Color swatch changes by Illustrator – Color profile issue

[OHKO_53]

Hi Adobe Support,

6 month ago, I created a 2 color logo in Ill. 2019. For both colors I created a CMYK swatch which has the correct color values. My color profile is ISo coated v2. After upgrading Illustrator to 2020 I opend the file and it told me that the assigned color profile now is US Web coated. I have 3 choices to proceed. If I choose to change colors into my normal ISO coated v2 profile, Illustrator changes the swatch color values from 100/0/100/15 to 97/1,37/92,25/4,8. Why would the color swatch value change if the color profiles (both CMYK) change? Any Ideas?

Kind regards, Katja

[Ton Frederiks]

If you do not want your color values to change (converted), choose "Use the embedded profile (instead of the working space). 

Check your Edit > Color Settings and make sure that the working space is still your ISO profile.

If that is the case, a different profile was used (or has been assigned) for the file you want to open.

Converting between (CMYK) profiles will always result in different color values. Because you will convert from CMYK (4 colors) to Lab (3 color components) to anothe CMYK (4 color components).

[OHKO_53]

Thanks for the reply 🙂 I am using Illustrator for more than 20 years and never had this issue. On opening the document with the wrong color profile, I choose to switch the profile to ISO_Euroscale – the colors change. If I don't change the profile and open the dokument, the colors stay as they should. Then, I change the profile to ISO_Euroscale, the colors also don't change. Is it the same process with 2 different outcomes? 

[Ton Frederiks]

On opening the document with the wrong color profile, I choose to switch the profile to ISO_Euroscale – the colors change.

If you switch the profile on opening, you will convert the document profile to the current working space profile and that will change the color values.

If I don't change the profile and open the document, the colors stay as they should.

The color values (numbers) stay as they were, no conversion takes place, but the color appearance may be (more or less) different. The values are displayed as if they were entered with the current working space profile. 

Saving a document with an unchanged profile will keep the original profile with the document.

Then, I change the profile to ISO_Euroscale, the colors also don't change. Is it the same process with 2 different outcomes? 

If you Assign a profile you don't change the color values (numbers) but tell Illustrator to use those numbers with a different profile. which can change the color appearance which may not be noticeable when you switch between 2 different Euro  CMYK profiles. 

Saving a document with an assigned profile will save that profile with the document.

[Krzysztof299683384sx7]

How to preserve color values for CMYK and RGB color samples while changing color modes in Illustrator? The issue is that, for example, if I'm in CMYK color mode and I have a CMYK 100K color sample, when I switch to RGB color mode and then switch back to CMYK, the CMYK 100K sample doesn't return to its original 100K value; instead, it changes to C74.61 M64.06 Y62.5 K80.47. This is unacceptable as color values shouldn't change when switching color modes. How can this be prevented?

[Ton Frederiks]

You cannot avoid changing color values when converting from a 4 color model to a 3 color model.

Many CMYK values can be represented by the same RGB value and the same RGB value can be represented by different CMYK values.

It depends on the RGB and CMYK color profiles used.

See:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/color.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/keeping-colors-consistent.html

[Krzysztof299683384sx7]

It's just that in my opinion color samples shouldn't be allowed to change. These values should be what I assigned them... it's not that I don't understand what conversion means. The point is that when I assign certain values to the samples, they do not have the right to change to other colors in the samples panel. Dot. The conversion can be done on the object itself, but never on samples.

[Ton Frederiks]

There are only 2 document color modes in Illustrator. RGB values do not exist in a CMYK document and CMYK values do not exist in an RGB document.

[Krzysztof299683384sx7]

I'm really advanced in graphics and I really understand everything. Thank you for your help, but I don't think you understand me... There is nothing I don't understand about color space. I'm just saying that no matter what color mode I have, the values in the samples shouldn't change. If I transfer a color from a saved swatch to working swatches, the value from the saved swatches should always stay the same regardless of the mode change. Color change - conversion should happen at the object level, not at the sample level.

[Krzysztof299683384sx7]

In other words, I'd like to be able to save the swatch color data for CMYK and RGB at the same time. Manually. So that these values never change according to how the illustrator calculates it. For example, if I have a sample that has: C0 M0 Y0 K100, then for RGB I want a target value of #000000. And I want it to always be like this. If I change the color mode from CMYK to RGB, let it use the value #000000. If the same color is used with CMYK color mode. The value is to be C0 M0 Y0 K100. Instead, illustrator forcefully converts my predetermined value to C79 M84 Y60 K87. Which is completely pointless.

[Ton Frederiks]

Just have the numbers but not being able to use them does not seem very usefull to me.

That is how Illustrator works, unlike InDesign where you can mix RGB and CMYK in a single document.

But you can make a feature request here:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/

[welfaremike]

I'm having this same issue and think the same thing. If I make a swatch file, I should be able to add RGB and CMYK swatches to it without the colors changing codes. I have Client X CMYK colors as one "folder" and Clinet X RGB colors as the other, When I go to add the CMYK colors into the swatch file, it changes all the RGB codes and vice-versa. It's almost as if you need to create a CMYK-only swatch setup and a RGB-only swatch setup.

The workaround is to use CC Libraries, which will keep all the codes set. But if I need to switch to a different set of client colors, it's going to take more time finding that client's library, etc.

[Ton Frederiks]

You can only use CMYK numbers in a CMYK document. And the same numbers will give you a different color when you use a different CMYK profile.

If you use RGB or other values in a CMYK document, they will get converted to CMYK. Same for RGB numbers in a RGB document.

CC libraries are not color managed so they will use the RGB numbers even if the Document Color Profile is different from the profile used when the numbers were created, resulting in a different color.