All exported files looked "Washed out"

So I've read a great deal of what's already been posted and I still for the life of me don't know what's going on.
When working in Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign (all CS5) and export to a pdf, Acrobat (9.4.6) shows all colors looking fairly gray in tone. This wasn't an issue until my last update, and I have no idea what could have happened as I'm doing nothing differently to export, or the in the way I export these files. Is there a setting I need to adjust in Acorbat to fix this issue?

When you use Export, you are not using Acrobat, but a feature of those other programs. You should ask in those forums. I am not sure what the equivalent of PDF Maker is for those packages (not sure there is one since they have the export). You can also print to the Adobe PDF printer to create the PDF -- using the Acrobat printer features.

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My RAW files look washed out jpegs are OK

My RAW files look washed out, in camera I introduced warm colours by setting it on cloudy and set to vivid. They look great in other programs, how do I retain the original colors?

Buddy, the issue is that Photoshop Camera Raw / Bridge don't use the parameters you set in-camera at all. It may seem odd that it doesn't, but that's the way it works.
The idea is that these software tools give you full control over literally hundreds of factors that go into your raw conversions, and trying to emulate the presets on the camera just doesn't make sense.
You need to save new Camera Raw Defaults to deliver color you like in new exposures you haven't opened before. Check especially the Camera Profile setting in the Camera Calibration tab in Camera Raw. Adobe does provide some options that will get you close to what the camera does, then you can tweak the settings further.
For what it's worth, it's not wrong to want the color to match, especially if you like the color the camera delivers. I've created Camera Raw Defaults for my own cameras that provide a very good match between the in-camera color and what a new exposure looks like when first opened in Camera Raw... I don't always leave it that way, though.
-Noel

Exported document looks washed out in firefox but ok in chrome and IE

Hi there. I'm pretty new with indesign so I'm having a little trouble with the exported pdf. I hope you can help.
I'm doing the layout of a newsletter, which will be uploaded for web viewing. After I exported, it looks the way I intended. But when I uploaded it, the Firefox viewer makes it look like it went through an overused hipster filter. I checked in Chrome and IE and it looks the same as the exported document.
Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/yRgsTE5.jpg
Does anyone know how to fix this issue?
I really hope you can help. Thanks.

There's probably nothing you can do. There is no color management on the web. And there are a number of different PDF readers which "do their own thing" when it comes to how they display PDF files.
The only way you could guarantee similar preview would be if you had your readers view the PDF in Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat which do have color management controls.

Icons/Folders/Thumbnails look "washed-out" in Tiger. Is there a setting?

Hello.
After installing Tiger I notice that the icons for the folders and the picture thumbnails look washed-out or grayed-out, not fully colorful as usual. I looked at all the Finder preferences but can find nothing to change it.
It's not so bad for the folders on the desktop but I really need to be able to see picture thumbnails clearly.
What setting am I not setting??
Thanks!!

From your description, it sounds like the "Finder" setting to display all items including those that are invisible has been enabled. In earlier versions of OS X, the behaviour was that only normally invisible items would appear "grayed out" (a useful indicator of its status), whereas normally visible items would have the regular appearance. This changed in "Tiger", where everything appears faded with that setting, something I would consider to be yet another example of the trend in erosion of usability of the OS X "Finder" that seems to accompany every revision.
As far as I know, there is no built in GUI way to change that setting - it likely became enabled through the use of some third party utility. Such utilities are an annoyance because, while they generally do no harm, they do nothing more than set "hidden" settings that are a part of OS X. As such, the effects of the utilities may persist, even after they themselves have been completely removed from the system. Then it is left to the user to try to figure out what setting was modified, or to remember what app they may have downloaded then uninstalled months in the past.
Your options are unfortunately limited, you presumably had chosen to display hidden files in the past for a reason - under 10.4, normally visible items will appear "washed out" when showing invisible items and I'm not aware of a way to change that. On the other hand, disabling the setting should cause visible items to appear with full opacity, but you would no longer be able to see the "invisible" items. The setting can be stored in a number of places, but for starters, to disable it, try launching "/Applications" > "Utilities" > "Terminal.app" and entering these commands:<pre>defaults delete -g AppleShowAllFiles
defaults delete com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'</pre>After entering the commands, restart the "Finder" by clicking on its "Dock" icon.

