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Question

RGB color not the same in the exported PDF

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
July 21, 2021
5 replies
2506 views

Hello, I've went through most of similar topics on here. I am working in INDD and I am creating RGB document for screen. Most of my colours look good when I export to interactive pdf but this red and magenta colors are giving me headache.

Transparency blend is set to RGB, color settings is set to North America Web/Internet, working space to sRGB IEC61966-2.1, CMYK is U.S. Web coated.

Colour management policies - RBG: convert to working space

CMYK: Preserve Numbers (Ignore linked profiles)

What am I doing wrong?

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T

Test Screen Name

Legend

I looked inside the PDF to get the real deal on the colour there. The red is sRGB, 0.859 0.188 0.235 -- you will know this as 219, 48, 60. So it looks as if you are doing everything right in making the PDF. And, if I take a screen shot from Acrobat on my Windows 10 system, I see 219, 48, 60. So I think we need to focus on what's happening with colour display on your own system.

I looked at your screen shot. I have no idea which of the two images in each case are InDesign. But taking the red, the left hand image is 199, 64, 67 while the right hand image is 196, 0, 43. But - and it's a very big thing - your screen shot JPEG is using a "Display" profile.

What happens if this is converted to sRGB? The left image shows 219, 48, 61 - basically as close to your original colour as you could get. The right shows 217, 0, 33. One of these is therefore the right colour. What is the left image a screen shot of?

L

Lavish_student5E49Author

Participating Frequently

Right image with red frame is Indesign, left image is a screen shoot of the Preview software I mentioned which you said is not good. I will now install Adobe Acrobat to see how it works when I open it in there.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Which is interesting because it's the colours in preview which seem to be 100% accurate (allowing for the curious "Monitor" profile) and those in InDesign which seem to be completely wrong.,,,

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

I asked: How exactly are these colour objects specified?

I mean, what colour values are used? In what app? If it's another app, how do you get the graphics into InDesign.

That we can tell which of your two colours is the one WE would expect.

Also, Preview is junk for PDFs, and most browsers are not colour managed. Don't have any expectations. To check colours, use only Adobe apps.

If you can share a simple sample PDF showing the problem it may save a lot of time.

L

Lavish_student5E49Author

Participating Frequently

I drew those circles in Indesign, colour is R=219 G=48 B=60 for red and R=229 G=54 B=188 for pink

sample_page2.pdf

sample_page.pdf

rob day

Community Expert

Your attatched PDFs sampled with Acrobat Pro’s Object Inspector are showing the colors’ ICC profiles as sRGB, and their values are the same as what’s in your InDesign file—multiply the Acrobat values by 256 to get the 0-255 RGB notation.

So, on the same machine, you should get an appearance match between InDesign and any color managed app. Here is AcrobatPro‘s Output Preview Object Inspector showing the profile and RGB values

If I place your PDF back into an InDesign doc with sRGB assigned, and draw a rectangle filled with 229|54|188 I get a match:

Browsers and OSX’s Preview do honor embedded profiles in images and PDFs, and when there is no embedded profile they default to sRGB. Here‘s your PDF in InDesign, Chrome, and OSX Preview—I get a match in all three:

If you are expecting an appearance match between different computers, then you have to consider each machine’s monitor profile and whether it is an accurate profile of the display. Was the monitor profile created via an accurate calibration process?

G

gsbatchwva

Participating Frequently

Are these imported graphics? Try changing RGB to "Preserve Embedded Profiles"

L

Lavish_student5E49Author

Participating Frequently

No, those are drawin in indd and text is also in that colour and problematic.

I did as you said thank you very much it helped with the pink colour but the red is still not as bright. Here is screenshots of the settings I now work with.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

What PDF export settings did you use?

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

L

Lavish_student5E49Author

Participating Frequently

I tried with export as an interactive pdf, without any output option changes. Color settings were as written in the post.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

You mention both RGB and CMYK settings. How exactly are these colour objects specified? And what is your transparency blend space?

L

Lavish_student5E49Author

Participating Frequently

Colours are set in RGB (process), I mentioned CMYK only because it is also in the color settings and assign profile windows. Transparency also RGB.

Could different colours be due to software in which I opend the pdf after exporting? Because I am now on a different laptop and these colours look the same in the pictures I attached. I took screenshot from mac preview window and also tried to upload it on web and it looked the same. Now I see same two colours and I need the colours to be like in the indesign screenshot.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

I took screenshot from mac preview window and also tried to upload it on web and it looked the same. Now I see same two colours and I need the colours to be like in the indesign screenshot.

By @Lavish_student5E49

Mac Preview isn't an reliable PDF reader. It's only a preview.

Hence, this is the headache you will incur - no matter what you do - when it's opened on different screens it will look different.

If it's opened in a different Web browser (Chrome Reader, Foxit etc.) it will look different.

It will look different in Mac Preview, it will look different in Acrobat.

And then it will different across different mobile devices, phones, tablets, etc.

Not all PDF viewers adhere to the same modules and different PDF readers will have different views on how to display your file.

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