Swatch grays preview value doesn't match the actual CMYK value

Question

Hi,

When I hover my cursor over the individual swatches of Illustrator's gray color group - I get a box that, for example, simply says "C0 M0 Y0 K50". With that color selected, I toggle to the Color Tab and it shows me a mess of CMYK values that are very specific (with decimals). Why the discrepancy?

Please see example images I've included. Thanks

Ton Frederiks · Accepted Answer

What you see when you hover over the swatch is just the name of the swatch, it was probably automatically generated when the swatch was created. It does not need to show the values of the swatch.

The "gray" swatches you see in RGB and CMYK documents are process color swatches and can be converted when color mode or color profiles change.

The only real grays are the grays created with Grayscale selected in the Color Panel, they do not change when switching between RGB and CMYK modes, but the "gray" swatches in the Swatches panel are not defined like that.

Monika Gause · Answer

You have probably converted color modes. Or you have converted between different color profiles.

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