Participant

Question

Colors keep turning dull - possible bug

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
February 9, 2017
13 replies
21353 views

Hey folks,

So I've been using Illustrator CC for several months now and I always update (current version: CC 3.9.5.353), but I think I've run into a bug with colors / the color palette. I've found someone with a similar problem over on Stack Exchange, but I couldn't find anything on the Adobe forums.

I'm working on a file in RGB and I haven't switched color profiles or touched anything with the color menu. Color setting is North America General Purpose 2, Working Spaces is sRGB IEC61966-2.1, Color Management Policies for RGB is "Preserve Embedded Profiles". I'm running macOS Sierra version 10.12.3 on an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014). The file is stored on Dropbox, not on my computer's hard drive.

Here is an image of a file I'd been working on for a few days, as well as the color palettes from each file. The RGB values have gradually gotten darker and I have no idea why. The leftmost image are the correct colors, and the rightmost image was taken after a day or two.

This is happening while I'm still in Illustrator, not after exporting or saving as a different file type. If I switch over to another open file in Illustrator and then come back to the bugged file, the colors will be slightly darker.

Help please!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Chrispy-303

Known Participant

another thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/illustrator-randomly-changing-my-file-s-colours-while-file-is-open/td-p/10113279?page=1

Adobe needs to look into this asap

nateb42490823

Participant

I've been having this problem for months. It does seem to happen with files with images pulled in, perhaps. I couldn't recreate it with anyone in the studio but it's happened on 2 different computers now. Something is not right and it's extremely frustrating.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Since it's extremely difficult to discuss in older threads (forum problem, not yours)

can you please create a new thread, tell us your system, version and color management setup and also the steps that lead to your issue.

Chrispy-303

Known Participant

Same problem I raised a few days ago

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/colour-values-change-on-their-own-very-frustrating/td-p/11265446?page=1

The above image:

Top version is the original version of the design with correct colour values

Bottom version shows the change in colour and colour values a few mins later (still live in file, no save/close)

Chrispy-303

Known Participant

Look how dull this is getting!! Massive colour cvhange over time.

This has been sitting off on the side of a Ai file I keep opening and saving - Over time it just keeps getting darker and darker

Monika Gause

Community Expert

How is color management set up?

Is the soft proof turned on?

B

beachk1

Participant

Okay suddenly I'm having the same problem. Some colors look okay, but then I go to select a new one and it looks fine until I click "OK" and then the color that actually fills the shape is dull. Has anyone figured this out? What are we supposed to do?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Does it only look dull or do the calues change?

Arthur Design Overlay

Participating Frequently

I have the same issue since months. Colors even get duller everytime I re-open the files. Values change. Loosing a lot of time with this.

Adobe please fix!

CC always up to date. Never touched the color settings.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

"Never touched the color settings. "

That is the worst idea you can have. You have to check and set up the color settings to your needs. Color management has been there for 20 years now and it won't go away.

Please show us your color settings.

Arthur Design Overlay

Participating Frequently

When it comes to changing one of the thousands presents on your
software, there is no clear indication that "this should be set first and
foremost".

Now, talking about the issue at hand, my point was the fact that
Illustrator automatically changes the color values in my doc to something
more dull everytime I close & re-open the same document. And it looks like
I'm not the only one with this problem and no-one has an appropriate answer
to solve it. This would be nice if it could be fixed.

---

[Personal Information removed by Moderator]

B

betha88370958

Participant

Glad im not the only one experiencing this. This is a huge problem with countless hours lost trying to figure out why I can't get my colours more vibrant, illustrator changed them each time. For me I think it happens when I save a file. Changed my colour settings to the ones suggested below, hopefully this fixes it.

S

sandyr49122771

Participating Frequently

Hi!

Designer here, I'm also experiencing this problem but nothing above has fixed it. I haven't changed the color setting before this happened. All my colors are still dull. I tried to make a box a bright neon red but in the artboard, the color dull's down the red to a soft red.

However, changing the color settings to "Monitor" actually gives me the accurate bright red color, but I've read that we should be using the above settings.

Can someone please help me, I've been researching this for the past 4 days and I can't find a solution to this.

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Is your Document Color Profile the same as your RGB Working Space?

Look for it at the bottom of your window:

J

jhannel

Known Participant

I'm having the same issue. This has happened to me three times now (the latest being today). I'm a designer and tend to drag a LOT of image files into an Illustrator document when I am working on a new project. I use these files to pick colours and also use them to create a sort of visual mood board. I'm a 'whole picture' kind of person, so need to see all the images I'm using for inspiration all at once. Anyway, I've noticed that the files that this has happened with were all files that I'd dragged quite a lot of image files into. Saying that I have other files that have had lots of image files placed into them but I usually either delete some or save and close the files straight away. I think it's when I leave the files lingering open for a while that the colour change happens. If that makes sense. Would love a solution to this as currently no way to reverse it and have to start each affected file from scratch. Sometimes months of work needing to be redone all because the colours changed for some reason unknown to us.

designybjrs

Known Participant

I too am having the same problem. Check out this before and after!

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

That looks very extreme, can you share those .ai files? (CC file sharing, Wetransfer, Google, Dropbox)

It is very hard to reproduce, it may be worth to have a look at those files.

shaina_dawnanddelight

Participant

I'm having the same problem and it's a huge project for a client changing completely... I could really use the help! As I think back I remember the warning that "Data Recovery" would be turned off, and it was after that my colors changed. Wondering if it's connected??

N

nongkrong

Participant

is there a possibility you're using a macbook? try turning off your GPU:

illustrator > performance > GPU performance (uncheck)

this solved the dull and inaccurate colours on my 13" MBP 2017 (no touch bar) and i remember using this method on my MBA 13" 2017 back then.

hope this helps.

L

Lena5E39

Participant

THIS WORKS THIS WORKS THIS WORKS, I REPEAT, THIS WOOOOOOORKSSSSSSS LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO THANK YOU GOD BLESS YOU

L

lewrob

Participant

Did you ever find a solution to this? I'm having the exact same problem.

shaina_dawnanddelight

Participant

Hey lewrob - You're the most recent person that said they had the same problem. Were you able to figure it out?

J

Jennifeer5FE1

Participant

im having the exact same issue still no solve! ive tried every single thing regarding color profiles

I have never had this issue until the latest version??

Wtf are they waiting to fix this issue, as designers it really messes up with our work!!

S

sarapixels

Inspiring

Is the background grey also getting darker? Or am I just imagining that because of the other darkened colors?

H

hyeleek97019272

Participant

As for me, The background grey is still the same,

But literally all the color changes, as the color code changes automatically (#123abc -> #456zxc)

also I find that, as the bug(?) appears, the color gets darker and darker. (Orange -> a bug : Darker orange -> 2 bugs : Even darker orange) I don't know when the bug happens (

H

hyeleek97019272

Participant

Same here. All the color code changed,

I didn't touch anything related to color asjust, PDF export and so on

Really terrible problem as I worked on a large project, I cannot recognize which color changed /how changed

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded