Participant

Question

PDF colors wrong on ipad/iphone HELP!

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
June 28, 2011
9 replies
73577 views

When exporting PDFs from InDesign they look great on the computere but there is a HUGE color shift on the Ipad/Iphone. The main color is a rich purple which turns into neon blue on the iphone/Ipad.

Through research I have found that iphones/ipads show RGB color. I have tried ALL RGB settings in InDesign and the best that I get is a dark blue.

Has anyone been able to solve this???

HELP!

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

I use iPhone7 and also faced the same problem while using this adobe reader after doing many things the problem I cant fix it. But I noticed after few months later when I do factory reset without userId and password my mobile due to some reason after that the problem is fixed.

Stevens Products

Participant

iOS 9.3 finally adds colour profile support. CMYK PDF's now render correctly! No more exporting as RGB PDF's for iOS display!

L

Laubender

Community Expert

Here a more ambivalent look at that feature:

iPad Pro 9.7 inch and iOS 9.3: Color management progress | conrad chavez | blog

Uwe

A

Alicia Brindak

Participant

InDesign CMYK looks neon when viewing exported PDF on iPhone or iPad. If this is for viewing or proofing only:

Export the PDF - choose FORMAT: Adobe PDF (Interactive) instead of (Print)

For the printer, you still have to go back and export the file using the Print format.

rob day

Community Expert

Export the PDF - choose FORMAT: Adobe PDF (Interactive) instead of (Print)

The reason interactive produces a better result is it forces all color into sRGB. You can still export a print PDF and get the same result by setting the color conversion destination to sRGB.

graphiclark

Participant

I can't even believe this is a problem. I created a PDF through WORD and the colors are so terrible on IPADS and IPhones, I almost had a heartattack! I haven't had any recent problems with this, now all of a sudden my document looks like a neon green monster! There is also a lack of color depth - black has taken over where there use to be gradation of color.

The kicker is that graphics work is my livelihood - I shouldn't need to download Adobe Reader on all my devices all of a sudden to ensure correct viewing, mainly because I know my clients will not be doing that on their end, they will still view it as is.

My question is, did something change in a recent iOS update? I have an IPad Air and a 4S IPhone which is where I'm seeing the worst imaging. From the amount of views on this post and the fact that it is exactly what I'm experiencing, there needs to be a better solution!!

- AC

graphiclark@yahoo.com

http://bit.ly/ConnectWithMe_OnLinkedIn

Screenshots of the difference:

John Mensinger

Community Expert

graphiclark wrote:

I can't even believe this is a problem.

Really? Why? Contrary to popular misconception, Apple products don't run on magic. iOS (a Cisco product, by the way) is comprised of code...as ordinary (in a present-day sense) as any. Furthermore, the Volkwagon-like customer-isolation scheme practiced by Apple severely limits what can be done with content targeted for their mobile products to produce any result that could be considered universal, or even controllable.

The kicker is that graphics work is my livelihood - I shouldn't need to download Adobe Reader on all my devices all of a sudden to ensure correct viewing, mainly because I know my clients will not be doing that on their end, they will still view it as is.

Wait. What? On any platform, Adobe Reader is the only way to ensure dependable PDF viewing. Have you tried educating your clients in that regard, or do you just assume? If they/you are routinely deploying content into the world-at-large for the purpose of viewing on mobile devices, I'd advise you to seek out a format that is better supported on under iOS than PDF.

...there needs to be a better solution!!

There may be, but you haven't really provided specific context about your objectives. Why are your clients viewing your print-targeted PDF's on Apple mobile devices? What's the scenario?

Jongware

Community Expert

John Mensinger wrote:

Really? Why?

...

Wait. What?

...

Why ..? What.. ?

John, you are suprised about this poster's PDF workflow, while he may well have more pressing problems:

[...] I created a PDF through WORD [...] graphics work is my livelihood ..

Maybe he just didn't care to notice on which forum he was posting.

Jazeena

Participant

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

I tried everything and no matter what my PDF looked neon! I googled it and nobody had an answer and I finally figured it out after downloading many different apps.

Download the Adobe Reader app (its free) and then open up your PDF from there. Voila! It looks normal.

It is a beautifully designed app and it's easy to use and easy to present a PDF from on an iPhone or iPad!

Dov Isaacs

Legend

The “native” PDF display capability under iOS has absolutely no support for color management and is very problematic with transparency. Grayscale and CMYK colors are displayed using a 1980's era conversion algorithm similar to what the original version of PostScript used for CMYK=>RGB conversions. Uggh!

- Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

Petteri_Paananen

Inspiring

Here´s icc profile that has been made by measuring iPad´s screen with colorimeter... it may be a bit outdated already, it was made with iPad1 but feel free to test it.

http://www.edocker.com/iOS_screen.icc.zip

I don´t remeber who gave this to me couple of years ago, probably a color management expert in our organisation, but I will share it with everyone who thinks it may be usefull...

L

Laubender

Community Expert

@Petteri – I think that icc profile is by Christian Albrecht from Serum Network GmbH in Munich.
Maybe it was pulled from the download link over there (February 8-2011):

http://indesignsecrets.com/digital-publishing-suite-freebies-to-make-ipad-publishing-a-bit-easier.php

Uwe

Petteri_Paananen

Inspiring

That´s very possible. I just found it from my harddrive.... our color management guy did some icc profiles himself but that one could be from Christian as well... I have a faint recall that Christian was participating same DPS prerelease program with me and my collagues few years ago... that profile may have been downloaded from that prerelease forum as well....

-

-MD-

Participant

A little late to the party but I thought i'd post a reply incase this solves anyone elses issue.

I was experiencing the exact same with a CMYK InDesign doc when viewed on either an iPad or iPhone my Cyan was sooo bright my eyes bled!

I applied the settings described here http://indesignsecrets.com/converting-cmyk-to-rgb-with-indesign.php#comment-476634

Color Conversion > Convert to destination (preservce numbers)

Destination > Document RGB

(I also had "Use standard Lab Values for Spots" ticked in Ink Manager although I don't think this was important, certainly not in my doc anyway!)

The output PDF was fractionally different but that was expected going from a CMYK doc for printing to an RGB web PDF.

My eyes are now safe

S

steviedoodle

Participant

Perfect, just by using Convert to Destination and switching Destination to RGB.

E

Electroscribe_2023

Known Participant

Had a fact sheet with a text box with 10% blue shading -- but the box rendered on an iPhone as a solid black blob with no text. Another text box on the same fact sheet with light blue shading showed up just fine. Both used CMYK (have changed that now), but the black blob's Swatch Option showed "Solid, uncoated" -- the blue text box that rendered correctly used a different swatch which did not have either words in its swatch options.

95% of my work gets printed on either a customer's inkjet or laser color printer -- or put on the Internet, so I went into my template and converted all CMYK swatches to RGB. If I know a job is going out to a commercial printing firm, can always convert the swatches back (after learning their desired specs).

Dov Isaacs

Legend

Actually, to expand upon Jongware's response, the iPad/iPhone are not in any way color-managed. The color profiles in any content, PDF or otherwise, are totally ignored in that environment. Bottom line, though, request Apple to implement color management on their "i" devices and to respect embedded profiles.

- Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

Davizual

Known Participant

Here is my solution to Apple's garish PDF color problem.

My clients and I use iDevices like the iPad, for quickly communicating the progress of graphic work. The last thing you want is for the colors to be "off" (it just creates a lot of unnecessary conversations :-).

I needed a quick solution for showing iOS-friendly proofs from Adobe Illustrator or InDesign and here is how I solved it:

From the Save Adobe PDF window, choose the Output option in the left column.
Under Output, Color section Color Conversion: dropdown list, choose Convert to Destination (not Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers).
Under the Destination dropdown list, choose Apple RGB (Note: CIE RGB worked better in some cases for some colors)
Go back to the General option in the left column.
Save Preset as "Apple RGB iOS Compatible", or something like that.
Save/Export the PDF and observe the result!

Now you have a quick selection preset output so you can manage your choices at the export level. Handy and easy to choose your output options here. Once your design gets to print ready, you can simply choose your final print profile instead, no confusing adjustments to the document color mode or anything else.

I hope that helps folks who have been struggling with this...

Dave.

Dov Isaacs

Legend

Generally speaking, converting all color to RGB when creating a PDF file isn't going to hack it either in terms of how transparency is interpreted.

Also understand that Apple's PDF previewer doesn't implement anywhere near the full PDF specification and is especially problematic with color and transparency.

The free alternative is to use the Adobe Reader on both iOS and Android devices. CMYK is reasonably displayed with Adobe Reader (no garish colors and overly high contrast from CMYK or grayscale) and if you print from those devices, you don't have problems of messed up CMYK values, rich black, etc.

- Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

Jongware

Community Expert

Short and blunt, it's Apple's fault. Their own PDF viewer has lots of problems on Mac OS X, and for me at least it's no surprise you get the occasional suprise on the iPlatforms as well.

The fault is in the viewing application, but maybe (maybe) it's possible to circumvent these color shifts by experimenting with color profiles, i.e., including or excluding them and whatnot.

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