All photos in Aperture are much darker than in other applications.

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Level 1

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All photos in Aperture are much darker than in other applications.

The same problem is with Preview and Photos (El Capitan). All my images corrected in Photoshop, Affinity Photo or Lightroom are well displayed in other applications like Pages, Numbers, Safari, Motion, InDesign, Illustrator, etc. Only in Aperture, Preview and Photos they look much darker (increased contrast).

When I press Space for a quick preview (in Finder), I see an image which seems to be OK. It looks like in Photoshop. But then, when I zoom in that picture, suddenly it changes and looks darker.

It's odd. Now, I don't know which version is correct.

Histogram in Photos is exactly the same as in Photoshop. I have calibrated Eizo ColorEdge monitor with Mac Pro.

This problem doesn't appear on MacBook Pro with Yosemite.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Posted on Dec 19, 2015 11:34 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

200,699 points

Dec 19, 2015 11:42 AM in response to jarola

Are your images RAW files? Then check, if you are using in-camera settings, that underexpose the photos:

If you are using in-camera settings like Canon's Highlight Tone Priority and Nikon's Active D-Lighting, your RAW photos will appear under exposed in Aperture, but the thumbnails, when the photos first are imported will show the correct exposure. That is typical for Aperture's RAW processing, it ignores the camera settings.

Have a look at Keith Barkley's user tip:

The Big Three: Setting your camera for the best Aperture RAW results

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Answer 2

jarola Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 19, 2015 2:57 PM in response to léonie

This problem is independent of file format and camera type.

I took a screenshot.

On the left - Photoshop.

On the right - Aperture.

At the same time, on the same screen. The same file. The same image (jpg). Completely without any corrections.

Differences are mainly in shadows and blacks.

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Answer 3

Dec 20, 2015 5:32 PM in response to jarola

I'm experiencing the exact same issues. All of my pictures in Aperture have crushed shadows. Whether it's RAW, Jpeg, PSD or Tiff files, Preview and Adobe Camera Raw/Photoshop have no problems with showing correct shadow details which can be clearly distinguished on my hardware calibrated rMBP and external monitors. It looks as if Aperture is not properly 'communicating' with ColorSync, or more precisely, as if the color profile Aperture assigns to a 'previewed' picture requires black point compensation. Also, Aperture is assigning Adobe RGB to the thumbnails and previews it creates from the original RAW files (verified by inspecting the files in the Thumbnails and Previews folders within the ApertureLibrary folder structure). Wasn't Aperture supposed to pick a proprietary wide(er)-gamut profile for its internal rendering? Furthermore, screen-proofing seems completely broken. Turning screen-proofing on makes the pictures look darker with posterised colors, regardless of the chosen profile.

I do not remember whether the issue has appeared for the first time since the most recent digital raw compatibility update.

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