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Question

RGB colors become dull in Acrobat PDFs

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
August 24, 2012
17 replies
86221 views

I'm using CS6 and when I create a PDF, the RGB colors appear much duller than the original source file. The shift is about (if not exactly) what you would see if you converted an RGB document with bright colors to CMYK.

I'm on a Mac using the latest update to OS X. My typical process for creating a PDF is by starting with Photoshop JPEGs and using the "Combine Files in a Single PDF" function, or by exporting an InDesign document (with RGB art) directly to a PDF.

If I open the exported PDF in either Adobe Acrobat Pro (10.1.4) or the latest version of Adobe Reader, the bright, saturated RGB colors in the original document appears noticeably dull in the PDF.

I've experimented with several different Color Settings to no avail, including different RGB settings (sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), etc.). Currently my settings are using Bridge to Synchronize my Color Settings across my CS6 apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat) and have confirmed they are all reporting a Synchronized state.

My overall Color Setting is "Monitor Color" (though I've also tried others, including the default North American General Purpose). My RGB Workspace for all apps is set to the Profile of my Dell monitor, which was created with Apple's built-in calibration tool (not the best, I know, but wouldn't account for a difference as dramatic as this.) And my Color Management Policies under these Syncronized settings are all automatically set to "Off".

As a test, if I export my RGB InDesign document to a JPEG and open that file back in Photoshop, the colors are fine—unchanged from the original look as they originally appeared in Photoshop. It's only when I go to Acrobat that the colors shift to a duller version.

I keep looking in Acrobat preferences for a "Display PDF with Embedded Profile" or something along those lines, but Acrobat Color Management settings are the same as all my other CS6 apps.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

R

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A

angular_Canvas15A8

Participating Frequently

I'm seeing this effect too. Acrobat X (10.1.4) displays dull PDFs whether they are CMYK or RGB. Seems like the sort of colour difference you'd see between prints in AdobeRGB and sRGB. Changes in the colour management (in Acrobat or across the suite) make no difference to the display of the PDF. Acrobat image on left below, Preview on right. The Preview image, as displayed here, is a little too saturated but the difference is the point.

L

LarsMerkur

Participating Frequently

Is Adobe reading this? Its very hard to understand that a critical issue like this is not beeing fixed.

Acrobat is for viewing PDFs colormanaged, an entire printing industry relies on Acrobat Pro. Acrobat X&XI can not do this right in OSX 10.8 even though OSX 10.8 is described to be supported.

A

angular_Canvas15A8

Participating Frequently

I've gone back to using Acrobat 9 Pro (I hadn't uninstalled it) where all looks fine and will use it until this sorted out in Acrobat X+. I can do without the bells and whistles of X until then.

H

howeknowshow

Participant

I also have this same problem. All the same symptoms running the same progams. Looks fine in apple preview and photosop but all PDFs open with dull color in Acrobat 10.1.4. I even opened old PDFs that were created using the previous round of CS progams and they have the same dull display when I know they did not on the previous round of Acrobat. So its not current color settings causing the problem. It is some issue with either acrobat 10.1.4 or its compatibility with OS X 10.8.

L

LarsMerkur

Participating Frequently

This issue is holding back our entire shop of upgrading to both OSX 10.8 and CS6. Any news on fixes for Acro X and XI?

The problem still excists in Acro XI wich I find "funny" since Adobe all ready knew this issue in Acro X.

We do not want to innstall our old Acro 9 on our brand new OSX 10.8 / CS6 setups.....

G

GrafataInc

Participant

I am also having the same problem, and like many of you, it seems to have started when I updated to Mountain Lion. Any fixes to this yet?

N

Neil Rapson

Participant

I have exactly the same problem and it is driving me mad. Looks great in preview and dull in Acrobat X Pro. Thought it was a colour management issue and tried all combinations imaginable before giving up. Definitely an acrobat issue!

H

Hipopotam

Participant

I have exactly the same problem. The pdfs display fine in Acrobat 9.5.2 but are dull in Acrobat 10.1.4.

M

Molerat

Participant

Same problem... except inverted. Colors of jpegs look fine in Acrobat, but something about the file format it is saving... causes Preview to display the images dull. Definitely an adobe file format issue somehow.

- Photoshop displays the jpegs fine before being imported into Acrobat.

- Preview displays the jpegs fine before being brought into Acrobat.

- Acrobat displays the jpegs fine before saving out the file as a .pdf.

- As a PDF... Acrobat displays the images fine.

- As a PDF... photoshop and preview display the images dull.

How do you just get Acrobat to not screw up your color display when viewing in another programs?? Need to be confident that when the .pdf is sent around it will actually look correct and not dull on the devices most people are likely to view it on.

lrosenth

Adobe Employee

Without seeing the original JPEG and the output PDF – and details on what version of Acrobat and Photoshop are in use - no clue what is happening specifically.

If I had to guess, something is color converting the JPEG as it is converted to PDF, and the new profile isn’t embedded. But that’s a COMPLETELY WILD *** GUESS…

MichaelKazlow

Legend

This really has nothing to do with the Acrobat application as InDesign's export feature does not use Acrobat technology at all. If you need more help than we can provide you here you might be best off asking in the InDesign forum.

R

R. SinclairAuthor

Known Participant

@MichaelKazlow Thanks. However, as noted above I've also created PDFs directly from Photoshop, Illustrator, and even Microsoft Word for further testing, and viewing those PDFs in Acrobat X or Reader still displays dramatically shifted colors.

-R

R

R. SinclairAuthor

Known Participant

Also, another test: Tried using Acrobat's Create PDF from Screen Capture function.

I put an RGB image on screen with bright colors (i.e. 255 Red, etc.) and run Acrobat's PDF from Screen Capture. The resulting PDF immediately opens with the dulled colors. So this is happening even when no other applications are involved besides Acrobat.

What's interesting is if I open the resulting PDF (from Screen Capture) in Illustrator, the RGB colors display in full intensity!

So it appears the color definitions are remaining intact, but it's simply Acrobat displaying them onscreen incorrectly.

-R

R

R. SinclairAuthor

Known Participant

Another update: I've exported PDFs from both Illustrator and a non-Adobe app as well (Microsoft PDF) and the exported PDFs also color-shift to duller hues when opening in Acrobat Pro or Reader. So it seems that Acrobat is somehow the culprit here.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Transparency does this. Set a blend space matching your RGB design space.

R

R. SinclairAuthor

Known Participant

I double-checked in InDesign that Edit > Transparency Blend Space is set to Document RGB but the problem still occurs.

The PDFs appear dull even when InDesign is not part of the process. I can export an RGB JPEG out of Photoshop, use Acrobat to make it a PDF (Create PDF from File...) and am still getting the color shift.

Update: I didn't find any settings relating to the conversion or display of Transperency settings in Acrobat itself.

-R

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