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Inspiring
July 21, 2026
Question

Expoted file does not have the right CMYK color

  • July 21, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 35 views

Hi there,

I am new to Color Space so this might be an easy question for expert…

I am trying to export a document with CMYK color, but the exported file does not have the right code. I looked through bunch of websites, and I think I have the right settings, but it’s still not working, so any help would be appreciated.

Under File → Document Color Mode, it is set to CYMK Color.

The file tab shows CMYK as expected:

Then, I draw a black line with the following CMYK value

Illustrator draws a line as expected and using the Color Picker tool from PowerToy, it also shows correct value.
 

After reading some documentation, it seems that TIFF and PDF file format supports CMYK, so first I exported in in TIFF format.
 

As you can see, it’s slightly off. Then I exported to PDF file and did the same thing:
 

Not only that, these two black are different either.

I played with a few other settings, but nothing seems to be working. So now I am not sure what to do. If anyone is expert in this area, could you spot and see what I am doing wrong. 

 

If any expert can chime in here and provide some insights, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you.

    3 replies

    Ton Frederiks
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 23, 2026

    @JollyPanda Another thing to look at: what is the CMYK ICC profile of your file and is it saved with the export?

    Ton Frederiks
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 21, 2026

    @JollyPanda You said you were using the Color Picker tool from PowerToy.  Color Picker is a PowerToys utility for Windows that lets you pick colors from any screen, which means that a conversion from RGB values must take place to get CMYK values.

    Community Expert
    July 23, 2026

    Yeah, I wouldn’t be using a third party color picker utility to sample colors in a document. For an exported TIFF image, I would trust number values better by opening the TIFF in Photoshop and using the eyedropper tool there.

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 21, 2026

    When exporting your TIF and PDF, do you change the color mode?

    How do you measure the color in the TIF or PDF?

    If you are using Acrobat for the PDF, is the color profile set up correctly?