Inspiring

Answered

Illustrator & InDesign - colors are off

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 17, 2018
4 replies
23228 views

Hi all - question on color:

I've recently noticed something in my Adobe software that's been giving me some grief. In both Illustrator and InDesign, I get colors showing up oversaturated and a little overbright. Photoshop however, doesn't seem to be having this issue. It also doesn't seem to show the colors wrong in the thumbnails - even from within Ai and InD, on the home screens - only in the workspace. I can't place when this started happening, but it's not always been this way (probably the past couple months or so, max). For example, my company's color is sort of a tomato, orangey-red (#D24727) (similar to the main color of Microsoft Office), but when used in Illustrator or InDesign, it shows up as full-on RED. Like fire-engine, cherry, candy-apple red. Pretty different from what it should be. In Photoshop though, it looks correct. In Ai & InD, I've tried adjusting the view, and basic things like that, but have avoided actual color profiles/settings because I've heard they are very hard to fix and not really to be messed with unless you are well versed in it, which I'm not. And it's not a RGB vs CMYK thing - that was one of the first things I checked. Anyway, it's not normally been like this until recently. Makes me wonder if I accidentally set something wrong somewhere, although if this were the case, I likely would have had to do it in both programs, correct? I've been looking online, trying to find a reason for this issue, but alas, nothing. Can anyone help? Any ideas? Considering that it regards my company's color, it's a pretty big deal. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Ben

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer benji-the-great

UPDATE: I called Adobe Help last week, and they escalated the issue. They've since released an update and my colors now look better than ever across the board - InD, Ai & Ps all look exaclty the same now. It was clearly a bug issue but is now fixed. Just thought I'd share - Thanks!

benji-the-greatAuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

UPDATE: I called Adobe Help last week, and they escalated the issue. They've since released an update and my colors now look better than ever across the board - InD, Ai & Ps all look exaclty the same now. It was clearly a bug issue but is now fixed. Just thought I'd share - Thanks!

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

And what was the bug that was resolved?

benji-the-greatAuthor

Inspiring

Not sure exactly - something to do with colors not displaying correctly on some machines.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Colours specified in hex would, surely, be affected by the transparency blend space if they need to be blended.

I guess my question to the original poster is: do you see this effect on a brand new AI or ID file, with nothing else on the page? Or only on existing files?

L

Lee_SK

Known Participant

i bet PS is the one off. I had a similar issue sometime ago. As said most probably its different color profiles.

You can try to find out the culprit in a non scientific way but its not ideal.

Start by taking the same image, and export/save it as a jpg from all 3 apps (save them different filenames)

then open all 3 jpgs and see if they exported all the same. Ideally you view the jpg in a couple of different viewers. If you're using PC use the default windows viewer and maybe a browser like firefox or chrome. If the 3 jpgs match up between themselves, compare which app loads the original artwork in the same looks as the jpg. The one off would be the one that would need tweaking in settings.

Obviously there's a ton of more variables that might be causing the issues.

Sometimes even a simple gpu/cpu preview might change the shades a bit. Also cmyk/rgb document settings.

In photoshop you can enable the option to prompt you about color profile mismatch, you might want to enable that to see if you're loading an image which is not matching to its settings.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Lee8x schrieb
Start by taking the same image, and export/save it as a jpg from all 3 apps (save them different filenames)
then open all 3 jpgs and see if they exported all the same. Ideally you view the jpg in a couple of different viewers.

What do you hope to find out by doing that?

L

Lee_SK

Known Participant

cause you can embed color profiles in jpg aswell upon exportation.

if all the apps are using the same color profiles settings between each other they should be exported all the same.

if they export all the same but the app shows it differently then exported you can deduct which one is off

I had an instance where photoshop was showing a drawing in a way but when exported it was coming out a bit darker

Monika Gause

Community Expert

So it's the colors in your files?

Check color management settings.

benji-the-greatAuthor

Inspiring

Yes, using the same color hex in Ai/InD & Ps shows differently.

Do you mean the Color Settings? I'm not too familiar with that area. Do you have any specific suggestions? I've heard that changes there can be hard to fix.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

You will need to learn color management and set it up to your needs, which vary depending on your region and depending on what media you're creating for.

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