Updated After Effects makes Illustrator CMYK files' colours fade

Report · Mar 25, 2021

Hi everyone,

I've been putting Illustrator files (.ai) in CMYK format into After Effects, and have never had a problem with it, until I updated both Illustrator and After Effects to their latest versions:

Illustrator: v 25.2.1

After Effects: v. 18.0

Now whenever I put an Illustrator file in CMYK format into After Effects, the colours fade. I've tried changing both programs to sRGB, and it is better, but it's still not to its full colour. I also do not have older versions saved (which I've changed now), so I'm at a loss.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Report · Mar 25, 2021

All illustrations prepared for a video should be in RGB color space. Video is not, never was, and never will be CMYK. Using CMYK color is not now and never was recommended.

Open the AI file, change the Color space to RGB and see if that helps. If it does not, then you need to match your color management settings.

Report · Mar 25, 2021

I've been working with this format for 4 years and it has always worked fine. All of my illustrator files were CMYK, and After Effects allowed for that colour space to work. I've made many videos with this set up. Now just because I've updated to the newest versions, and not being able to redownload the older versions, I'm stuck with this problem--without changing any of the settings.

When I change the illustrator file's colour space to RGB, the colour fades. Thank you for your time, but I'm looking for a fix for the latest version's bug.

Report · Mar 25, 2021

It's no bug. It is expected behavior. Something in your color management settings has changed.

Report · Mar 25, 2021

I'm not sure which part of my colour management settings has changed then, because I've never touched it. Do you know, by any chance?

This one is After Effects:

This one is Illustrator:

I've tried changing After Effects to sRGB, and it improved the colour slightly, but not entirely.

Report · Mar 25, 2021

Your settings may not have changed, but it's still a terrible workflow for video work. RGB is way to go or else you will always have these issues, latest when you share your work with other, less experienced users who use different settings on their systems. And your CM settings in AI are clearly set to "custom", so something has changed like perhaps a monitor profile or a standard color profile having been replaced. You need to investigate.

Mylenium