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Participant
September 24, 2026
Answered

Improper conversion from CMYK to RGB or GRAY

  • September 24, 2026
  • 7 replies
  • 101 views

Photoshop version 27.8.0.
I create test image ( 600 x 400 px 300 dpi CMYK 8 bit, no color management, 30 bit display unchecked). Fill it with (C100M0Y0K0). Entire surface is colored ok, each pixel is C100M0Y0K0, checked with magicwand and info panel and with conversion to gif, where i acutally noticed following:
When converting mode to RGB or GRAY, result produce pixels in two colors in a kind of diether/noise way. No any other function was used inbetween.
Converted RGB values for (C100M0Y0K0) are:
1. R0G173B239 - for which i think is proper conversion
2. R0G174B240 - this one i think shouldn’t be there and is probably generated by some function.
That two color pattern is not like “chess plate, there is no kind of symetry”, it is more like some qr code or as it  has been produced by noise function.

In short, two pixel of same value converted to another color system, shouldn’t convert same pixel value to two different ones.

Regards, 
Uroš Železnik

    Correct answer davescm

    Which CMYK profile to which RGB profile? No colour management is meaningless in colour conversions. Once clear I will test here. 
    In convert to profile - did you have ‘Use Dither’ checked?

    Dave

    7 replies

    UroshAuthor
    Participant
    September 28, 2026

    Have found dither checkbox and it was on. I uncheck it and test again and its working. So, it is not bug.

    davescm
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 28, 2026

    Thanks for confirming that.
    Dave

    UroshAuthor
    Participant
    September 28, 2026

    My Workspace is default America General Purpose 2. I changed swop coated to fogra 39, got little different values, but still 2 colors (R0,G158,B227 and R0,G159,B228). Where/when would dithering be aplied? I can’t find any setting for dither when changing to rgb.

    Uroš

    davescm
    Community Expert
    davescmCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    September 24, 2026

    Which CMYK profile to which RGB profile? No colour management is meaningless in colour conversions. Once clear I will test here. 
    In convert to profile - did you have ‘Use Dither’ checked?

    Dave

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 24, 2026

    Yeah, this sounds like standard dithering for 8-bit data. But we still need to know which profiles.

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 24, 2026

    That is clearly a bug. It looks like this is caused rounding errors that are not correctly handled. The exact conversion would probably result in R0 G173.5 B239.5 which is obviously impossible, so the values for G and B are randomly rounded up or down.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 24, 2026

    Yes, I stand corrected. This is probably due to the profile and using dithering. I can’t reproduce it when converting Coated Fogra39 to AdobeRGB without dithering, but I do see a few different pixels when dithering is enabled, so no bug.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga