Washed out colors after export in XD

[mateuszm16158674]

Hey, im trying to design something in XD and always after exporting to for example .png, colors are washed out.

I attached screenshot where you can see exported png (at left) and XD preview (at right).

As you see colors after export are less saturated and washed out than during designing in XD.

[Nancy5E88]

Doing all this work in XD, only to find out I can't share the concepts with the team because the colors are so washed out.  Taking screen shots and trying to assemble really long emails concepts into a viewable solution is very inefficient and unprofessional!!!  We will all be forced to switch over to a different program!

[elikhopter]

Everyone have the same problem pls expedite your update. 

[Pulsio18855049dcdu]

same problem here. 

[R.J MacReady]

It's just another massive issue that Adobe cannot be bothered to fix. I have just experienced the same problem. High end UI design exported to J-Peg colours are washed out, it's appalling and changing your monitor settings will not make a blind bit of difference. I'm glad I cancelled my subscription. It is appalling and not the only issue with their bloated memory hogging software.

[bryanb1996]

I've been searching for an answer to this issue all day and finally figured it out. I think. 

Because XD doesn't have color modes I found that within XD, it displays colors to be more saturated than they actually are. 

I had a specific HEX color code from an online document and was copy/pasting the fill color into elements in XD and also in Illustrator. XD displayed the color much more saturated and I couldn't figure out why. I was thinking this was an issue with XD and distorting the colors through the export process, but actually the color was correct based on the HEX code and it was just displaying much more saturated in XD. 

I exported the asset from XD and compared the color side by side with the online document and found that they were exactly the same color, even though XD displayed the color as much more saturated in my working file. 

Definitely need this fixed within XD, but in the meantime I've been picking colors and pulling color codes in Illustrato, and copy/pasting the color code into XD. Not ideal considering you can't see the actual color but for export purposes it works just fine. 

[erice56755769]

The issue is more complex than that. 

It appears XD does not even export colors consistently between jpg and png.

Check out these two exported images below, and how the orange color appears darker in multiple places versus the png. Both exported from XD.

[R.J MacReady]

All said and done it's an issue that needs fixing ASAP. I haven't got time to mess about firing up Illustrator and using color codes from other apps. The fact is the colour problems upon export are a disgrace and should not be happening.

[Kenneth Kawamoto]

I think it appears darker because of the JPEG compression artefact. The colour values are the same in Photoshop. Can you try exporting to 100% quality (zero compression) JPEG?

[teddylofstrom]

Please fix this. I love adobe XD and it is so frustrating that I can't use my assets after designing them. I believe people would be ready to pay a bit extra per month if this issue got fixed.

It has been too much time. If you do not intend to fix it, at least tell us so that we can look for other alternatives because this isn't sustainable anymore.

JUST FIX IT.

[BrunoAMC]

It's really unacceptable that such a basic isssue gets simply ignored by Adobe for so long. Stop all minor, tiny update efforts AND GO FIX THIS once and for all. It seems you priorities are a little messed up.

[VADIM.US]

https://gregbenzphotography.com/photography-tips/how-to-setup-proper-color-management-in-a-web-brows...

Solved. 🙂

Works 100%

The problem is in proper setup color management in your web browser

This guide will explain you how to do it. I've changed my Chrome browser color to HDR10 and it worked perfectly. 

Here is a link to Chrome color management chrome://flags/#force-color-profile

Have a great day 🙂

[Thomas Dearie]

Hey, Vadim

Thanks for the input.
Chrome does have limited color management, though other browsers approach it differently.
But that's an end-user action.
The problem people have here is that XD itself is not color managed, so it doesn't send out a file to other apps (not just browsers) that has the necessary information to translate color in a device/app independent way.

Cheers

Tom

[erice56755769]

I'm sorry but this really doesn't have anything to do with the actual issue at hand. Changing color management in your web browser only applies to your personal computer. It will do nothing for every other user who is visiting a website from their own devices.

If I design an asset in Adobe XD with the hex code #ff5241, that asset should have the same color when I export it, so that it matches HTML elements that also use #ff5241 as their CSS color. And this should be regardless of whether the asset is exported as a png or jpeg. (And yes, I understand if you export with extremely low quality settings, there will be compression which can skew colors. That is a separate issue.)

This is very basic color management stuff, and should be built into XD by default, as every other Adobe design program already does this.

[BrunoAMC]

Thank you so much for your reply which explains the issue in the most straightforward manner possible.

Some people have some difficulty understanding the issue and keep posting workarounds that only mitigate the problem locally which is absolutely not the point.

And Adobe people choose to pretend they don’t understand it so they can keep ignoring this unacepptable bug.

[dedreand48379802]

I am experiencing this issue now and never have before in the past and have worked on many XD projects. I even went to a web-safe colors website to verify the color I was trying to use is websafe and find the closest color and it displays perfectly fine on that website... Yet in the XD link and exported files the color looks dull and flat and totally kills my design. This is pretty unacceptable especially if it's something that's been happening for years. And Adobe reps giving the same canned answers. PLEASE fix this!

[dianat19225747]

This is getting ridiculous since its not just exports that have different colors. The HEX colors appear different, too. It's impossible to choose colors in XD. Designers have to first use Illustrator or some other tool to select colors since XD will not accurately display them. It's a terrible workflow and I wish, years later, this would be fixed.

[LEZAR]

I got the same problem, and i agree with all the comment saying that Adobe team is disrespectfull towards its users. 

YOU are supposed to be the leader and YOU do beginners mistakes. 
So please invest in making your customers HAPPY. 
BEFORE i was advising XD, NOW i'm like "it's a fine product not a perfect one" 
SO MOVE YOU FXXING DEV TEAM ! 

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @LEZAR ,

We're so sorry about that. I understand how frustrating it can be when the tool you're using doesn't have the needed feature so let me assure you I'll share your feedback with the team. 

Thanks

Rishabh

[JoeDonchev]

Hi, 
This is what's happening.
Basically, the only way to get use XD is through Screenshots, which you may guess is completely unacceptable.
Fixing color in Browser (????....) as mentioned over and over earlier in this discussion is just a ridiculous suggestion...
Come on guys, fix this... We really can't work like that! It's a TOP priority issue!
Greetings

[Oliver iService]

PLEEEEEAAAASE, we heavily rely on XD so much... way beyond rapdif skecthing for apps... way beyond. we really need this.

[Rafael23333432f36x]

Hey guys, I finally found a solution for this problem:
Get Figma, stop using XD, it's trash. Figma is a much better software, no color issues and since it's not the almighty Adobe, their support team listens and constantly makes improvement.

Adobe has known about this issue since 2019 and still hasnt done anything to fix it

[dedreand48379802]

Ehh, I've noticed Figma has the same issue displaying colors versus in the app. 

[dianat19225747]

Has Figma fixed their color issues? Because I have the same overly saturated issue there as I do in XD. What my clients see in Figma and XD is way brighter than what is coded. Its always dissapointing for everyone.

[JoeDonchev]

Finally, the export colors are not washed out - they represent the color values of the colors.
However, the colors in the XD itself are over-saturated, so we have to constantly export images to get idea what color we've choosen.
I'm on a 16" Mac M1, MacOS Ventura 12.2, latest XD with no plugins.

[Kenneth Kawamoto · Accepted solution]

XD is now default to sRGB: https://helpx.adobe.com/xd/help/color-management.html