Color Sync

[acbee]

Hi,

I am exporting from AI an artboard and saving it as png. When I place it in the same document the colors are different.

I checked in bridge, the color settings are synchronized..

What could be the cause? 

Thanks for response

angelika

[Ton Frederiks]

Is your document color profile the same as your working space in your Color Settings?

Check the bottom of your document.

[acbee]

yes it is

[Monika Gause]

Can you please give us details?

And screenshots would be cool.

[acbee]

[Monika Gause]

Which document color mode is the AI file?

Which color profile is associated with it?

Which is your working profile for RGB?

[acbee]

the document color mode is cmyk

[Monika Gause]

Well, there you are.

If your goal is to export your design to the web, then work in RGB color mode using the color profile sRGB.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI · Accepted solution]

If you're working in CMYK in your AI file and export to a PNG, the color could change. PNGs are RGB only, so the color can shift.

[acbee]

what do you recommend?

[Ton Frederiks]

Yes, there will be a difference in color when saving a CMYK document as RGB.

But what makes it worse is when your RGB working space (in your example eciRGB) is used.

It will export using eciRGB, but browsers and Photoshop will assume sRGB as the profile.

I recommend to use sRGB in your Color settings before exporting your CMYK document to png.

[acbee]

do you mean that I should also work in sRGB?

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

If you work in CMYK documents, you can change your color settings temporarily to sRGB when you want to export to png.

The problem is that Illustrator uses the RGB working space (in your example eciRGB) to convert your CMYK to a png file, but other applications assume (see as profile) sRGB and display the wrong colors.

Changing your RGB working space (temporarily) to sRGB wil correct this.

You could also solve the problem in Photoshop, but that is adding a couple of steps to get it right.

You can open the png file in Photoshop, Photoshop will see an sRGB profile. You can correct it by selecting Edit > Assign Profile and choose the eciRGB profile. After clicking OK you can select Edit > Convert to Profile and choose sRGB as destination space. That will make your file an sRGB document as most applications expect from a png file.

[acbee]

thank you very much!

[Ton Frederiks]

Angelika, good to hear you found this helpful.

I also think that you found a bug.

The PNG specification supports color management and ICC profiles, but Illustrator does not embed the current RGB working space profile that is used for the conversion to RGB, but lets other software (like Photoshop) believe that sRGB is used.

You may report it as a bug here:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com

[acbee]

ok, Ton Frederiks, I will do so. Thanks!!!

[Ton Frederiks]

It looks like the old Export > Export > Save for Web (legacy) exports it correctly and has the option checked to convert to sRGB when saving as PNG.

[Ton Frederiks]

You may add your vote here:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-feature-requests/suggestions/39521494-pn...