Possible solution to PDFs looking washed out/colors faded

I decided it would be easier to post this as a new thread in itself than to reply to each and every thread related to this problem.
I searched the forums to try and find a solution to images looking washed out/colours looking faded after exporting from InDesign CS3 to PDF.
After looking through the forums I came to the conclusion that the reason the images looked faded was because I have objects with less than 100% opacity in InDesign so if you also have similar settings this may work for you also.
When exporting from InDesign, under the Output tab I changed the Colour Conversion setting to Convert to Destination.
Other than that I left everything else as it was.
This solved my blacks looking washed out, particularly my fonts which had become a sort of grey/brown colour.
However I noticed that on the pages with images after the pages that had objects with varying transparencies, they still suffered from looking washed out.
The next step I came across purely by chance: Opening the PDF using Acrobat, under the Advanced tab I chose PDF Optimiser and noticed that the Transparency option in the sidebar hadn't been checked like the Fonts and Image options had.
So I checked the box and set the Preset to High Resolution and clicked OK.
It took a minute or so to Save the new file and once I opened it, the richness and contrast of the images had returned, if anything slightly over saturated but a lot better than the washed out/faded appearance of the previous document.
Hopefully this will work for a few people out there having the same problem.

I've actually responded a few times to others on the forums regarding images looking washed out/faded in Acrobat 8. I thought I'd pass that information to you here just in case it helps. In those cases, the images that had that appearance either had transparency applied or interacted with it in some way. However, if the file was viewed with the Output Preview dialog open (under Print Production tools) the colors appeared correctly. They would also be correct if the transparency was flattened. As it turns out, there was a bug in Acrobat 8 that affected the onscreen display of those images that interacted with transparency or had it directly applied and the transparency was still "live" (not flattened). This was fixed in the update to 8.1. If you are running 8.0 you might want to try updating to 8.1 and see if that helps?

Why do my images look washed out...

Why do my images look washed out after I have worked in Photoshop CS6 and saved them in Finder? I have been a Photoshop user for a while now and have never experienced this problem. It started 2 months ago and no one can seem to tell me why or how to fix it. I am a professional photographer and I have clients waiting on their images but I can't send them looking as horrible as they do. My workflow is: drag and drop an image from iPhoto or Finder to Photoshop. I change things like levels, contrast, image size and use the healing too. Then I save to Finder so I can upload to dropbox or to website or burn to a DVD. Now when I save the image the thumbnail looks washed out, without color and looks horrible!!! I don't know if my photo files are corrupted or ? If I open the image in Photoshop or Bridge it looks fine. I would be grateful for any suggestions or explanation. Things were working just fine, but not now.

Examining the image direct from the camera of the child on the beach, using http://regex.info/exif.cgi there is a small embedded thumbnail (with black bars top-and-bottom to letterbox it to the LCD aspect ratio), and a small preview probably used for zooming in on the camera LCD screen, and the fullsize jpg image all contained in the one JPG file. All three of these seem to have identical histograms other than the black-bars causing a dark peak on the thumbnail image, but otherwise the shapes of the histograms and the position of the peaks from light to dark are the same.
In other words the full-size JPG and the embedded preview and thumbnail all seem the same other than size so the darkened version seen in Finder is not coming from the camera. The one issue the above website reports is that the camera JPG has a color-profile tag (name of the profile) but does not actually contain the color profile, itself. All other versions of the image have an actual embedded profile not just the name in a tag. It is possible that this is confusing Finder into assuming a different profile or gamma curve for the image that sRGB warrants, but most all camera images have this issue so I wouldn't expect a Mac to show images from all cameras as too dark.
It is a mystery to me why the Finder preview looks darker, but at least in the one side-by-side provided, it does, and is different-looking than all other representations of the image from what I can see.
At the beginning of this thread you said you were worried the photos coming out of Photoshop were washed out and had bad colors. From my perspective, what comes out of Photoshop looks the same as what comes out of the camera, so only Finder has it wrong. Are you seeing the darker image anywhere else besides Finder (and perhaps iPhoto which we don't have a screenshot of)?
Most importantly does the image you see on screen in Photoshop, while you're making adjustments, look dark like the pre-PS Finder thumbnail or does it look lighter, like the post-PS Finder thumbnail and all the images on DropBox?
If more than just the pre-PS Finder thumbnail is darker then you may have a monitor calibration issue that needs to be addressed, otherwise just ignore the pre-PS Finder thumbnail when evaluating if the image needs any adjustments and assume they are all ligher than the Finder image.
BTW, I tested for a sRGB vs AdobeRGB mismatch, and if an sRGB image is assigned an Adobe profile then the colors become more intense but the whole image does not become darker so that can't explain what is happening.

Photos looked washed out when played through a TV....

