Elements on Design Saving in Greyscale

[thejourneychurch]

Hey everyone!

I have found that quite frequently when I go to save a design as an .ai file, all or some elements of the design are saving as greyscale IF I save it with a transparent background. It's also super inconsistent as to what elements of the design are saving greyscale -- sometimes it's objects, other times it's text, and sometimes it's the entire design. Nothing I Google seems to come up with a solution. I check my colors and Greyscale is never turned on for the document and I am seeing the colors as a design, it just saves this way. Most of the time when I am trying to save an .ai file it's to send to get printed on apparel, so I am a little insecure about it sending designs this way. When I open the file it shows full color (for me,) but I am not sure how it would open for someone else. 

I attached a screenshot of both with and without a background for reference. Just to note the heart and words are both objects, and the words are saving greyscale. I did try to save the design with the words as text and as an object and the same result occurred.

Can anyone help me with this? 

[Monika Gause]

So you are saving a PDF and then opening it using Apple Preview?

What happens when you use Acrobat instead (because Preview cannot be trusted with anything).

[thejourneychurch]

I am saving it as an Illustrator (.ai) file and when I open it in preview that is what is showing. I do have Acrobat, but didn't realize that I could open .ai files in that.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Acrobat can open the same kind of AI files that Preview can open: when a PDF is embedded in them. Here's how the file format works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpDh8Y7q8yE

[thejourneychurch]

Thank you!!

[John Mensinger · Accepted solution]

As Monika has already helped you discover, it's best not to base any conclusions on what you see or what happens when you open a file in Preview. It's simply not reliable enough to play any role in a professional workflow.

If you reopen the file in Illustrator, and an object in question is not actually in grayscale mode, then Illustrator is not "saving in grayscale".

[thejourneychurch]

Thank you guys for your help! I really appreciate it!