Image appears lighter when exported to PDF

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
October 10, 2022
2 replies
1602 views

Hello,

I am formatting some packaging for a product, and as part of the design, I have picked the solid colour background of one of the images to use as the background for the whole packaging.

Working in InDesign, the image looks great, and the colours match perfectly. However, upon export, the image seems to lighten, and the background colours no longer match.

My working space is set to Adobe 1998. I am exporting using the stardard "High Quality Print" setting.

This issue does not occur when I embed the 1998 profile, but this is not an option, as our printer handles the colour management.

I have attached an image, the blues should be the same!

Thanks for your help!

This topic has been closed for replies.

rob day

Community Expert

This issue does not occur when I embed the 1998 profile, but this is not an option, as our printer handles the colour management.

Hi @Thomas25142036z9uf , How is your printer going to color manage the output without the source color profiles? They will need the RGB images to be profiled in order to make the conversions to their print CMYK space.

T

Thomas25142036z9ufAuthor

Participant

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your reply. The printer rip converts to the profile at it's end. Embeding the colour profile does not allow for printing pure K text etc, which is necessary for our work.

Thanks

rob day

Community Expert

Embeding the colour profile does not allow for printing pure K text etc, which is necessary for our work.

AdobeRGB is an RGB profile—any RGB black will get converted into 4-color whether there is a profile embedded or not. RGB objects cannot be color managed without a source profile, which is the reason the RGB color is changing in your PDF.

If you are trying to protect CMYK blacks (e.g. 0|0|0|100 CMYK), export to one of the PDF/X presets—PDF/X-4 will export document CMYK colors like the default [Black] swatch with no embedded profile, but keep the needed source profile embedded with RGB objects.

Also, InDesign documents have RGB and CMYK profile assignments (see Edit>Assign Profiles for the document assignments). The RGB profile manages native document RGB colors and RGB images with no embedded profile, the CMYK profile manages native CMYK colors and CMYK images with no profile.