Colors do not match between all software

Question

Before, any image I import into a software or shape I create in a software looked relatively the same across all Adobe software. Starting last week, software that defaulted to CMYK (Illustrator, InDesign) started looking darker and duller than RGB default software and the Windows 10 image viewer. I assumed this was because they were in CMYK documents, but even when creating a document in RGB for Illustrator or InDesign, the colors would be washed out.

Now, as of this morning, all my Adobe software are displaying different colors.

Here is a JPG of a blue color:

Here's the same JPG imported into InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects:

I checked the color settings in Adobe Bridge, and they're allegedly all syncrhonized:

Changing to Monitor Color and hitting Apply doesn't seem to change anything.

What I want is for all the software to display the same color, preferably in RGB since I work in web and not print.

NB, colourmanagement · Accepted Answer

1: Windows Photos has no colour management, so you should not expect accuracy from it, nor use it as a reference for appearance

2: Applications can respond differently to a broken display profile.

So that could be the issue:

Windows display profile

Display profile issues on Windows

At least once a week on this forum we read about this, or very similar issues of appearance differing between applications.

Unfortunately, with Microsoft hardware: Windows updates, Graphics Card updates and Display manufacturers have a frustratingly growing reputation for installing useless (corrupted) monitor display profiles.

I CAN happen with Macs but with far less likleyhood, it seems.

The issue can affect different applications in different ways, some not at all, some very badly.

The poor monitor display profile issue is hidden by some applications, specifically those that do not use colour management, such as Microsoft Windows "Photos".

Photoshop is correct, it’s the industry standard for viewing images, in my experience it's revealing an issue with the Monitor Display profile rather that causing it. Whatever you do, don't ignore it. As the issue isn’t caused by Photoshop, don’t change your Photoshop ‘color settings’ to try fix it.

To find out if the monitor display profile is the issue, I recommend you to try setting the monitor profile for your own monitor display under “Device” in your Windows ‘color management’ control panel to sRGB temporarily. You can ADD sRGB if its not already listed.

And be sure to check “Use my settings for this device”.

(OR, if you have a wide gamut monitor display (check the spec online) it’s better to try Adobe RGB here instead).

Quit and relaunch Photoshop after the control panel change, to ensure the new settings are applied.

If this change fixes the issue, it is recommended that you should now calibrate and profile the monitor properly using a calibration sensor like i1display pro, which will create and install it's own custom monitor profile. The software should install it’s profile correctly so there should be no need to manual set the control panel once you are doing this right.

Depending on the characteristics of your monitor display and your requirements, using sRGB or Adobe RGB here may be good enough - but custom calibration is a superior approach.

Still got problems?

If you want to rule out man an issue we see with Photoshop, you can reset preferences:

To reset the preferences in Photoshop:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html

Note: Make sure that you back up all your custom presets, brushes & actions before restoring Photoshop's preferences. Migrate presets, actions, and settings

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

Per Berntsen · Answer

Everything Neil wrote above is correct.But the # after RGB/8 in Photoshop indicates that the jpg is untagged (it doesn't have a color profile), which makes color management impossible.  It's possible that you also have a defective monitor profile, but you should never work with untagged files.When creating new files in Photoshop, always assign a color profile.

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