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Illustrator & InDesign - colors are off

Explorer ,
Dec 17, 2018 Dec 17, 2018

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Hi all - question on color:

I've recently noticed something in my Adobe software that's been giving me some grief. In both Illustrator and InDesign, I get colors showing up oversaturated and a little overbright. Photoshop however, doesn't seem to be having this issue. It also doesn't seem to show the colors wrong in the thumbnails - even from within Ai and InD, on the home screens - only in the workspace. I can't place when this started happening, but it's not always been this way (probably the past couple months or so, max). For example, my company's color is sort of a tomato, orangey-red (#D24727) (similar to the main color of Microsoft Office), but when used in Illustrator or InDesign, it shows up as full-on RED. Like fire-engine, cherry, candy-apple red. Pretty different from what it should be. In Photoshop though, it looks correct. In Ai & InD, I've tried adjusting the view, and basic things like that, but have avoided actual color profiles/settings because I've heard they are very hard to fix and not really to be messed with unless you are well versed in it, which I'm not. And it's not a RGB vs CMYK thing - that was one of the first things I checked. Anyway, it's not normally been like this until recently. Makes me wonder if I accidentally set something wrong somewhere, although if this were the case, I likely would have had to do it in both programs, correct? I've been looking online, trying to find a reason for this issue, but alas, nothing. Can anyone help? Any ideas? Considering that it regards my company's color, it's a pretty big deal. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Ben

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Explorer , Jan 16, 2019 Jan 16, 2019

UPDATE: I called Adobe Help last week, and they escalated the issue. They've since released an update and my colors now look better than ever across the board - InD, Ai & Ps all look exaclty the same now. It was clearly a bug issue but is now fixed. Just thought I'd share - Thanks!

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Community Expert ,
Dec 17, 2018 Dec 17, 2018

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So it's the colors in your files?

Check color management settings.

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Explorer ,
Dec 17, 2018 Dec 17, 2018

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Yes, using the same color hex in Ai/InD & Ps shows differently.

Do you mean the Color Settings? I'm not too familiar with that area. Do you have any specific suggestions? I've heard that changes there can be hard to fix.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 17, 2018 Dec 17, 2018

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You will need to learn color management and set it up to your needs, which vary depending on your region and depending on what media you're creating for.

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Explorer ,
Dec 17, 2018 Dec 17, 2018

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Hmm... I mean I know a bit, but I've been using Adobe products for decades and haven't really felt a strong need to get too involved in color management. Any idea what might have happened here? The colors seemed to be perfectly fine until recently. Part of me feels like re-adjusting the color settings might be missing the point, and treating the effect without really knowing the cause. Don't get me wrong - not against it - just hoping to find out a bit more before jumping into what might be considered a bandaid.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 17, 2018 Dec 17, 2018

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There is an issue with the CC aps resetting color management to "no color management", which is called "Emulate Illustrator 6" in Illustrator. There are similar settings in InDesgin, Photoshop.

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Explorer ,
Dec 18, 2018 Dec 18, 2018

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Hmm... This seemed promising, but as I got into it, it looks like they may be correct. Both were set to North America General Purpose 2, which sounds about right for what I'd need it for, and it also said that it was synchronized with Bridge across my apps. Technically, this sounds right, but still shows completely differently.
I'm not sure if will show up correctly here, but below is a screenshot of what I'm getting. Ps on the left, then InD, and then Ai. In Ai, on the far right, you can see my company color from the library. (hopefully) You can see that it shows differently than what is on the artboard (and yes it is set to that color). Also, it shows that Photoshop is still correct, but the other two are showing over-red.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 18, 2018 Dec 18, 2018

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What is the document color mode in each of the documents?

What kind of color definition did you load into the CC library?

When you measure the color values in each of the apps (in the respective document color mode), what is the result?

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Explorer ,
Dec 19, 2018 Dec 19, 2018

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Inline:

What is the document color mode in each of the documents? RGB on all.

What kind of color definition did you load into the CC library? As far as "color definition", the specs are as follows:

When you measure the color values in each of the apps (in the respective document color mode), what is the result? The colors in all apps (Ai, Ps & InD) all technically are correct - they all say that they are showing for instance, above RGB 210-71-39, but they display differently. Like Ai will show 210-71-39 as a much more basic red, like a candyapple red than the more orangey red that it is supposed to be. Hopefully the pic above shows correctly. The color around the edge of the screenshot is the color it is displaying as in Ai, but you can see the color it is supposed to be, both in the right swatch in the picker and on the right, in the palette - more orangey.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 19, 2018 Dec 19, 2018

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In that case you will need to check your color management settings and also the preview settings. Are they perhaps set to overprint preview or proof colors?

