Inspiring

Answered

Imported PNGs look different to the original image

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
April 16, 2021
3 replies
2085 views

I am pretty new to InDesign, so forgive me if I missed something obvious but I have a problem with imported PNGs I rendered in Photoshop. They are discolored and look simply worse than the original image, as soon as I imported them into InDesign.

The left picture is how it is supposed to look and how I rendered it originally and the right is how it looks in InDesign. For reference, the black is background, the image is transparent with glow.

Import and export

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Correct answer c.pfaffenbichler

This is how it looks with soft proofing and gammut warning on.

The gray warning color indicates that pretty much the complete purple regions of the image are out-of-gamut for the Working Space (which should be the same as the indd’s CMYK Space).

Which means that that appearance cannot be achieved in that CMYK Space and it may be better to be aware of that early on instead of being disappointed when proofing or printing.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Could you provide the image?

What is the ultimate output medium here – print or screen?

When you preview the image in Photoshop with View > Proof Setup > … set to the same CMYK Space does it look notably different from the display in Indesign?

$h4gg¥Author

Inspiring

The ultimate output will be print.

As for the View > Proof Setup > ... Photoshop is set to Working CMYK and since I changed the transparency setting in InDesign to Document-RGB the difference is negligible, if there at all.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Using RGB as Flattener Space seems risky (though if you export X-4 pdf the flattening does not happen on your end).

AND … the image will need to be converted to the printing space anyway, whether you do it at exporting the pdf or whether it happens at the printer’s it will have to happen!

So it may be better for you to be aware of the result early on.

If you open the image in Photoshop, set the Proof Setup to the printing space and check View > Gamut Warning how much of the image is flagged?

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

What is the Edit > Transparency Blend Space-setting?

$h4gg¥Author

Inspiring

It was set to Document-CMYK.

Setting it to Document-RGB immediately fixed it. Thank you!

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

That is not necessarily a fix … if you export a pdf for print with that setting the resulting pdf will likely be problematic and the color will still be out of gamut and subsequently appear different in the pdf and in printing.

BobLevine

Community Expert

Why are you using PNGs? Just save as PSD and place that.

$h4gg¥Author

Inspiring

This sadly yields the same result.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Could you provide the image?

What are the image’s Color Space and the indd’s assigned Profiles?

Ultimately it looks like an RGB Trasparency compared to CMYK Transparency issue to me.

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