I have a new G5 iPod and a 60gig Photo. When plug then into the same TV with the same cable (s-video and audio) the pictures from the G5 look washed out. The iPod Photo colours look "brilliant" and are all but identical to the original digital pictures and when shown on my iMac 20" screen.
Is this because of the video aspects of the G5 and the "corners" cut to get the unit size down (hence no fire wire).
Please advise, I feel like returning this and sticking to the Photo.
Thank in advance.
David

Got a refund today
Will wait for better resolution iPod to be released. The Photo still rox

My 2009 imac display looks washed out

can anyone help me my mid 2009 imac color looks washed out take a look for your self
if anyone knows how to fix please tell me

Hi jono from opunake,
Thanks for the question. Let’s take a look at your accessibility preferences to see if the Display contrast has been increased at all:
OS X Yosemite: Display pane of Accessibility preferences
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18394
- Matt M.

All the files are grayed out in iTunes

My iPod died a few days ago and it was replaced (5G 30GB). I’ve connected the new one to iTunes on my computer (WinXP pro) and all the files seemed to transfer correctly to the new iPod. In iTunes, however, it you select the iPod on the left, all the files are grayed out and you can’t click on them. With my old iPod you could. I also noticed a little locked symbol down at the bottom to the right of where it shows you how much space is left on your iPod hard drive. I’m guessing that the new iPod drive is somehow locked. I can’t find anything in iTunes that controls this. Is there a way to unlock the iPod drive so you can click on the ipod files in iTunes?
Asus P4C800 Windows XP Pro

Grey text when you look at the content and lock symbol at the bottom of the screen simply shows that your iPod is set to "automatically update songs and playlists". . If you want to access your iPod directly, play it through your iTunes, connect it to a second computer etc. you just need to change the update method to "Manually manage songs and Playlists" in the iPod preferences. For more detail see this tutorial: Managing Your Songs Manually
One thing to be aware of with manually updating is that the iPod also has to be manually ejected before the "Do Not Disconnect" message will go away. Safely disconnect iPod
For info: iPod 101
The iPod offers three ways to transfer music from your computer. You can select one of the following update modes from the iPod Preferences menu in iTunes (Edit=>Preferences=>'iPod' tab):
1) Automatically update all songs and playlists. This is the default mode, in which your entire music library, including playlists, is automatically synced to your iPod. If the music library on your computer exceeds the iPod storage capacity, you are prompted to select a different update method.
2) Automatically update selected playlists only. With this option, iTunes automatically copies the playlists you have selected to the iPod when you connect it to the computer.
3) Manually manage songs and playlists. You can also choose to transfer music to the iPod manually. This allows you to drag and drop individual songs and playlists from iTunes to the iPod.

Typeface in pdf looks washed out/light

When I convert a document to PDF the typeface looks washed out. Recently I was looking at a document on line and wanted to copy a paragraph. When I tried it a window came up saying that the page needed to be scanned/converted before i could copy from this document. I said "Ok". Ever since then, instead of the typeface being clear and solid, it's washed out and lighter looking. What happened, and how do I correct this problem?
I have AA XI

Hello,
Yes, the iMac's monitors are very good. They are among the best in the Apple LCD line.
But, Macs have a very distinctive difference in their video appearance. They will look less sharp when compared to a PC.
The difference is in how the Mac displays it's video. Basically, as I understand it, this is a visual perception based on the Mac's use of Anti-Aliased screens / fonts.
So, it does take some getting used to if you are new to Macs.
I've gotten accustomed to it. But, there is a noticeable difference in how the Mac displays video and how the PC displays it.
I have connected a number of PC monitors to my Macs, and the visual perception is the same as it is using a built-in Mac monitor. The PC monitor looks sharper and more defined on the PC than it does when connected to a Mac.
The difference is in the Mac OS and how it displays or renders it's screen and fonts. So, it's not the monitor.
Now, you can go into System Preferences (under the  menu) and then go into displays and tinker with the calibration settings and such.
Also in System Preferences is the "Appearance" pane. You can go in there, and towards the bottom is the "Smoothing" option. You can adjust those options as well. Note that the smoothing options don't take effect until after you restart.
So, there's a couple of places you can tinker to try and tailor it to look closer to your preferences.
I hope this helps.
Let us know if you have other questions.
P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on any of the posts / replies above if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.

No thumbnails in finder/preview after exporting files as dng out of lightroom?

Does anyone have experience sorting out the issue of no thumbnails in finder/preview after exporting files as dng out of lightroom?
There are several conversations in the forum about this problem, but cant seem to find a solution.
Anyone know how to sort this out?

