Colors darken and dull over time

[sixsevennate]

This problem has arisen a few times and I haven't seen an answer as to why it's happening. I've had this issue where the colors in my document, whether custom colors or pulled from imported swatches, etc, change and got more dull and darker over time in the doc. It changes the hex/rgb values and everything. It's quite frustrating and I've had this happen to me on two different machines over the last 2 years. I have not changed any color settings, I am working in RGB. I link a lot of images within my document as well.

Below is one instance. I cheated the background of this image by eye dropping it and it will change to the darker version within a few hours, having not touched that composition. 

Here is another instance, bottom is the original color, top is the altered.

 

These are the settings that I see, note that I did not change any Color Mangement/Profiles. 

 

 

This is the color profile that I see most often.

 

But I also saw this pop up at some point, so I screenshotted it. 

I will continue to monitor it and post updates as I need this to be sorted. 

Is it changing color profiles as I work? Is there some hot key that I'm accidentally hitting that I'm unaware of? And what should the color profiles be. I'm not doing production work. I'm working in RGB to create work for a digital branding presentation. Nothing that should need anything specific, I feel.

 

Good luck and godspeed.

[Monika Gause]

How is color management set up?

Do you use the soft proof?

Never touching color management is not a good idea at all. There is no standard that works for everyone in every situation. Color management has been there for the last 20 years and it won't go away. So the only thing you can do is learn how it works and then set it up and use it.

There are quite a few threads about this issue. The only thing they have in common is people who don't know how to deal with color management unfortunately.

[sixsevennate]

I understand what you're saying, but you're not providing a solution by saying the best thing to do is to learn how to use it. But more importantly, this shouldn't be happening regardless. I have been designing for over 15 years and working with several studios of which I know that no one is changing their color management. So I really can't accept that as a solution for this issue. If you want to suggest a general management that makes sense for designing in RGB, I would be happy to test that to see if this continues to happen. But as of yet, there is no solution for this.

If I'm just sketching around in Illustrator, creating notional designs/compositions, why do I need to have a custom color management solution? I do not use Soft Proof, I don't even know what that is. I've posted all of the variables that were asked, if there are others, I would be happy to do so. I am not printing anything from this. I will only be linking this .ai to an .indd for presentation purposes. 

Is there anything else you can give that may help other than saying it's a bad idea to not do color management. This is a bug that has yet to be fixed, that's why people keep posting about it.

[Monika Gause]

Please post your curent color management settings. Is color management harmonized across the Creative Cloud applications?

So the softproof is turned off? Are you sure? Because in at least one case this was caused by the soft proof being turned on.

In other cases this happened because of non suitable color settings that caused the image to change color every time it was opened.

You need to learn about it and that's that. Even if you don't use it, it is always working in the background. No current publishing application works without color management. So it's not even an option touse a different one.

[sixsevennate]

I have not done anything to sync the settings, so no, they are not. And here are the color settings. I get that I should learn about it, but you can't be certain that this is contributing to the problem at all. What if I want the current settings that I have and the issue is still happening? Then what? I have no idea what Soft Proof is, so I don't envision I have it on. 

[Monika Gause]

The soft proof is in View > Color Proof.

Your color settings should not cause deteriorating colors. Are you working with files from other people? Are you copying items between them?

Can you turn on the warnings in the color settings? Yes, this will produce error messages, but you need them in order to see what is happening.

[sixsevennate]

This is a new file. I have pasted items from another file, but the colors that I've seen affected were new and unique to my file only. I turned on the warnings so we'll see if anything happens there. I'm working off of a server for what it's worth.

[Ton Frederiks]

I see, when your screendumps are opened in Photoshop, that they have the VX2770 SERIES profile of your monitor.

Assigning an sRGB profile (like the default RGB you have in your Color  Settings) darkens the image like you described.

I wonder what happens if you set your monitor to sRGB using the color adjust controls from your monitor.

It wont hurt because you monitor setting will be the same as your Color Settings in Illustrator.

