PDFs exporting in incorrect colour profile - colours not matching proof

[Joe Lowthian]

I'm not sure if my assessment is completely accurate, but I've found that my PDFs aren't exporting colours accurately. For whatever reason, whenever I export a PDF/X-1a:2003 file, my blacks are completely crushed and it seems as if things have been exported in the wrong colour profile. 

I have a CMYK image with a colour profile of Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004) (as per my printer's request).

I import this image into InDesign with a working space profile of Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004) (the same as the image).

I then go to export a PDF/X-1a:2003 (as per my printer's request - settings in screenshot below).

For whatever reason, the colours reproduced in the PDF are quite different to the source image and to what I see in InDesign.

Is there something I'm missing? As far as I can tell, everything is in the correct format. Please see the screenshots below for more info (apologies if they're a bit out of order - struggling to get them in the correct order).

[Abhishek Rao]

Hi @Joe Lowthian,

Thanks for sharing the details and screenshots. Could you please confirm which version of InDesign and which operating system you are working with? It would also help to know which PDF viewer you are using to check the exported file, since different viewers can sometimes display colors differently.

As a next step, please try exporting the same document using a different preset, such as PDF/X-4 with the same Coated FOGRA39 profile, and let me know if the output behaves differently. Also, can you confirm if this issue happens with all files or only this particular one?

If possible, please share a sample file for testing. If it’s confidential, you can send it via DM on the community using any cloud sharing service like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

[Joe Lowthian]

Thanks for the response - I'm using the latest version of InDesign 2025 (updated it yesterday) on MacOS Sonoma 14.7.6 and using Preview to view (have also tried Acrobat). Preview displays JPEGs correctly. I should also mention that, when I export as JPEG in InDesign, everything is fine.

Same issue when exporting PDF/X-4 and it doesn't seem to be specific to this file (I've got another document with many images acting the same, all of which are the same colour profile). 

I've attached another file, along with a sample image as I cannot share the image used in the screenshot. It's the same issue though.

[Willi Adelberger]

When you export a c,yl image with one profile and convert it to a sdifferent profile you end up with K becomin 4c black.

Either choose to ignore cmyk profiles and keep numbers or save cmyk images without color profile.