Participant

Question

Illustrator 2026 – Separations Preview not working in CMYK and Spot Colors

Forum|Forum|5 days ago
February 20, 2026
4 replies
57 views

Hello,
I’m experiencing an issue in Illustrator 2026 where Separations Preview does not work in CMYK mode. It doesn’t display individual color separations at all — neither CMYK channels nor PANTONE spot colors.

What’s more confusing is that this also happens with older files that were created in previous versions and used to work correctly. After opening them in Illustrator 2026, Separations Preview still won’t show the individual colors.

Has anyone else encountered this problem, or is it something specific to my setup?
Any insights or workarounds would be appreciated.

Thank you.

HARSHIKA_VERMA

Community Manager

Hi ROLAND_NEMET7899,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry for the trouble. In addition to what our expert has suggested, could you please tell us about your operating system and the version of Illustrator installed on your machine? Have you noticed the issue with this specific version or on previous versions as well?

Is it possible for you to record the issue and share the recording for further investigation? Does that happen with all files or with a specific file?

Thank you for sharing the workaround that worked for you.

We will try our best to investigate the issue.

Thanks,

Harshika

ROLAND_NEMET7899Author

Participant

🔴 FINAL, STABLE SOLUTION (for print production)

I believe I have partially resolved the issue.

Until Adobe fixes this:

Edit > Preferences > Performance

❌ GPU Performance → OFF
❌ Animated Zoom → OFF
❌ Real-Time Drawing and Editing → OFF

👉 This is the ONLY configuration in which Separations Preview works reliably.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Overprint Preview does not use the GPU, all of these things (zoom, real-time editing) are automatically turned off.

creative explorer

Community Expert

@ROLAND_NEMET7899 My first thought was.... is your file have images or spot colors in RGB values? And OverPrint Preview in the panel is selected too?

m

ROLAND_NEMET7899Author

Participant

I mainly work in CMYK color mode on print-ready materials, and I also use PANTONE spot colors quite frequently, defined properly as Spot swatches. This has been my workflow for years, and Separations Preview always worked correctly before, which is why I’m confused about what might be wrong in the newer Illustrator.

I’ve already checked the relevant preferences and settings, including Overprint Preview (both in the menu and in the Separations Preview panel).

One more detail that might be relevant: around November I replaced my graphics card, but I did not reinstall Windows afterward. However, this hasn’t caused any issues with other applications, and Illustrator itself didn’t report any errors related to the GPU or drivers.

That’s why I’m unsure whether this is a system-specific issue or a possible Illustrator 2026 bug.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Do you have Overprint Preview on?

ROLAND_NEMET7899Author

Participant

Yes, Overprint Preview is enabled.
However, when I turn on Separations Preview and toggle the individual colors on and off, nothing changes on screen at all — it’s as if the entire Separations Preview panel isn’t functioning.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

When unexpected things happen restarting your machine and/or resetting Preferences can sometimes help.

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/illustrator/using/video/setting-preferences-video.html

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