wide profile applied, the monitor profile should be set to the color space the system-wide profile expects. If there is no system-wide profile (which is likely if you don’t know what that is), set the monitor profile to the one for your monitor.
Color Management, as already said:
I downloaded the first pic and brought it into RT set to the embedded profile … good old sRGB:
Then I set working profile to sRGB and output profile to sRGB and saved:
There will whining about not using Prophoto, the above might work with it, I didn’t try.
Main point being that if the embedded and the output profiles are the same then what comes out should be what went in, eh?
.pp3 to show that I made no adjustments …
side.pp3 (11.9 KB)
“I tried manually installing color management in windows 10 to sRGB, no effect.”
“(which is likely if you don’t know what that is), set the monitor profile to the one for your monitor.”
“Main point being that if the embedded and the output profiles are the same then what comes out should be what went in, eh?”
I tried what you did, but came out with different result, sorry, but thanks for trying.
I noticed tho if I import original photo into Affinity Photo 2, then convert to different color profile, then export, then reimport into Affinity photo 2, it looks the same…but every different export imports with different color scheme into Raw therapee?
Anyways, Im not going to waste any more time on this, sorry.
Since the preview doesn’t match the output when you set the correct monitor profile, that means the preview is correct and your other applications are not properly color managed. If you don’t care about proper color management but still want consistency between the preview and what other applications show, you can easily do that by going through the various profiles for the monitor profile. Most likely sRGB will be the one that gives you a match. If not, it should only take a minute to try all the profiles and compare the preview with the exported image. Select the first profile in the list (None), then repeatedly press the down button on your keyboard to go to the next profiles.
If you want to display your images on anything other than your monitor, then I strongly suggest you make sure all your photo editing applications are color managed.