Color shift on random pages

Hi Everyone,
So I've been scouring the internet and the Adobe forums trying to find out a) what caused this and b) how can I fix it.
I'm working on a document that is set in CMYK and uses vector graphics I have created on the Master Page. Every page uses the Master Page, however, for SOME reason, every other page, the color shifts. So far, all of the problems and solutions out there are in regards to color profiles... but how is this possible when it's the images on the Master page that is being altered, and it's random!
On one page, the image is in what appears to be CMYK, then you go to the next page, and it's RGB! Then RGB on the next but then back to CMYK on the next! I've tried converting my profiles, I've even tried enabling pop up with profile mismatch solutions when it's reopened, I've tried changing the transparency settings from CMYK to RGB and back again, and nothing seems to work. It's really irritating and I'm about to scrap this whole document and start a new one and see if it continues to do that. But I really don't want to because we're 95% with the project.
I would think that what ever it is set to in the Master page, it would remain consistent from one page to the next. And then if it was going from CMYK to RGB on ALL the pages, that's fine, I can fix that, but I can't get the pages to be consistent.
Any help is very appreciative.

Ok, I double checked a lot of things and here is all the info:
The vector file that I am using on the Master page (as a footer graphic) is RGB.
All of the pages have some element overlaying it, some pages only have a text box that drops down to partially cover it (not the color part, a white area), and some have an image. But there is no consistency with this information as it literally just seems to be random pages. If it were text boxes causing the issue, wouldn't it affect all the pages that have text boxes touching this region?
The Transparency blend is set to RGB.
Here are some screenshots.
Here is page 9 how it looks in InDesign showing all of the element box lines:
And page 9 how it looks in the PDF:
Now, here is page 14 in InDesign:
And page 14 in the PDF:
Thanks for your help Rob and Peter!

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Color Shift when drop shadow is used?

I've noticed a noticeable color shift in my layout between two facing pages in inDesign CS. The layout was originally done in photoshop, so the pages are actually ONE page. I noticed when I added a drop shadow to some text in inDesign, that it shifted the color on the one page when I viewed it as a .pdf. And the color on the facing page was left alone. When I deleted the drop shadow, the color balance was restored.
I cannot show the layout to my client as a .pdf with a noticeable color shift on one page. They will freak out! This I must do, there's no getting around the .pdf
I'm also worried that the color shift will show up in the finally printing of the layout?
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the color shift and still be able to use the drop shadow?
And why is it showing up anyway?
Thank you for viewing

Oh, that was such a great question it got me to thinking. Its an RGB layout. My color settings are correct. But when I went and checked my Transparency blending setting it was still on CMYK!!!! Duh!!!
So I changed it, and created another .pdf and the shift was gone!
Thank you so much for your help!!! You rock!!!

Photoshop CS6 random color shifts

Here's the lowdown on my system/machine:
Photoshop CS6 (version 13.0.4)
Mac platform, OSX (version 10.8.4)
2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
I'm having problems with color shifts in a batch of images from a common Photoshop document.
I make 28 images from a single file, think of it like a picture frame where the frame doesn't change but the art depicted in it changes.
Since they come from the same Photoshop document they all have the same profiles and settings, they are all the same size and the frame should never change color—but it does.
Therein lies the problem.
A color shift in the art wouldn't really be noticable since the art is different every time. The frame is the same across all the images and the shift is obvious in the frame.
We use an Applescript to speed up the process; The script turns on a layer, flattens the image, then saves it out as an EPS for placement in InDesign, reverts to the layered version, then turns on the next layer and repeats the operation.
Of the 28 images, 3 of them have a noticable color shift.
It's never the same images that shift, it's just a random assortment that are effected (right now it happens to be 3, the next set of images may have more or it may have less).
Here's a screen shot of the color build in a specific location on sample 1:
Screenshot of the color build in exactly the same location on sample 2:
Here's a screenshot of the effected files in the directory (those highlighted in green are shifted):
Has anyone else seen this?
After some basic file analysis:
The shift occurs when the person working in the file creates a new document and copies the existing components from the master file into the new file.
I'm still confused since it's done on the same machine, with the same color settings/profiles, by the same person. It is still random.
BAD

Okay then. I mean when I use the Eyedropper Tool on the color that I had already put on a picture, the color becomes darker than what is shown when I use the Brush tool.
Like when I put light red as the foreground color, then switch it out for another color, then used the Eyedropper tool to copy the light red color to use it again, the light red color instead becomes a slight darker red when I use the brush or other related tools I use to color in my picture.
Hope this detail is clear enough.

