Lightroom Darkening RAW Image

Hi there! I was wondering if there are any underwater photographers here that could help me out. I have a Nikon D810 that I am shooting underwater with 2 Ikelite DS-160 strobes and every time I take a photo it looks like it is perfectly exposed on the LCD screen of the camera. But when I check the histogram it looks underexposed. And then when I import the photos into Lightroom at first they look properly exposed, but the after the photo renders it is dark and underexposed. Does anyone know why this is happening? How can I make it so my preview photo will look the same as the RAW image once it has rendered? Thanks!

The preview on the LCD Underwater is not to be trusted as the bright screen is even brighter underwater where the light is reduced. Looking at the Histogram view is a better option than the preview for exposure judging. The preview is good for Sharpness and composition but not exposure.

In Lightroom, once the image renders it will show more of a true capture. The Previews are generated by Adobe standard calibration controls not the cameras controls so they look a little different than the actual RAW file from the camera.

Said differently: Lightroom processes photos from lots of different sources (your camera or mine) and that generation is using Adobes software, not your camera's preview software. Different color controls and settings/methods cause the differences in look (brightness). 

Hi Angelina, here are a few things you can try:

1. In Lightroom, set the “Profile” (which by default is set to “Adobe Color”) to the same profile you are using in-camera. For example, if you are using the “Standard” picture control in-camera, then go into the profile browser in Lightroom and select the “Camera Standard” profile within the “Camera Matching” section. While you’re at it, make sure any settings in Lightroom that can affect brightness (exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, curves, etc) are set to zero. Afterwards, save the settings as the default Lightroom settings for your D810 files.

2. In the camera menu, make sure “Active D-Lighting” is turned off.

3. In the camera menu, make sure “Monitor Brightness” is set to the default (0).

It is not a problem if Lightroom renders the photo darker. What is happening is that the JPG Preview (which is embedded in the RAW file) created by the camera with adjustments like Active-D-Lighting, etc (as mentioned previously) is tossed out in favor of the unprocessed RAW image.

You need to make some of those same changes now to the RAW image.  If you are not familiar with editing in LR, just hit the Auto button to start. (Develop Mode / Basic Panel) This will balance the image based on the histogram, which is a good start most of the time. It's a lot like what the in-camera JPG D-Lighting does. It almost always makes an underwater image too bright, but you can then pull down the brightness to where it needs to be.  

If it's under exposed on the histogram, it's under exposed and a good first step would be to get set so that you expose the image properly, sure you can boost brightness in LR, but it's better to get it right or at least a lot closer to right to start with.

Searching around it appears that this is a common complaint on Nikon cameras and the LCD is generally too bright.

I would suggest using the histogram to set your exposure and no doubt this will require pumping up the flash output, Once you get a good exposure if you want the LCD to be something close, reduce the LCD brightness in the camera menu to get it so the picture looks reasonable.  It needs to have good enough contrast and brightness to judge composition and basic sharpness. 

Now for lightroom behaviour - would you say that the view on the camera LCD screen is close to to the preview you see in Lightroom?

Thank you for all your responses!  So I went through my Lightroom settings I don't have any preset on import.  But I did follow Isaac's advice and changed my import settings so that Lightroom will import with my Camera RAW settings and not the Adobe Default settings.  But I am still seeing the same problem.  My LCD on my camera is set to 0 monitor brightness.  

When I am shooting I have my “Active D-Lighting” set to high.  Is that a problem for underwater?

To answer your question Chris, yes the view on the camera LCD screen is close to to the preview I see in Lightroom.  

I took a screen capture to show you what is happening with my images in Lightroom.  You can follow the link below.

https://we.tl/t-vRSpUXLtSI

Hi Angelina, looking at those pics I think the first problem is that many  are just straight out underexposed.  What I'm seeing is the thumbnail still looks dark , then a preview loads - when it's loading you see no histogram, then it drops in brightness a  bit.  The histogram shows and it's jammed up against the LHS with the shadows all blocked up for many of the shots.

The well exposed pics for example the turtles do the same but it's less dramatic there and in fact improves the image.  You can see the pic is well exposed with a nice histogram.

The bumphead Parrot fish on the other hand is dark and gets quite a bit darker once rendered - I'm assuming that one also looked dark on the camera LCD?

While you can probably recover the dark shots, it would be much better to get the exposure right to begin with.

As to why the brightness changes, Lightroom has a smaller file it loads quickly then it renders the file based upon presets.  I believe LR can use either the embedded jpeg, which is what the camera uses to display on the LCD or LR will generate a preview on its own.  The in camera jpeg can be misleading and is generally low quality so probably best to not use it.  This thread discusses:  https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4345658

What settings are you using when shooting - for example what is SS/fstop/ISO on the parrot fish vs the soft coral image (NEF0547)?  What about strobes - on manual?

As for Active-D I'm not a Nikon shooter, but based on what I read I'd turn it off for example the sunball on the parrot fish has very much the look of an auto corrected picture to hold detail in the highlight. 

3 hours ago, AngelinaP said:

  

When I am shooting I have my “Active D-Lighting” set to high.  Is that a problem for underwater?

 

The Active D-Lighting only applies to JPG images. If you shoot RAW a version of the Jpg gets embedded in the Raw file.  When you load the Raw into Lightroom it tosses out the brighter jpg preview that was tweaked by D-Lighting.  So now it's up to you to adjust your image to your liking. That is the trade off for shooting Raw.

If you don't want this behavior then just shoot JPG.

Many people prefer to do their own adjustment to the Raw image as you get more data and fidelity than Jpg allows.

Okay thanks for your help everyone!  I've turned off Active D-Lighting and I'll just look at the histrogram more closely when shooting.  

Chris strobes are on manual power.  I know the parrotfish one is underexposed I was just using it as an example for the video. 

23 minutes ago, AngelinaP said:

Okay thanks for your help everyone!  I've turned off Active D-Lighting and I'll just look at the histrogram more closely when shooting.  

Chris strobes are on manual power.  I know the parrotfish one is underexposed I was just using it as an example for the video. 

Hi Angelina, It's hard to tell exactly what's happening remotely so there's always extra questions and comments.  But the embedded jpeg is influenced by lots of settings in camera and seems to me to be the root of the problems.  It appears that Lightroom is using this for the initial preview, which is apparently the default now in Lightroom. If you change the setting in the import dialog that should help as well, but it will slow down ingestion as it generates all the preview files on the way in.   Using the embeded jpeg is meant to allow a fast ingestion and quick look.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the thumbnail and preview to match the initial rendering of the image though,   I use Capture one and there is no mismatch - the image just opens and also matches the thumbnail - no initial view followed by rendered view when the image comes in.  This occurs because of the way Lightroom handles the preview.

Having active d-lighting set to high was likely part of the problem. It underexposes the image at the point of capture and then applies some post processing to lighten shadows and midtones in an attempt to increase dynamic range. However, as the lightening part is done post-capture, it is only retained by jpg files. If you are shooting raw, active d-lighting will be underexposing your raw files, but you won’t notice it until you view the images in Lightroom since the in-camera image and histogram are based on the lightened jpg image. So if you’re shooting raw, turning active d-lighting off will make the in-camera images (and Lightroom preview images) a closer match to the raw images.

It’s unclear to me if you understood what I meant by matching the camera profile. It sounds to me like you might have done something else? Do you know what your in-camera “Picture Control” is set to? And in Lightroom do you have the “Profile” (within the “Camera Calibration” panel) set to the profile that matches your in-camera “Picture Control”? If those two settings match and all other Lightroom exposure/contrast settings are set to zero, your Lightroom image should be a fairly close match to your in-camera image (assuming active d-lighting was turned off and you haven't altered the in-camera brightness/contrast settings).

One other setting that could be at play here is “Vignette Control”. If it’s turned on the camera could be lightening the edges of the frame for the in-camera image but not the raw image (unless you have lens corrections turned on by default in Lightroom).

Hi Isaac okay thanks I have turned off active-d lighting so that should help.  Also my picture control is set to standard on my Nikon.  But in Lightroom the profile is Adobe Color which is the default.  You're saying I should switch my profile to standard in Lightroom?  

What about the other profiles like Landscape and Vivid do you ever use those when shooting underwater?

On my camera my Vignette control is on normal.  Should I turn it off?  I do not have lens correction turned on by default in Lightroom

1 hour ago, AngelinaP said:

 

What about the other profiles like Landscape and Vivid do you ever use those when shooting underwater?

Hi Angelina,  the main function for profiles in camera is for jpeg images - they do however change how the embedded jpeg looks so potentially contribute to the mismatch issue you see if the chosen profile is not the same both in camera and in lightroom.

If you prefer the look of those profiles there's no reason not to use them as long as the same one is set in both camera and lightroom.

Hi Angelina. Which picture profile you select in-camera is basically just a personal preference of how you want your images to look when reviewing them in-camera. If you don’t have a preference, I would recommend sticking with “Standard”.

Since your goal here is for your raw images to be a closer match to how your images looked in-camera (and by extension to how the jpg embedded in the raw files looks in Lightroom before the raw file is rendered), yes, you should change the profile in Lightroom from “Adobe Color” to “Camera Standard”. And after you change it you should save the change as part of Lightroom’s default settings for D800 files. I can’t give you exact instructions on how to do that since I use Adobe Camera Raw instead of Lightroom (same tools but different workspace), but it will be easy to look up.

And yes, you should turn off “Vignette Control” in-camera as well if you want as close a match as possible.

I think you are now on track to fixing this issue and having confidence that what you’re seeing on your LCD screen when you’re shooting will be very similar to what you see when you open up your images in Lightroom.

Thank you Chris & Isaac I just took some test shots and the preview is very close to what I see in Lightroom now.  Thanks so much!

That's great Angelina! Happy to have been able to help!

6 hours ago, AngelinaP said:

Thank you Chris & Isaac I just took some test shots and the preview is very close to what I see in Lightroom now.  Thanks so much!

glad we could sort you out!  hopefully it's made your processing easier.