Illustrator colors slightly off

[BellyBuckle9]

Hi all. I have two related problems in Illustrator.

1) My color picker, when choosing colors from a placed photo file, does not select the exact shade of that color.

2) My fonts, similarly, don't represent the full shade of the color I choose.

Please find attached images to demonstrate:

In the top one, I've typed some text in a certain burnt orange. Then I drew a circle next to it - which is the exact same orange, but does not appear to be. I"ve checked the hex value just to be sure and it says both are the same number.

In the second screengrab, you will see my color picker preferences.

In the third grab, I have placed a tiff image into Illustrator and sampled the color with my picker. Same issue: it is not representing the colors acurately.

I'm using the current verison of Illustrator CC on an imac running Yosemite.

Thanks,
B.

In

[Monika Gause]

Picking up colors with the color picker can be risky, especially when picking from placed images. With linked images the colors are converted through color management. And then of course they are not exactly the same. Additionally there will always be an issue when the document color mode is CMYK and the placed image is RGB.

Anout the color of the type: first check the values in the color panel and correct them if needed.

Then: export a PDF and check the colors in Acrobat. THis might just be a screen rendering issue.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Have you tried taking your color readings in Photoshop to see what the values are there?

[BellyBuckle9]

Hello Monika and Jeff. Thank you for your reply!

First: yes, I've taken my colors into Photoshop and they claim to be the same values as the ones from Illustrator.

Monika, I've only noticed this issue recently. I've used Illustrator for years and the colors were always exact. So I'm not sure if an update did this(?)

I"m working in RGB mode with an RGB placed image.

Values in color panel remain unchanged. So for example: the light color orange font is #f57135 and so is the circle.

I will have to do the Acrobat export as you suggested to see if there is any change.

Thanks again!
B.

[Kurt Gold]

Can you post a sample .ai file that includes your first example (orange text and orange circle)?

[BellyBuckle9]

Okay so this is weird: I was doing up an example for you and then I saved my file and closed it. When I reopened it, all the colors matched! So I tested it on another file and the same thing: I had to save and close it then reopen it.

I don't get it, but maybe it's just a bug?

B.

[Monika Gause]

It happens that text and vector paths colors get rendered differently.

But there also have been quite some issues with graphic cards recently. So may be a combination of issues.

When did you last restart that machine BTW?

Please keep an eye on it.

[BellyBuckle9]

Thanks for your response Monika. I restart every morning

[Mike_Gondek]

I will repeat Kurt question because because from that we should be able to tell you what is happening. Please post a copy of the 1st orange example?

In your 3rd red example you cannot  get an exact color match into a vector object by sampling a placed bitmap image, Illustrator is sampling what is sent to screen and not the file so this is very dangerous and misleading.

[BellyBuckle9]

Hi Mike.

Okay I just tried and it keeps saying "that type of image is forbidden"

How can I upload it here?

b.

[Mike_Gondek]

The insert image button only works for bitmapped file formats. You need to use a ftp link utility like dropbox.

Dropbox is free and I have not had any Spam problems with that.

Great that you still have the file that was giving you problems, we should get some good information back from that.

[BellyBuckle9]

Cool! Thanks Mike.

You can download it here, then:

Dropbox - sample-color-off.ai

But again, as soon as I saved it, it started behaving properly. So I don't get it.

B.

[Mike_Gondek]

You have 4 fills on both editable type and circle path. That 3 top values are the same, but the bottom one is different,

here I hide the visibility eyeball so you can see the difference.

The circle has the same breakdown. I would get rid of all but one fill, and ,make sure the numerical value are the same.

To add to the confusion the text actually has a 4th fill at the character level. That gets overridden by the fill at the type level. For cleanliness Ilike to delete character fills to avoid issues you are having.  Click on the words "character "or "type" to jump around between levels.

I suspect this may have contributed to your problem the battle between character, type, level fills.  There are also group and layer levels fills that can be assigned, so you know to look out for those in the future. So if you ever use add fill  in the appearance flight menu, make sure you know exactly where that tis being added.

[BellyBuckle9]

Oh my goodness, Mike - thanks I didn't even notice that! I wasn't looking at the appearance panel and I guess I should've!

B.

[Mike_Gondek · Accepted solution]

Yes the appearance panel can be your best friend in Illustrator and holds the key to unlocking many powerful designs.