Saving Print artwork as PDF in Illustrator makes it darker/duller

[kate5E92]

I am working on a print document in Illustrator. 

The document is set as CMYK. 

When I save the PDF, I choose the Adobe PDF preset as "High Quality Print". I also choose to add all the printer marks, and then color conversion is set as "no conversion". 

Yet, when I veiw the PDF in Preview on my Mac, it's much darker than in Illustrator. Maybe it's because I'm viewing the PDF in Preview rather in Acrobat?

Am I missing something? I've tried to find resources, without luck, so I thought I'd try here. 

Thanks for any hints/tips/pointers.

Kate 🙂

[Ton Frederiks]

Preview is not a very reliable PDF viewer.

How does it look in Acrobat?

[kate5E92]

I couldn't get Acrobat on my computer (until I had freed up some space). Now that I've checked, it looks fine in Acrobat... so fingers crossed. EEK 🙂

[KShinabery212]

What are you trying to design?

If it is a graphic... I would finish it in Illustrator and then pop it into Photoshop and then save it as a PDF.  I never go wrong doing that.

If it is a layout, then I have other ideas.

[kate5E92]

It is a graphic on a print doc. I never knew this was an option, so thanks for that! 😉

[Monika Gause]

It's not really an option.

It is a good idea for some specific artworks that would cause problems in prepress (such as extensive use of bristle brushes or blending modes that only work well in RGB space). But it is downright destructive to all of the "typical" vector artwork with its fine lines and shapes that need to be sharp in order to be legible. Converting those to pixels when opening in Photoshop will take away all the features that made you create this as a vector artwork in the beginning.

When all you have is issues with color then your only option is to fix your color management. And of course use a decent PDF viewer (which Preview is not).

[michelew83603738]

How does it actually look in Acrobat?

[kate5E92 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Michele. 

I finally downloaded Acrobat and it seems to be okay there, so I'm hoping this is right when it goes to print 😉