Why do my photos look fine in Lightroom but show sharpening halos after I upload them to my website?
Asked 2/29/2012
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2 answers
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My photos look good in Lightroom and Photoshop CS5, but after I upload them to my website they show obvious halos/ghosting around subjects. I tried exporting in both sRGB and Adobe RGB (1998), but the uploaded versions still look flat and over-sharpened. What causes this, and how can I prevent it?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
1
It doesn't solely depend on the source image quality when you're uploading your photo to a website. The website does some sampling, even may convert the image to some other format for better web usability. I am not sure which service you're using for your website or if it is a custom development or not.
For example, flickr, 500px etc handles photos way better than facebook does. No matter how good quality picture you upload, they will apply their own predefined modifications to it.
Originally by user2476. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user2476
14y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is usually caused by the website, not Lightroom or Photoshop.
Many websites and gallery systems automatically process uploaded images: they may resize them, recompress them to smaller JPEGs, convert color space, and sometimes apply extra sharpening. That combination can create visible halos and make the image look flatter than your original.
A few practical fixes:
- Export for web in sRGB. It’s the safest color space for browsers.
- If your site software has image-processing options, disable auto sharpening or other enhancement features.
- If the site always resizes/recompresses images, try uploading files already prepared at the exact display size so its processing is minimized.
- Reduce your own sharpening for web exports if the host adds sharpening on top.
- If you can’t control the site’s processing, consider using different gallery software or a hosting service that preserves image quality better.
In short: the halos are most likely from the site’s automatic resizing/compression/sharpening pipeline, and sRGB is the correct export space for web use.
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