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Question

CMYK wont stay

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
November 28, 2022
7 replies
3246 views

Hello, I have been trying to use a specific CMYK color for a font in a document. Everytime I enter the values (75, 68.,67, 90) they appear to change but when I go back to check they are always slightly off, something like 70, 75, 66, 82. I have done all the color conversion and "preserve black" options and it remains the same issue. Is there anything I can do to have these specific values stay the same? Thank you.

Edit and convert PDFs

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JR Boulay

Community Expert

Try this best practise:

Clic and drag to select all object and/or texts you want to edit.

Right-click on the blue border: Edit Using: Illustrator.

Save and close the new Illustrator file to send the changes to the PDF.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

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But really, you shouldn't be editing with Acrobat at all. You should be editing an original document in InDesign or whatever, and making a PDF in the colour space/profile that you need.

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adaml76041499Author

Participating Frequently

thank you for replying. I tried to re-do everything in Illustrator then converted it back to a PDF. When I opened the new file in Acrobat as a PDF the issue remained the same.

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Ok, now I'm not sure what the issue is. I thought the issue was that you were trying to use the Edit tool in Acrobat, and using it to see the CMYK colour of something on the page. But the problem is that you can't do that in Acrobat, it won't ever work (that is, because Edit will always convert to RGB, the CMYK colour is very unlikely to match).

So, if you're no longer doing that, what is the issue now - what steps are you following?

JR Boulay

Community Expert

"If I were able to use a PC would this problem be resolved?"

On Windows this problem does not exist, the color picker does not offer the CMYK mode, only HSL/RGB.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

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Yes. The moment you choose to edit anything using Acrobat Pro's edit tools it will be converted to RGB, and it will stay RGB. Many people are fooled by Apple's color picker.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Thank Apple for fooling you! 😉

Acrobat Pro's text editing tools do not support CMYK mode, and Acrobat or any other software cannot edit the macOS color picker.

So it makes you believe that you are assigning a CMYK color but in fact it uses RGB values, hence the difference after this "invisible" conversion.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

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adaml76041499Author

Participating Frequently

Wow, that is not cool. Any idea what the closest RGB value to "true black" is? I know for CMYK it's 75, 68, 67, 90.

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RGB black is 0,0,0 (or #000000 if you prefer). There are no true, rich or degrees of black.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

"I have done all the color conversion "

You should never convert a CMYK to another CMYK profile, unless you really know what you are doing because you know the management of colorimetric profiles like the back of your hand.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe