Color shift when copying and pasting from Illustrator into InDesign

[joo_yoonc11057475]

I'm noticing a slight color shift when copying and pasting vector artwork from Illustrator into InDesign. Both the source and destination documents are in RGB color mode, and both programs are set to use the same color management policy. The change is very very slight, actually verifiable using the eyedropper. The odd thing is, if I place the vector artwork into InDesign (rather than copy and paste), the colors remain true to the image. Why is the color shifting in copy and paste, and how can I prevent such a shift? It's rather annoying.

[vinny38]

Hi!

Maybe you can ask your request here:

Color management

Strangely enough, while copying a vector artwork, indesign create a swatch based on the rgb name (i.e. r200g130b20), but that often does not match the exact values....

If you don't have many artwork to handle, you can also fix the color by setting the right values in the swatches panel.

It is not a fix, but sometimes is faster than trying to get over this recurrent, and annoying problem.

regards

[rob day]

Both the source and destination documents are in RGB color mode

InDesign doesn't have a document color mode, an ID page can have objects with a mix of color modes—every document has both an RGB and a CMYK profile assignment. If there's no assignment your Color Settings' Working profiles would be used.

There is a Transparency Blend Space, which would affect the preview of pages with any transparency—the transparency could be in the pasted object or any other object on the page. If your blend space is CMYK, transparency would force a CMYK preview showing how RGB objects would convert into the document's CMYK space.

Also, turning on Overprint/Separation Preview would force a CMYK preview whether there's transparency or not.

[joo_yoonc11057475]

Ah, okay, thank you. I'm fairly new to InDesign, so please forgive my ignorance. Working RGB space is the standard sRGB. The color settings for both programs are the default North American General Purpose v2. Blend space is RGB, overprint/sep preview is off. I am making PDFs for consumption online, so everything is kept in RGB as much as possible.

The color difference very subtle. It's off by 1 in one of the three color channels. I'm just wondering why it's happening at all. Thanks.

[rob day]

The color difference very subtle. It's off by 1 in one of the three color channels. I'm just wondering why it's happening at all. Thanks.

For placed vector art the eyedropper isn't accurate because it picks up the preview proxy. You can see that if you place a CMYK PDF, the eyedropper will return an RGB color. The eyedropper values are accurate for placed image formats. I think the way to check is to export the PDF with the destination as sRGB and check the values in AcrobatPro's Output Preview panel. You can use the panel's Object inspector or set the simulation profile to sRGB.

When you are placing you have to watch out for the Clipboard preferences in both apps. The preferences determine whether an editable vector object gets pasted vs. a PDF version of the object.