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Adobe Employee ,
Dec 25, 2018 Dec 25, 2018

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Hi Ben,

I would like to know if the steps suggested by Monika worked for you, or the issue still persists.

Kindly update the discussion if you need further assistance with it.

Thanks,

Srishti

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Explorer ,
Jan 10, 2019 Jan 10, 2019

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Sorry for the delayed response. Unfortunately, I still don't know what the issue is. As helpful as this was, I'm still having issues with it. It may be monitor related or something. I may call Adobe help. I do greatly appreciate the suggestions and help here though! Cheers!

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Community Expert ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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What's your Color Settings like?

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New Here ,
Jan 11, 2021 Jan 11, 2021

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I had the same issue as the original poster. Mine was with InDesign CS5.5.
Edit > Color Settings > changed it to "Monitor Color"
That sorted the problem right out for me.
Thank you two year old thread for helping me out. 🙂

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Community Expert ,
Jan 11, 2021 Jan 11, 2021

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"I had the same issue as the original poster. Mine was with InDesign CS5.5.
Edit > Color Settings > changed it to "Monitor Color""

 

Whoever gave you that advise was not "helping" you. In fact they have ruined your settings for good.

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New Here ,
Apr 12, 2021 Apr 12, 2021

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The above thread is what pointed me in the correct direction. Since it got my colors back to how they should be, they are fixed for for me. As long as it is WYSIWYG, then what do you see as a problem? 

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New Here ,
May 13, 2021 May 13, 2021

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LATEST

The same steps worked in my case as well. Edit > Color Settings > changed it to "Monitor Color" in all programs that I use daily from the suite, in my case AI, PS, IND.
Therefore all of them are aligned to the same working space and you'll have no color codes differences.

Hope it helps,
Thanks

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Participant ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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i bet PS is the one off. I had a similar issue sometime ago. As said most probably its different color profiles.

You can try to find out the culprit in a non scientific way but its not ideal.

Start by taking the same image, and export/save it as a jpg from all 3 apps (save them different filenames)

then open all 3 jpgs and see if they exported all the same. Ideally you view the jpg in a couple of different viewers. If you're using PC use the default windows viewer and maybe a browser like firefox or chrome. If the 3 jpgs match up between themselves, compare which app loads the original artwork in the same looks as the jpg. The one off would be the one that would need tweaking in settings.

Obviously there's a ton of more variables that might be causing the issues.

Sometimes even a simple gpu/cpu preview might change the shades a bit. Also cmyk/rgb document settings.

In photoshop you can enable the option to prompt you about color profile mismatch, you might want to enable that to see if you're loading an image which is not matching to its settings.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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Lee8x  schrieb

Start by taking the same image, and export/save it as a jpg from all 3 apps (save them different filenames)

then open all 3 jpgs and see if they exported all the same. Ideally you view the jpg in a couple of different viewers.

What do you hope to find out by doing that?

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Participant ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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cause you can embed color profiles in jpg aswell upon exportation.

if all the apps are using the same color profiles settings between each other they should be exported all the same.

if they export all the same but the app shows it differently then exported you can deduct which one is off

I had an instance where photoshop was showing a drawing in a way but when exported it was coming out a bit darker

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Community Expert ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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And "viewing them in a couple of viewers" - most of which might not even see the color profile?

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Participant ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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thats the idea behind it

firefox reads color profile, older windows photo viewer doesn't (not sure about win10 ver tho)

if you already have a mismatch there in the jpgs, chances are you have different profiles through all the different settings.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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Lee8x  schrieb

thats the idea behind it

firefox reads color profile, older windows photo viewer doesn't (not sure about win10 ver tho)

if you already have a mismatch there in the jpgs, chances are you have different profiles through all the different settings.

And what do you find out when all the JPEGs look differently and you don't know why?

Is this Designer's Voodoo?

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Participant ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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what's designers voodoo?

and thats why you're going by elimination cause you dont know why... if you knew why you wouldnt go through all this in the first place and set up proper color profiles, but as OP said "I'm not too familiar with that area".

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Community Expert ,
Jan 11, 2019 Jan 11, 2019

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I asked:

What's your Color Settings like?

...because if the Color Settings of PS/AI/ID are identical, all should display the same colour in the same way. It is clear from the OP's post his AI and ID colour settings are not the same as that for PS.

That's the starting point if I were him.

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