When I open screenshots in illustrator, the colors don't match

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
October 5, 2020
3 replies
1809 views

I'm trying to get to the bottom of why my screenshots when opened in illustrator lose their colors. They appear dull. My color settingt in Illustrator are RGB/ North American General Purpose 2. My screen display is Adobe RGB (1998). I tried to export the screenshot as a png and that made no difference. I never had this issue until OS Catalina. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

How to

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Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

To make it a little more complicated, Illustrator makes a mess of png files with color profiles.

It does not recognize them when opening the png and assumes that they have the profile of your RGB working space. If they are different (as I assume in your case) you will get the wrong color. If they are the same, you're lucky.

It is best not to use png files in Illustrator, but to resave them as psd (jpeg or tiff is also possible if there is no transparency) with embedded profile.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

If your Color Settings are North American General Purpose 2, your RGB Working space is sRGB.

If your monitor is set up as Adobe RGB, your will have the choice between keeping the numbers or the appearance when you paste an Adobe RGB screenshot in an sRGB document.

Keep the numbers and they will look duller. Convert and they will look better.

You may want to setup your Color Settings in such a way that you will get warnings when there is a mismatch between your document and the file you paste or open.

S

Sheela5ECEAuthor

Participant