hex colors look different in MS and Adobe

Hex codes are not some magical way of identifying colour. They are just RGB numbers expressed in base 16. That is instead of 0-255 decimal they run 00 to FF Hex. 

They do not describe an actual colour unless they are also expressed in terms of a color space (such as sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto etc.)

So the same Hex, or RGB numbers, will represent different colours in different colour spaces. Similarly the same colour, expressed in different colour spaces requires different Hex (or RGB) numbers

Websites that quote Hex numbers should (but often don't) refer them to a particular colour space. If they don't, you can try using them in sRGB although there is no guarantee that that space was being referred when they were quoted.

In Photoshop , then the Hex numbers will be referred to the RGB colour space. These will be converted using you monitor profile to display on your screen (or your printer profile for printing on your paper).  Microsoft Word is not colour managed and will just send the numbers to screen without any conversion between a colour space being used for the numbers and the monitor profile and is therefore almost guaranteed to look different.

Dave

Hi

I think you'll find that MS Word doesn’t use display colour management, so the colour values in your file are sent to the display screen without taking any account of the screen's characteristics.

This means the colours can look very different on different display screens. 

Photoshop (and other Adobe apps) use colour management to solve this problem, the screen (display) proifile is used in a conversion to provide accurate colour on screen.

here is some reading on ICC profiles and how they work for you to provide accurate colour through the digital workflow: https://www.colourmanagement.net/advice/about-icc-colour-profiles/

Of course you need a display screen profile to make this work properly. X-Rite's i1display measurememnt device is a good entry level calibration and profling option.

I hope this helps

if so, please "like" my reply and if you're OK now, please mark it as "correct", so that others who have similar issues can see the solution

thanks

neil barstow, colourmanagement.net :: adobe forum volunteer

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