Color changing more than usual from Illustrator to Photoshop

[LenXIII]

So a quick backstory to explain my current knowledge so you all know how to assist me better   I own a printing company (large format) and have a lot of experience with illustrator and photoshop.  I print to a large CMYK printer.  I am not setup with custom profiles or any special color calibration as I have a lot of experience with working with what I receive from clients and I am very happy with how my printer performs based on what I see on my screen using the normal adobe sRGB or similar profiles.  Also I print both CMYK and RGB files depending on my needs.  My printer is CMYK but is capable of printing far outside photoshops CMYK gamma range so sometimes I leave a file in RGB to get a brighter color spectrum.

Having said that I am constantly having to open ai or EPS files in to photoshop because a client didn't outline a font or for various other reasons.  In the end I print TIFF files that are rasterized regardless of how or what type of file I received.

So the issues I'm having the past few days:  Normally when I take an AI file in to photoshop a common problem can be blacks converting to a 1 color black or sometimes reds can look a little unsaturated but usually that's the biggest issues I would run in to.  Opening the file in RGB or CMYK has no effect on the outcome.  Well lately I have opened files in to photoshop (or copy pasted from illustrator) and the colors are just going totally wack.  I am getting blacks that look GREEN and have very odd color values but in illustrator they are fine.  I am mostly having this problem with blacks coming in totally gray or some weird color, but other solid colors have had issues too.  I have been using my own weird methods of doing things for about 12 years now so this is obviously a new issue.  I checked some things like "edit/color settings" and proof colors etc but nothing has an effect.  I guess one thing I could do if someone is interested is I can send them a regular AI file I have with solid black text in it that is opening in photoshop green and you can tell me if you get the same issue.  Otherwise does anyone have any suggestions on how to narrow this down and get better results importing files in to photoshop?

Leonard

P.S - I didn't proof read so I apologize for any typos!

[Mylenium]

AI uses GPU acceleration. PS uses GPU acceleration. Color Profiles and screen tweaks use hardware acceleration. Multiple screens can have different profiles and tweaks. Sometimes drivers break down or do their own color conversions. Need I go on? Just do the math. Your hacky workflow was inevitably bound to break down one day and I'm afraid there are no simple solutions. As much as you may not like it, you likely will have to sit down and take the time to establish a consistent color management. Can it be just as hacky? Sure, but at least enforced unified profiles result in predictable behavior even if the actual colors are still off.

Mylenium

[LenXIII]

I didn't think of checking the hardware end of things as this never occurred to me, so I appreciate that input.

As for the rest of your reply and the reply from the gentleman below you, I feel like you came here to belittle me for not having this idea of a perfect workflow.  It's obviously not perfect but it's far from hacked.  I use the default web SWOP v2 profiles as that is what 99% of my clients are using when they make a file.  Everything I do is on a different material, different size, and different product so making standardized profiles would be very time consuming and extremely expensive.  I have ICC profiles on my printer that I have tweaked to represent my monitor while working in web swop v2 pretty accurately and I am very happy with the outcome.  The question I asked here HAS NOTHING to do with my profiles and workflow to my printer, it has to do with a file from illustrator changing drastically coming in to photoshop WHILE USING SYNCED PROFILES between the two programs. 

If you just want to tell me how bad I am at what I'm doing as a one owner business that is just trying to get by then please save the response.  If you genuinely have a suggestion for me to check out then I greatly appreciate your time and effort.

[D Fosse]

I feel like you came here to belittle me for not having this idea of a perfect workflow. 

OK, fair enough, and I apologize for that. If this was your private stuff I wouldn't have said anything. But you run a business, and your customers deserve more predictability than this. This is not what I'd expect as a customer!

 I use the default web SWOP v2 profiles as that is what 99% of my clients are using when they make a file.

US Web Coated (SWOP) v2 is for offset presses calibrated to that standard. Unless that's what you're running, it has no relation to your printer, and so it needs to be converted anyway. Your printer has its own native color space - very likely bigger than Web Coated SWOP - which is described in its own icc profile.

A color managed process isn't complicated. All you need is a printer profile, which is a profile that describes the printer's native color space, using a specific set of inks on a specific type of paper. The printer manufacturer will have this, or you can make them yourself. Most printer profiles are in fact RGB profiles.

The document color space is converted into the print color space, using your printer icc profile. Adobe RGB is known to convert well into almost any kind of print profile, and has therefore become very widely used. Any CMYK profile will have to be converted back into RGB first.

[D Fosse]

I don't even know where to start here. This is total anarchy

My printer is CMYK but is capable of printing far outside photoshops CMYK gamma range so sometimes I leave a file in RGB to get a brighter color spectrum.

This is a totally nonsense statement. If you used icc profiles in a predictable workflow you'd know why.