Strange color shift in Photos app iPhone X

[mcdj]

In 2014 I traveled to Ireland with a Sony RX1 full frame camera.

I don’t really remember how I got those photos into iCloud, whether it was via exporting jpegs from Lightroom, or by importing the RAWs into my iPad. But they started life as RAWs.

I’ve never noticed it before, but on the iPhone X, for every photo I took with the RX1 on that Ireland trip, the thumbnails and initial unzoomed view seems to be in a different color space than the zoomed view or landscape view.

Before pinching to zoom, or rotating to landscape, the photos look desaturated and less contrasty, almost like CMYK versions of the images, or perhaps untagged RGB.

Upon zooming them a bit, or rotating the phone, the pictures come to life. The colors and contrast are as I intended them to be in processing.

I see it happening on a few other images as well. The common denominator seems to be that the original images either came in as jpegs from Lightroom or as RAWs, shot with full frame cameras like the Sony and a Canon 5D II. I just don’t know which is which.

For some of the images, if I zoom in, the color pops and then stays that way until close the image. Upon tapping the thumbnail again, the colors are back to desaturated until I zoom again.

Seems like something is up with the embedded preview of these photos.

Anyone else seeing this on any iPhone? Could it be an X thing?

Do you see what I’m seeing if you save this image to your camera roll?

 

[DDustiNN]

In 2014 I traveled to Ireland with a Sony RX1 full frame camera.

I don’t really remember how I got those photos into iCloud, whether it was via exporting jpegs from Lightroom, or by importing the RAWs into my iPad. But they started life as RAWs.

I’ve never noticed it before, but on the iPhone X, for every photo I took with the RX1 on that Ireland trip, the thumbnails and initial unzoomed view seems to be in a different color space than the zoomed view or landscape view.

Before pinching to zoom, or rotating to landscape, the photos look desaturated and less contrasty, almost like CMYK versions of the images, or perhaps untagged RGB.

Upon zooming them a bit, or rotating the phone, the pictures come to life. The colors and contrast are as I intended them to be in processing.

I see it happening on a few other images as well. The common denominator seems to be that the original images either came in as jpegs from Lightroom or as RAWs, shot with full frame cameras like the Sony and a Canon 5D II. I just don’t know which is which.

For some of the images, if I zoom in, the color pops and then stays that way until close the image. Upon tapping the thumbnail again, the colors are back to desaturated until I zoom again.

Seems like something is up with the embedded preview of these photos.

Anyone else seeing this on any iPhone? Could it be an X thing?

Do you see what I’m seeing if you save this image to your camera roll?

View attachment 738713

Do you have True Tone enabled? Is it perhaps what I’ve described here?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/true-tone-are-you-using-it.2090699/page-2#post-25514352

That’s the only thing I can think of. I saved your picture and checked it out, and I can’t really see what you’re talking about.

 

[mcdj]

Do you have True Tone enabled? Is it perhaps what I’ve described here?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/true-tone-are-you-using-it.2090699/page-2#post-25514352

That’s the only thing I can think of. I saved your picture and checked it out, and I can’t really see what you’re talking about.

True Tone is off. But thanks.

 

[DDustiNN]

True Tone is off. But thanks.

Will a screen shot capture what you’re talking about? Because for me, the thumbnail and actual photo look the same.

 

[mcdj]

Will a screen shot capture what you’re talking about? Because for me, the thumbnail and actual photo look the same.

Sure enough a screenshot shows it. The top one was unzoomed. The lower one zoomed in a bit. Much snappier red.

And check out the pink wall.

 

[DDustiNN]

Sure enough a screenshot shows it. The top one was unzoomed. The lower one zoomed in a bit. Much snappier red.

View attachment 738716 View attachment 738717

And check out the pink wall.
View attachment 738718
View attachment 738719

Wow I definitely see it, but I can’t seem to duplicate it. When I swipe back and forth on the home bar, between the photos app and Safari, I get a weird blink for a second on the Safari colors, but they don’t change. And I can’t get my photos app to look like the top picture at all, from the thumbnail view nor the full view, and no change before or after a zoom.

I even took a screen shot mid-switch to compare, and it definitely looks more like the bottom. (Had to crop due to upload file size limit.)

Definitely bizarre.
[doublepost=1511843551][/doublepost]Alright here’s another thought...

Are you using iCloud Photo Library? Could it be showing you a compressed version, then automatically downloading the full quality version as needed?

 

[mcdj]

Wow I definitely see it, but I can’t seem to duplicate it. When I swipe back and forth on the home bar, between the photos app and Safari, I get a weird blink for a second on the Safari colors, but they don’t change. And I can’t get my photos app to look like the top picture at all, from the thumbnail view nor the full view, and no change before or after a zoom.

View attachment 738723

I even took a screen shot mid-switch to compare, and it definitely looks more like the bottom. (Had to crop due to upload file size limit.)

Definitely bizarre.
[doublepost=1511843551][/doublepost]Alright here’s another thought...

Are you using iCloud Photo Library? Could it be showing you a compressed version, then automatically downloading the full quality version as needed?

I am using iCloud library, and I have seen the progress circle on some images as they load. But the ones I’ve looked at with this issue seem to be fully cached on my phone. No delay in opening.

I think it definitely has something to do with the embedded jpeg preview created by Lightroom. Either it has a different color tag or no color tag, or Apple is ignoring the tag.

 

[scottchapman]

I have this same issue today! Several photos from certain old Samsung phones (Note 5) and my wedding photos from 2016. They appear in the photos app preview really dark until I zoom on and after a second they look good. Really ruins my memories!

Did you figure out any fix?