Solution to Gamma/Color Shift Problems with Apple Codecs - Adobe BUG

Hi....
In AfterEffects when choosing an output module and that module be ProRes or 10 Bit Uncompressed,
when trying to color manage the file, there is a fine line called
'This Codec Does Not Support Output Profile'
You can find it int he Color Management Pane of the output module....
Funny thing is - That Profile Embedding IS support by:#
Apple's Compressor and THE CODEC 4444 AND UnCompressed
Episodes Encoder
See following Screen Shots:
First one from Apple's Compressor...
Look at that little beautiful Color Option... Adobe did you MISS that one, perhaps...
You must have - because your APPS are NOT including that when encoding or should I say
butchering movie files....
Here adobes famous but wrong dialog!!!!
And in this next screen shot you can easily see that adobe just strips the color profile out of the file...
AND THAT IS WHY THERE IS A COLOR SHIFT...........
left image = Apple's Compressor Encoding (Colors match of course) - Right Adobe's BRUTAL encoding (Colors WONT match...)
Now, in after effects you wont notice the shift. But ALL mac and PC users using quicktime to watch YOUR movies
are going to be looking at a movie with a different look than you thought it WOULD be... Courtesy of adobe ;-)
Jokes aside, Adobe.... It seems as if this one is on you to fix... Apple's Compressor has NO problems. And other encoders are also preserving those values.
Now... Let us assume that I encode in compressor... Looks are matching 100% that of the original source. All it takes to mess that up is ONE
roundtrip to after effects, premiere pro or Media Encoder. That is if I wanna maintain my initial choice of transcodec - in my case 4444 or 10bit Uncomp.
I could of course export to animation and then use compressor AGAIN to transcode to my format of choice... But in the long run I think that will become tedious.
Perhaps you could assign a few engineers on this one and in the future spend MORE time on living up to the name PRO(The most misused word in the software business) instead of wasting time generating new Application icons for your apps....
Thanks for reading and for a PROMPT and near-future BUG FIX

Mylenium wrote:
It's not really "embedding" anything, it merely sets the QT color space flags which have been there forever, but are mostly unused. Specific to ProRes it also toggles different internal optimizations in the encoding. That's also documented somewhere on the QT developer pages. I'm not sure I share your views otherwise. The point really is, that Apple developed ProRes just as much as a closed workflow within their products as Avid did with their CoDecs. Therefore the widespread use of the CoDecs is merely a byproduct of the use of the products, but not per se an intended workflow outside of those and, which is the more important part, also not explicable as a causal circumstance of the quality. If I may be so bold: What you are saying sounds like everyone would be using the Animation CoDec because it is so good, when the simple fact is that there are no decent free cross-platform alternatives and people are willing to accept limitations because of that. Don't get me wrong, ProRes is well designed and pretty robust, but the world doesn't come to an end without it and outside the Mac world it is difficult to deal with. Hell, it's even difficult to deal with between different versions of FCP occasionally...
Mylenium
I have been testing codecs for a long long looooooong time. My criterion(s) are:
1) Image Quality and that through multiple encoding generations and color grading
THEEEN
a looooong way down the road
2) Performance
BTW - I find that working with files less compressed and thus HUGE is much better. Hard drives are so cheap that one can build himself an 8 Disk RAID0 and that takes care of everything. In PPRO I can cut real time in FulRes with an uncompressed codec with the processors maxing at 3% while the H264 editing sequence will stutter like a drunken wasp and maxing the CPUs at 63%.... Go figure...
ProRes 4444's impeccable imageQuality:performance ratio, is unbeaten.
Especially on H264 material like that of the Canon5D. You might say if the source is 4:2:0 why bother upping it to 4444... Well in theory perhaps
it is overkill. But rather than reading in theoretical white papers I conduct my own tests. And the end results are (REALITY) and way different from what theory states. TO anyone reading this. DONT believe ANYTHING you read about codec nor what I am saying.... DO YOUR OWN TESTING and judge for yourself. Problem is that you have to do 100's and 100's of transcodings with ONE source to various destinations with lost of grading and transcoding generation. THEN you have to keep track of your tests and THEN compare them. It takes WEEKs. But it is well worth while it. In my case... I start with a Canon5DMKII H264 movies. Transcode it to PRORES4444 then I do LOTS of compositing and re-encoding then lots of color grading etc etc etc. Then I export back to H264 - and the end result is STUNNING has NO artifacts and is adorable to look at. Not so with at least 6 other codecs claiming to be top-notch....
Sure Mylenium, the world would NOT end with PR4444 not in it... BUT the WORLD has ALREADY decided that it WANTED ProRes4444 in it. It is growing and that every day..........
Had the codec not been so darn excellent - it would NOT have been used. Period.

