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sarahl12794970
Known Participant
May 12, 2018
Answered

Color management issues in PDFs destined for desktop printing

  • May 12, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 3870 views

I'm having an issue with color management and exporting PDFs in InDesign. I've watched David Blatner's tutorials on color management and print PDFs, but still can't figure out what's going wrong with my documents / workflow.

I am creating pdfs to be printed on desktop printers. I create my images in Photoshop as sRGB jpegs, which I place into InDesign. The color settings in my Indesign documents are:

Working Spaces

RGB: sRGB

CMYK: Coated FOGRA39

Color Management Policies

RGB: Preserve Embedded Profiles

CMYK: Preserve Numbers (Ignore Linked Profiles)

Image Color Settings: sRGB

When I print the document directly from InDesign the colors are more saturated than they appear on screen, but the print looks good, with nice bright colors.

When I create my PDF, I export using a modified High Quality Print setting, with the following settings:

Compatibility: Acrobat 6

Color Conversion: Convert to destination

Destination: Working RGB - sRGB

Profile Inclusion Policy: Include Destination Profile

When I print the resulting PDF, the colors are duller and less saturated than when I print directly from InDesign. However, if I change the Profile Inclusion Policy to "Don't Include Profiles" and export, the colors in the PDF change significantly on screen - they become much more saturated, and the resulting print is the same as when I print directly from InDesign.

Can someone explain why changing the Profile Inclusion Policy has such an effect on the color in the PDF? As far as I'm aware I have everything set up in sRGB, so why is this color shift happening? I prefer the print results from "Don't Include Profiles", but I'd like to understand what's going on and if there's a problem with my workflow. Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer rob day

However, if I change the Profile Inclusion Policy to "Don't Include Profiles" and export, the colors in the PDF change significantly on screen - they become much more saturated, and the resulting print is the same as when I print directly from InDesign.

If you are viewing the PDF in AcrobatPro, check its Prefs>Color Management>RGB Working space, the working space would probably handle the screen preview of RGB color with no profile.

Also, this may or may not be related, but make sure your Transparency Blend Space is set to RGB—if you have any transparency on the spread the blend space would affect the color, and the default is CMYK.

1 reply

rob day
Community Expert
rob dayCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
May 12, 2018

However, if I change the Profile Inclusion Policy to "Don't Include Profiles" and export, the colors in the PDF change significantly on screen - they become much more saturated, and the resulting print is the same as when I print directly from InDesign.

If you are viewing the PDF in AcrobatPro, check its Prefs>Color Management>RGB Working space, the working space would probably handle the screen preview of RGB color with no profile.

Also, this may or may not be related, but make sure your Transparency Blend Space is set to RGB—if you have any transparency on the spread the blend space would affect the color, and the default is CMYK.

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    sarahl12794970Author
    Known Participant
    May 12, 2018

    Thanks so much, Rob! That's where the problem was! Color Management was set to Adobe RGB in Acrobat Pro. Changing it to sRGB fixed things and now the PDF prints exactly the same as the direct print from InDesign. My next question is if Adobe RGB is the default setting for Acrobat Pro? As this is something only the end user can control I'm wondering if I should make it clear that this may be an issue if they print from Pro. I notice there are no color management settings in Acrobat Reader, and the PDF colors view and print as they should.

    S
    sarahl12794970Author
    Known Participant
    May 16, 2018

    Surely if sRGB was embedded into the document, Acrobat should have ignored the Adobe RGB default?

    It does.

    When you assign (rather than convert) to a different profile the image's displayed color appearance changes.

    So here I've exported the same RGB image with no profile (left) and and with sRGB embedded (right). The image with no profile needs a source profile, but doesn't have one, so Acrobat assigns its current RGB working space, which could be anything:

    With Acrobat's working space set to ProPhoto RGB

    If I change the Acrobat working space to AdobeRGB, the image on the left with no profile changes, but the profiled sRGB image doesn't because it is being managed by it's embedded source profile:

    With sRGB set as the working space the PDFs now match.

    Changing an image's source profile assignment would change it's appearance on screen and in print, but an important concept of color management is the source profile should be different than the destination profile—sRGB and AdobeRGB are display profiles and not printer profiles. So you choose a single RGB display space to edit in and if the output color is wrong you look to change the printer's destination profile or print settings from the driver.


    There is one thing I still don't understand, Rob, and I apologize if I'm being dim! I have sRGB embedded in the document, yet the print results vary depending on the color management properties I have selected in Acrobat Pro. Choosing Adobe RGB or sRGB working spaces lead to completely different print results. How is this possible if sRGB is embedded into the document? When I examine the images in the pdf using the Object Inspector it shows that they are in sRGB regardless of the working space I've selected in Acrobat Pro, so shouldn't the printer receive that information? Why is Acrobat's working color space influencing the print results when there is an embedded profile?

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