Yellow colors look dull on export, driving me crazy, need help

Question

When I export a photo from lightroom to JPEG with a sRGB color space I see huge differences in mainly the yellow colors.
The sRGB photo has washed out yellows which is a huge difference to the develop version.
I have a very basic understanding of color management and Lightroom and understand the theory of color spaces and that there will always be differences in color because of the conversion from Lightroom (Prophoto with sRGB tonecurve) to sRGB.
But what I dont understand is that my yellows in the exported sRGB colorspace look far more washed out and ugly then similair photos I find on the net. (which are also in sRGB color space)
Take for example the picture below, which has rich yellow colors in my browser (Firefox4):
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsmagic/379546943/sizes/l/in/photostream/
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/druclimb/459126182/sizes/z/in/photostream/
If I compare that to my exported picture (with very high saturated colors in lightroom) I see a huge difference in the yellow color:
- http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2hfooc4&s=7
What is confusing for me is that when I open the Flickr pictures locally in Photosop I see that the yellow get washed out there aswell (probably because PS is color managed).
So I thought maybe it is the webbrowser  (Firefox 4) which wrongly displays the photos, but then again, why do my photos look so washed out in Firefox4 and the other sRGB flickr pictures not, they also have a sRGB profile... (Firefox4 should be color managed.)
In no way I can replicate those strong yellow colors using Lightroom on export. (IN Lightroom they look just fine)
- My display is color calibrated using a spyder3 pro.(I don't have a wide gamut lcd)
-I am using Lightroom 3.3 for editing and using export from RAW to full JPEG in sRGB color space.

Answer 1

Jao vdL wrote:
So that explains why the images with no tags look different, Firefox does not apply a color management for them, and my monitor profile is giving me stronger yellows.
This would imply that the icc profile gets stripped somewhere. That is not normal. Lightroom ALWAYS includes an icc profile on export. Are you using an export action somewhere in the chain perhaps? Or are you routing through Photoshop and doing a "save for web" with the icc option unchecked? Flickr does not strip the icc profile, so it should be getting stripped somewhere on your end. I'd second the recommendation to upload an original here somewhere.
The ICC profile is present at my export from Lightroom, I was referring to the Flickr examples (not my images).
Since they seem to have no ICC profile it explains the difference in color between Firefox and viewed in Photoshop.  I (wrongly) compared my images to those pictures because I was thinking they had stronger yellows AND a sRGB profile.
Jao vdL wrote:
Probably on your monitor, the string yellow you are targeting is already
out of monitor gamut even in sRGB space. You can check this by
exporting your image to sRGB, opening it up in Photoshop (should look
the same as in Lightroom) and soft proofing with gamut warning for your
monitor profile. To do this go into the view menu, select Proof setup
and select custom. Select your monitor profile in "device to simulate"
and make sure "preserve RGB Numbers" is unchecked. Hit OK and then in
the View menu select "Gamut warning". Your yellow area will likely turn
grey meaning that the color is outside your monitor gamut but inside
sRGB. Repeat this with a adobeRGB or ppRGB export. It is unfortunate
that Lightroom doesn't have any native softproofing yet as that would
allow you to softproof for different color spaces in the app itself
instead of having to go to Photoshop.
I tried the soft proofing with gamut warning, there is no warning for the yellow colors when using my monitor profile. (only in the dark green parts)
The option "preserve RGB Numbers" deselected gave me the same image as soft proofing disabled. But enabling the very same option caused it to display the exact strong yellow as I see in Lightroom. What does this mean??
Secondly I compared my display profile to the sRGB profile gamut in a  trial of Gamutvision, the profile from Spyder3 seems to be larger yellow/red side:
(wireframe is monitor profile, solid is sRGB)
Does this mean that my calibration is not correctly done, or is my screen indeed better in the display of yellows/reds (which I highly doubt..)
Jao vdL wrote:
 I would check the settings on the monitor and make sure you have none of
the autoadjusting or "Magic" options turned on. Recalibrate if it turns
out you do.
I checked all my menu options, all settings should be on default, my RGB values are 50, 50, 50.
b_gossweiler wrote:
I use Exiftool together with ExiftoolGUI to analyze metadata in images. You can also use Jeffrey Friedls EXIF viewer web GUI to achieve similar analysis.
Thanks, I was looking for a tool like that!
b_gossweiler wrote:
To look at your issue a little close, could you upload an original problem image and its exported sRGB version to the web somewhere (i.e. www.yousendit.com) and post a link to it here? Export the original as DNG so we can have a look at the "real thing".
Here is the original image (DNG) and exported JPEG with sRGB profile (17,3MB):
http://rapidshare.com/#!download|79l3|456640762|_MG_8329.zip|17352
What I see in Lightroom develop compared to the JPEG in Photoshop/Lightroom:
Reds and greens are the same.
The yellow tulip is more saturated in the original image, and washed out in the JPEG.
Exporting the image as Protophoto RGB or Adobe RGB gives me back the stronger yellow in the JPEG
Exporting the image and opening in Photoshop with soft proofing to my monitor profile (preserve RGB number ON) gives me back the stronger yellow.
Mark