I really don’t understand how I could avoid seeing this before.

Just now, I looked at some photos in LightRoom, and I flipped between the Develop and the Library module. The colors changed!!! aaaaah. This should be a color managed app. What is happening???

The reason is of course how Library and Develop handles sharpen settings when showing images in less than 1:1. For some reason, Adobe has decided not to preview the sharpening in Develop when you’re not zoomed in to 1:1. They say it isn’t accurate anyway due to the low resolution of the computer screen. In the Library module on the other hand, the image shown is a rendered jpg version, baked with sharpening and all. If I zoom in to 1:1, the images are exactly the same.

So, how do I handle this?? I guess about the same way I handle color mismatch in PHotoshop at odd zoom levels. Did you know that?? If you have a layered photoshop file and show it at, say 33% zoom, the colors may be way off (wrote about it back here). This is not real, just a symptom of the fast, but inaccurate resize algorithm used for the screen. The solution is to zoom in to 1:1 or flatten the image. 

Moral:  Never do critical color adjustments without double checking at 1:1 zoom level.