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Why are my colours dulled in indesign?

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
May 8, 2010
8 replies
90959 views

Hi team.

I guess this is something to do with my colour set up.

basically I am in the process of creating some simple one colour graphics in illustrator. And in illustrator they look just how I want nice and vibrant.

However once I place them into indesign they look dull and lifeless. This would not bother me except when I export to PDF from indeisgn that dull lifeless image is carried to the PDF.

If I PDF from illustrator it looks just how I want.

Frustratingly in the links panel of indesign that same great colour is there but I cannot for the life of me work out why in the document it looks dull and int he PDF too, I really need help on this as its for a tender which needs to be in by the end of the weekend.

To clarify I am not worried so much about absolute colour correction, i.e. calibrating screens etc, my problem is illustrator looks great, indesign looks dull.

How to

Correct answer Peter Spier

OK taking what you said further I have confirmed I was working in RGB within illustrator. And therefore can I presume indesign is working in CMYK?

If this is the case how can I make it work in RGB? I want the bright vibrant colour from illustrator not indesigns dull lifeless one.

InDesign works in BOTH rgb and cmyk simultaneously.

What you describe is best explained by transparency flattening, and without the file to examine it's going to be impossible to find another cause. Check the transparency flattener color space (Edit > Transparency Blend Space...) and set it to Document RGB if it isn't already.

D

defaultklmf9vhsgkka

Participant

My situation is that indesign covert into pdf, everything in pdf looks black only,there is no color in the pdf. Afterwards,

I have undated my acrobat reader,than everything looks fine now~

R

rymdrum

Participant

Hi there!

I had the same problem and now, after weeks I finally solved the problem. For me at least.
I clicked Window > Color > Color and then chose RGB in the right corner of that color window and then poof I had bright colors again.

Have you solved your problem yet?

Edit: sorry, saw this post was 10 years old haha. my bad. Maybe it will help someone 😉

rob day

Community Expert

An RGB color might still get previewed as it would output to a CMYK device when Overprint is turned on, or there is any transparent object on the page, with the blend space set to CMYK:

candicec98466888

Participant

Sooooo- i had the same issue so i just removed all PNG images off the page and the colours came back!!! Still doesnt answer how to resolve it or why its freaking out!

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Sounds normal. Did you check your transparency blend space?

candicec98466888

Participant

Literally had read this in the other comments and didn't know what it meant- just looked it up in help and you were dead on!! Changed the blend space to RGB and we are back in business!! Thank you!

ilovepixels

Participant

I just experience something the same - dull colours on one or two pages of a document but not on others and it had me pulling my hair out.

After much fiddling and asking a colleague if they'd had the same issues, I then looked at all the elements on the offending pages and it ended up being there were 2 objects one was text and one was a vector and both had drop shadows on them which when removed, the image that had been really dull became as bright as the original photoshop file I had used!

I don't think I've had this occur before - has anyone else?

rob day

Community Expert

That's expected behavior. When there's any transparent object ( like a drop shadow) on the page, the page's colors are displayed in the chosen Transparency Blend space. The default is CMYK, but you can set it to RGB.

S

Speedsoft

Participant

Whenever I have a page that has a PNG file in it, it dulls all of the graphics on that page. It prints normally and exports to PDF normally.

Using original JPGs or other formats resolves this problem. No switching transparency blend space or RGB/CMYK is necessary.

Hope this helps!

A

Anonymous

thanks everyone for contributing to this thread, it solved the problem for me. i had bright photos dulled in indesign but bright in the pdf export. and yes indesign was set to cmyk and came up brilliant when i changed it to rgb.

A

Anonymous

Same problem! Have 12 .indd files, four spreads per unit, all being PDF as separate spreads, all being created the same way, two have this dull colour all others are perfect!

The links are fine, the imported images are fine, all the same.

Checked proof set-up, proofed colours, Transparency Blend Space... all the same, PDF settings all the same... I even tried packaging it and making the PDF for that file. No joy!

Peter Spier

Community Expert

And what is the transparency blend space?

Is the difference between the files that the ones without a problem have no transparency, while the others do?

A

Anonymous

Transparency Blend Space set to Document RGB

The same as all the other InDesign files, imported image assets... these files are to be used on digital component hence RGB, isn't actually any transparency used in this case.

The process is exporting image only layer as PDF, converting that PDF to PNG, saving out from Photoshop (have checked file and setting used to create file, all the same, the PNG is displaying correct colours too, just not when imported into InDesign) re-importing PNG to new layer in same document and exporting PDF of that layer only again, using same PDF settings... no idea why this happening... done a load of these now, used same process and all are fine, just not this one, and one other.

I have a work around, where I make a new InDesign document and copy and paste the spread assets and make PDF from that file... works a treat, but not a fix, I am no closer to understanding why this is happening.

G

GarethiAuthor

Known Participant

As an update I sort of suspect a bug or something.

I have outputted my document to pdf. Two pages have some elements that are exactly the same link. On one page lovely and vibrant and on another dull and lifless.

I have no overlays, transparencies or anything silly going on so this is just very frustrating!

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Are you sure you have no tranparency on the page? No Drop Shadows?

This sounds an awful lot like an RGB image with a CMYK transparency flattening space, or possibly a conversion from RGB to CMYK at export, but that would affect all instances.

J

JM77777

Participant

>Basically I have 6 'swatches' of vivid colours blue orange

There you go, 'Bright orange' must be a RGB colour as it is almost impossible to get 'Bright orange' in CMYK.

I also guess that it is a RGB to CMYK conversion that has you troubled..

Frans_van_der_Geest,

Could you kindly delete your comment? it is irrelevant and you clearly did not read the questioner's situation and the actual question. I find it that you just want to express what you have learned, but this is a Q&A forum not what I know forum.

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