Colors are appearing lighter than they should

Question

Something is going on with the colors in my Illustrator document. Please help. I have been Googling and tweaking settings for hours.

You can see in the color picker than I've chosen a dark gray. However, the actual color in the document appears shades ligher than it should.

I've also noticed in the fill/stroke selection box in the tool bar, that there appears to be a semi-transparent white box over the stroke (possibly the fill as well?)

I have already:
- checked the Color Settings (under Edit Menu) against other documents and it matches (with a caveat, screenshot posted below)
- confirmed the Document Color Settings
- closed the file and reopened it
- closed Illustrator and reopened
- copied everything into a brand new document

When I copy something from another document into this one with the color problems, I get a warning that could indicate what's happening.

Any ideas on how to fix?

li260977 · Accepted Answer

Did you turn on the Profile Mismatch options in your Color Settings?

You should get a Paste Profile Mismatch dialog as well as options when you open your problem document.

Just did it.

Thanks so much for this suggestion. It didn't fix my current document, but I was at least able to copy & paste everything into a new document, then choose "Don't Convert" and have everything appear correctly.

Ton Frederiks · Answer

It may be useful to turn on all warnings for color management policies in your Color Settings, it will present you with choices during opening and pasting.

What is the current document color profile of your problem document?

You can check it at the bottom of your document window:

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