Thanks for your reply.
Mac does support previewing dngs in finder and preview. This has not been a problem before (besides when using my fujufilm compact camera, which mac now has updated the Apple camera for).
To answer your Q about dng files. Thats exactly what i do. I have work which involves communicating/transfering multiple lr -edited files to someone else whom further edits in ps. Not only that, I personally use dng as a way of storing my files. I suppose like to keep my files tidy and uniform.
Any mac users out there who has a a solution to my issue with previewing dngs?

Titles look washed out

I have ended a video with simple credits: white Gill Sans lettering on a black background. These titles show on the computer as crisply and vividly as I had intended. When I create a DVD and play it on the computer, they are still crisp white-on-black. When I play the DVD through a TV (any TV of almost any size: CRT, LCD, Plasma or LED), the whole of the video shows perfectly, but then come the end credits and the white Gill Sans had turned into a dull, washed-out gray. This makes it difficult to read.
This is frustrating, but what makes it doubly annoying is that similar white-on-black title scrolls and cards from broadcasters show clearly and crisply on these same TVs.
Obviously, broadcasters are doing something that I am not (or vice versa). Can anyone suggest where the problem might lie and what the solution is to these ditchwater whites?
Thanks in advance.

Hello Tom:
1. The format is AIC 29.97 1920x1080i60.
2. I'm exporting as a QuickTime ref file.
3. The resulting file looks perfect: 100% white on 100% black.
4. I'm exporting to Compressor 3.5.2, which I set to burn the DVD after encoding has finished.
Given the symptoms (only on a TV does the white text go dull), normally I would have assumed that the fault lay in the TV, but this look of 30% white on 100% black happens irrespective of which DVD player I use and which TV it's connected to. I have now tried half a dozen player/TV combos thanks to friends and family. Only on a computer monitor is white text on a black background truly 100% white.
Strangely enough, whites in the video images are perfectly white. This problem becomes apparent only in white text on a black background.

Adobe Illustrator files display washed out

Since Preview and other apps such as Keynote and Pages handle Adobe Illustrator files, I have to wonder why they display all washed out, whether there are copy and pasted or the file is actually opened in the program.
http://www.revvvv.com/example1.jpg

What version of Adobe Illustrator are you viewing the files in?
Is the document color mode CMYK or RGB? How are the "black" areas of the art defined?
In other words, is the black defined as:
C: 0
M: 0
Y: 0
K: 100
Or, is it defined as a "rich" black, for example:
C: 60
M: 50
Y: 50
K: 100
I'm not sure about versions of Illustrator prior to CS3, but recall that Illustrator CS3 and CS4 have a preference for "Appearance of Black". This preference setting determines how 100K Black and Rich Blacks will appear on screen as well as in print. I believe the default is to display all blacks as Rich Black.
So, I'm guessing that while the black in your document is defined as a regular 100K black, the "Appearance of Black" preference setting is causing Illustrator to display it as a rich black. If you save this file as a .ai and embed ICC profiles, then open it in Preview, Preview will display the 100K black as a more "washed out" black like Illustrator would do if you chose to "Display All Blacks Accurately".
Hope this helps....

Placed TIFF looks washed out compared to original in Photoshop

I have a TIFF file created in Photoshop with Adobe RGB (1998) color profile. It looks vibrant and great. When I place it into my InDesign document, however, it looks drab and washed out. InDesign color settings are:
Working Space: Adobe RGB (1998)
Color Management Policies: Preserve embedded profiles (for both RGB/CMYK)
When placing, I selected 'Show Options' and tried using both Adobe RGB (1998) and Use Document Default. Nothing seems to make any difference.
This occurs on both my Mac Leopard 10.5.5 and Windows XP SP3 machines.

Sorry - additional info:
InDesign CS4 6.0.3 on both computers
Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 on both computers

Just upgraded to FCP7, colors look washed out, more saturated than in FCP6

We just upgraded the office to FCP7. Users are now complaining that colors look much more over exposed, washed out, different than they were displaying in FCP6.
Also, a bug shows when you play a clip, it looks lighter. Hit pause, and it displays darker.
What's going on? We're all on apple cinema displays calibrated to 2.2 television gamma.

I've FCP7 (Snow Leopard) and 6 (Leopard) running side by side and I don't get this problem.
I'm assuming you did a fresh install of both OSX and FCP7 when you moved from one to the other ? I find this is really the only way to guarantee stability.
Sorry if I'm stating the obvious (you don't give many details) but you might also try trashing the prefs and doing any available updates.

All exported files looked "Washed out"

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