Colors are much too saturated in Acrobat

[peterjohnsen1905]

I have a problem with the color display in Acrobat DC. Everything looks all right in Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator, but when exporting to PDF and viewing in Acrobat the colors suddenly appear oversaturated. A lot. If I export a file from InDesign and then open the PDF up in Photoshop everything looks normal. Just not in Acrobat. My color settings are synced across all apps (to Europe General Purpose 3).

 I have tried changing settings in Acrobats color management, but nothing changes the appearance.

I also tried uninstalling Acrobat and reinstalling. This actually worked but only for a few days - then back to this frustrating situation. In the meantime, I changed nothing.

I can see a few threads like this but none solved. Anyone have the same problem or at suggestion to a solution?

I have attached a screenshot to highlight the issue.

Best regards, Peter

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Go into Acrobat's preferences and go to the Accessibility category. Make sure that "Replace Document Colors" is unchecked. This will sometimes get enabled by accident, and it will mess up your colors. If this does not fix your problem, let us know and I will look for other potential sources for your problem. 

[peterjohnsen1905]

Thanks for the advice. However "Replace Document Colors" is (and was) unchecked, so that's not the case here I'm afraid. 
I will deeply appreciate any other advice. 

[peterjohnsen1905]

Hi Karl

Don't know if you've seen my reply to your suggestion, but is there any chance of someone looking into this? I can see elsewhere that others have had same issues but no fix. I can't get my head around why Acrobat has this behavior when all other apps disply colors correctly.
All the best, Peter

[peterjohnsen1905]

Hi again Karl

I have still not been able to solve this. Have you guys had any luck or is this a lost case?
This hasn't always been an issue, I can only assume that it happened after an update. Hope somecan can help.
All the best.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Peter, I don't work for Adobe, I am a user of Adobe's products, just like you. Your only way to get Adobe to see your problem is by filing a bug report at http://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html - unfortunately, for the most part, this is a one-way street, so you wont get any feedback from Adobe about the state of your bug report. I see that you added support to another bug that was already filed, but my recommendation is to submit your own report. By having more reports about the same problem, the urgency for a fix gets raised. 

[peterjohnsen1905]

Hi Karl
Sorry for keep pushing then - I thought you were somehow working with Adobe on matters like this - I appologize! And thanks for the advice on submitting a report, I'll do that straight away.
All the best.

[peterjohnsen1905]

https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/44776225-colors-...

[goodrobot]

What worked for me is this: check that you are including your colour profiles when exporting from Indesign, and then go check what colour profile Acrobat is using to view documents. If your document includes the correct colour profiles, Acrobat shouldn't need to inpret anything. I left mine as Monitor Colour, and that worked fine, as long as the document itself is colour managed 

[JR Boulay]

How do you create the PDF and with what settings?

[peterjohnsen1905]

I export from InDesign using the standard [PDF/X-1a:2001] setting.

I've also been using other customized settings (and settings sent by print agencies) and the problem occurs every time. 

[Tim Brosnan]

Same problem here exporting from InDesign, which is pretty much the only reason I ever create PDF files. The oversaturation problem occurs regardless of settings ... high quality, 2001, 2002, 2008, press quality. And just as an aside, upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 had no effect. Running 32GB RAM on a Dell XPS15 laptop with 4K screen. The screenshot shows InDesign on left and Acrobat on right.

[jjohanson]

I have a similar problem. Some additional info and findings here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader-discussions/problem-with-color-management-wide-gamut-m... 

I have also filed a bug report here:

https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/926812-acrobat-reader-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/40081753-... 

(only got one vote so far).

The problem seems to still be present in the latest version of Reader DC (Windows).

[peterjohnsen1905]

Hi jjohanson - I backed the vote - hope something happens 😕

[michaelk28355937]

Hi Peter, i do have the exact same problem. When producing a pdf-file out of InDesign with my proven presets the pdf file looks oversaturated in AcrobatDC. When viewing the pdf in Bridge, opening the pdf file in Photoshop or even opening the file in Illustrator - colors look fine. I can measure the color values of my pdf-file within Acrobt and they are correct. It is the overall appearance of the colors, that looks strange and extremly artificial. Did you find a solution yet? Thanks!

[peterjohnsen1905]

Hi Michael

No I'm affraid not. I've searched and searched without any luck - and tried everything in the replies above. 
I was advised to make a formal bug report. But as I understand it, Adobe will only look into it, if it has a lot of backing/votes. Here's a link to it:
https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/44776225-colors-... 

[michaelk28355937]

Hi Peter, thanks a lot for getting back. Yes, it is a very annoying thing with this strange color rendition in Acrobat. I produce print pdfs on a daily basis and every time i open up a pdf in Acrobat i become unsure whether I can use this data at all. I use the color picker to check the colors and give me confidence that the values are correct. But after all the displayed content in Acrobat looks similar to a $5 plastic monitor although i am using a reliable EIZO monitor. Let's hope that someone will find a solution ... Sincerely Michael

[peterjohnsen1905]

Yeah really hope so, it's so frustrating. The bug repport I published only has one vote so far, I'm affraid. Fingers crossed that there will be a fix in an update somewhere along the line.

[subcomtom · Accepted solution]

This worked for me:
The synchronization of the color management between Acrobat DC and Bridge is broken in cause of security options.

Try to uncheck the Sandbox Security in the Security(extended) tab.
Here is a Screenshot from the german version:

[peterjohnsen1905]

Did the trick here as well, even after restart of program and PC. Wow, finally 🙂
Thanks for the tip!

[Tim Brosnan]

It worked! THANK YOU!

Now a curious quirk, maybe pecurliar to my machine ... I have InDesign set to display the PDF immediately upon exporting and when the PDF initially displayed, it was still over-saturated. BUT, when I happened to zoom out one click, the colors corrected ... a perfect side-by-side match with InDesign's overprint preview. After that, the PDF colors stayed right regardless of zoom level. So weird!

[peterjohnsen1905]

Same thing here with zoom, strange but so great to be rid of this error.

[jasonb94222319]

same here (after trying the sandbox didnt work)...ive now set acrobat to show actual file size rather than automatic and the initial saturation is spot on and zooming retains this color

[Ineedafingscreenname]

I had the same problem with oversaturation of PDF in Acrobat, while it looks normal in Photoshop and Illustrator. I tried subcomtom's suggestion and it solved the problem!  Thank you. Is Adobe aware this is an issue?

[jakobp74438836]

Finaly! Thank you. I had to uncheck "erweiterte Sicherheit" - Sandbox was okay. Weird.