I’ve just noticed that there is a difference between how images are displayed in PL and when they are exported. See the attached screenshot comparing the PL display with Photoshop and Preview. A second screenshot shows the comparison between the raw file with no corrections and the jpg I exported before. A third screenshot shows the same comparison, but this time with the Classic (Legacy) colour space. Now they look the same.
So my question is: why use DxO Wide Gamut if the exported files always seem to have more saturation? Wouldn’t it be better to use Classic so that my edits are the same as the exported file?
The display isn’t calibrated. I have a Retina MacBook with an sRGB IEC61966-2.1 colour profile.
But does it matter? Images that look different side by side on an uncalibrated screen will still look different side by side on a calibrated screen.
I also noticed that when using the Classic (Legacy) colour space, the sky looks similar but the brightness of the sea is different. Using Wide Gamut, the sky and sea are equally muted compared to the exported image.
Either way, the exported image looks different from the PL display.
For the record. I tried this with Photoshop and the colours in the image displayed in Photoshop are identical to the exported image.
From your observation, it’s apparent that your monitor is capable of rendering better-than-sRGB-color-gamut … Probably, it’s close to being capable of rendering the AdobeRGB color gamut.
So, when viewing your image within PL without Soft-Proofing activated, you are seeing your image with the full/unrestricted capability of your monitor (better than sRGB).
Then, when you export to disk, presumably, via the ICC-Profile = sRGB, you are instructing PL to “squeeze” all the color & detail described in its Wide Color Gamut down to what can be reflected by the sRGB gamut … which is the “correct” action to take when the targets for viewing your image are social media, and screens of friends and family, etc
With the result that when you then display the exported image on your monitor, it does not look exactly the same as it did within PL.
The solution to this - so that What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) - is to have Soft Proofing activated … with its ICC Profile setting the same as you intend to use for export-to-disk (most likely, = sRGB).
You could simply use the Classic/Legacy color gamut (which, actually, is AdobeRGB) - BUT, by doing so, you would not be benefitting from advantage in allowing PL to work with much greater degrees of internal accuracy - which is what Wide Gamut enables.
For more detail on the workings and benefits of DxO Wide Gamut - see here.
