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Michaela Jung
Michaela Jung
Participating Frequently
June 27, 2021
Question

Color variance between creative cloud and Adobe Color

  • June 27, 2021
  • 5 replies
  • 1522 views

Hi!

 

I have a problem: When I find a color on the Adobe Color Website and I write down the CMYK-Code and use it in e.g. Illustrator, then the colors vary greatly (on the same Monitor!). 
When I make a snapshot from Illustrator and open it with my browser, it looks exaktly like in Illustrator. Therefore I think the problem lies not with the browser (and I tried with google chrome and iexplorer 7), and on smartphone it also looks quite similar to Illustrator. And even when I try Adobe color on my smartphone, it's still the same as on Adobe Color.

 

Has anybody an explanation / a solution?

 

(I think, that the illustrator color is correct, as they correlate with other (non-adobe) programs.)

 

I hope you understand my problem. I also attach a foto from the color difference:
both CMYK 75,100,0,0;

the violet is from illustrator, the blue from adobe color

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    5 replies

    rob day
    Community Expert
    rob dayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 30, 2021

    If you want to color manage Adobe Color Themes set the theme’s editing color space to Lab at color.adobe.com and the color appearance will match when the theme is viewed in a CC app:

     

     

    Then you can make a color managed conversion from Lab to CMYK in a CC app maintaining the color appearance and getting the correct color values for the document’s assigned CMYK profile. Here I’ve added my Lab theme to InDesign’s Swatches panel where I can make the color managed conversions via Swatch Options:

     

     

    You can choose where to make the conversion—the Lab swatch can be directly converted, the conversion can happen on export by setting the Export>Output>Destination profile, or, if you trust your printer’s color management capabilities, it can happen in the RIP.

    Bob_Hallam
    Bob_Hallam
    Legend
    June 30, 2021

    To add to the above.  If using Lab color use 16 bit Lab to convert from not 8bit.  Then there will be fewer artifacts and color shifting.  

    ICC programmer and developer, Photographer, artist and color management expert, Print standards and process expert.
    rob day
    Community Expert
    rob dayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 30, 2021

    Hi Bob, I think the Lab values coming from color.adobe.com would have to be 8-bit—there’s no CSS or HTML color property for increasing or setting bit-depth for an HTML page’s color. There’s also no option for converting native InDesign or Illustrator swatches to 16-bit—I guess you could bring the AdobeColor Lab value into Photoshop and upsample to 16-bit before making the conversion, but there wouldn’t be artifacts created when converting a single color value.

     

    The Intent and Black Point Compensation you choose for the conversion would affect color shifting—Relative Colorimetric typically does the best job in maintaining color appearance. For native color or swatch conversions InDesign and Illustrator use the current Color Settings’ Intent and BPC for a conversion via Swatch Options or the Color panel

    Bob_Hallam
    Bob_Hallam
    Legend
    June 27, 2021

    The CMYK values in Adobe Coolor are not based on any profile, or standard space and are worthless for use.  

    ICC programmer and developer, Photographer, artist and color management expert, Print standards and process expert.
    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    June 27, 2021

    Adobe Color is just wrong. There is no CMYK profile shown, it is astonishing Adobe would allow such a poor service.

     

    CMYK colours can only be judged on paper under final print conditions, or in a color managed app like Illustrator. NEVER open or display CMYK files in a browser, or on a phone. Or any other non colour managed app - 99% will get it wrong, and leave you with a bad impression.

    Michaela Jung
    Michaela JungAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 27, 2021

    Ohhhh, thats a pity 😞

     

    Thank you very much for your help! 

    I guess I have to invest in a pantone color-guide and a calibrated monitor 😞

     

    Greets, Michaela

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    June 27, 2021

    Pantone colour guides are great except for one thing: they include CMYK numbers. You should ignore this, just as you should ignore the values from Adobe Color. It is vital to forget the idea that any set of CMYK number is "standard".

     

    Pantone deleted the CMYK numbers from their guides a few years back, which was the right thing to do. But their customers demanded they put it back because they had built worlds on this bad info, and didn't want to learn how to do it right... 

    Michaela Jung
    Michaela JungAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 27, 2021

    sorry, I wrote wrong: I think the Illustrator is wrong. 

    Michaela Jung
    Michaela JungAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 27, 2021

    Thanks a lot!

    Greets, Michaela

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