[sixsevennate]

I can test that. That said, I've had this problem on a completely different computer, an iMac so I don't think it will have much bearing in this instance?

[Ton Frederiks]

The reason I suggested changing the monitor profile to sRGB is that I once read a post about colors gradually darkening (on a Mac) and changing the profile to sRGB stopped that.

I will try to find that post.

[sixsevennate]

I changed to sRGB and it's still happening. Any chance you found that article?

[Ton Frederiks]

It remains a mystery.

There must be some kind of conversion taking place.

Can you share an example file, maybe we can replicate the problem too.

Dropbox, CC files folder, WeTransfer...

[sixsevennate]

I stripped out content but screenshot the original color, placed a live swatch of the original color as well as left the converted live swatch. All of them are labeled. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Eez2ZENmee__qvPSgggyLGUl0eW3mRym/view?usp=sharing

[Ton Frederiks]

Thank you for sharing.

The first thing I notice is that the document uses a monitor RGB profile as working space.

Monitor profiles are not a good working space and can be the reason for your problem.

You don't get any warnings when opening the file, because they are all turned off in your color settings. 

[Ton Frederiks]

One thing you could try with the problem files that have the monitor document profile, assign the sRGB profile to them or copy the content into a new sRGB document.

To assign an sRGB profile to an existing document use Edit > Assign Profile...

[sixsevennate]

Alright, I swear I changed the profile on this doc. That said, I changed the computer's color profile as well as the doc and will watch it.

[Ton Frederiks]

Let us know if it still happens when the document profile is sRGB.

You can check the profile when this is turned on:

[sixsevennate]

Didn't fix it. Still having the issue even on the latest AI 2021. Original red on the left, pure RGB Red and at some point in the doc the red switched to the right color. Is it changing colors to web safe? I can't be the only one experiencing this.

[Ton Frederiks]

Can you share such a problem document?

[knjibi]

@sixsevennate @Monika Gause @Ton Frederiks 

Hi all, been having the same issues. After reading through the thread and following along, I did some more trial and error and found something that could be part of the problem here.

I went in under 'View' and checked 'Pixel Preview,' which then changed all the colors in the document to match the exported JPG colors (which were coming out duller). Not sure how it all works, but thought I'd share.

[sixsevennate]

I'm still having the issue and Pixel Preview doesn't seem to change anything for me, sadly.

[Terry Clancy]

If colors on an object are behaving weird and changing from the RGB values you set them to,  then check File / Document Color Mode is set to RGB

RGB supports more colors and brightness. If doc is set to CMYK then whenever you an set an objects  colors using RGB it is modified to the closest CMYK which will vary the RGB settings and will usually result in a duller color.

[Joshfree]

@sixsevennate @Monika Gause @Ton Frederiks 

There seem to be several variations here on this rather snide and fairly unhelpful comment: "There are quite a few threads about this issue. The only thing they have in common is people who don't know how to deal with color management unfortunately."  ...plus a lot of "try this" and "try that" individual advice.

Can any of you recommend a resource (from Adobe or otherwise) that succinctly explains how to set up our color profiles for Illustrator and other CC applications so that we can avoid these color shifts? I'm looking for something useful for designers rather than for, say, retouchers or pre-press people who have a far deeper technical knowledge (and interest) in geekery? 

I think that would be very helpful to a lot of the people having this color-shifting problem. Thanks!

[Monika Gause]

There is a very good and free source available in German. I'm not aware of anything comparable in English. In case the German is of any use to you: https://www.cleverprinting.de/cleverprinting-handbuch-kostenlos-herunterladen/

There are courses about it on LinkedIn Learning (not free). As for the depth of the learning: I'm afraid that you will need to learn quite a bit of the technical foundation.

[Joshfree]

Thank you, Monika. It's interesting that the Adobe Printing Guide hasn't been updated in years, but I expect the principles haven't changed much.

Sadly, I don't speak German, but others do. Helpful post. Thanks.