[FIX] Darker prints and color shifts when printing from Lightroom 2

Hi,
The problem :
When printing RAW or TIFF files from LR2, you get a printer output that
is much darker than it should be and that presents various color shifts.
I'm using an Epson Stylus Pro 3800 with the latest Windows driver
(6.50 - which is rather old by the way). The workaround described below
works for me under Windows XP SP3. It should also probably work with
other systems/printers/drivers. Use at your own (minor) risk.
The "official" procedure for printing from LR is as follows:
1. Do not let the printer manage colors and select "Other..." from the
profile dropdown list and select the ICC/ICM paper/printer profile that
you want to use.
2. Click on Print... in LR which opens the Print Settings dialog.
3. Select the options you need and the paper you're using.
4. **Disable the color management from the driver's side** (in Epson's
drivers, "Mode | Custom | No Color Adjustments").
5. Print
Unfortunately, **this doesn't work** for many of us and this produces a
print that is dark and has color shifts as mentioned above. Note that
the same image prints correctly from QImage or Photoshop CS3 (that is,
the printer output corresponds to what you see on your calibrated
display).
Apparently, although color management has been (allegedly) disabled in
the driver, there's something wrong between LR and the driver which
makes that *both* LR and the driver are still trying to manage colors.
In other words, the "No Color Adjustements" option of the driver doesn't
seem to work with LR.
The workaround (found after hours of hair pulling and paper and
expensive ink wasting):
In step #4,
1. Instead of selecting "No Color Adjustments", set Mode to "Custom |
ICM
2. Click Advanced...
3. Check "Show all profiles".
4. Select Driver ICM (Advanced)"
5. Set **both** the "Input profile" and the "Printer profile" fields to
the very same profile that you specified in LR.
That is, if you specified Pro38 PGPP (Premium Glossy Photo Paper) in LR,
then also select Pro38 PGPP in both "Input Profile" and "Printer
Profile". This has actually the same effect has disabling color
management in the driver (what "No Color Adjustements" should normally
take care of).
That's it. When printing, you'll get exactly the same color results as
when printing from QImage or Photoshop. No more dark prints. No more
color shifts.
One might think that the bug is in the Epson driver but in that case,
QImage would have the very same problem. So I tend to think that the bug
is on the Lightroom side.
Note: Although Photoshop CS3 produces a correct printer output, it
demonstrates the same problem as LR when using the "Match Print Color"
option for soft proofing. But in that case, only the preview colors are
wrong. The printer output is ok. Which also tends to demonstrate that
Adobe has the problem, not Epson. Or maybe both... :-) .
Don't ask me why some users have the problem and other don't.
Hope this helps.
Patrick Philippot
MainSoft Consulting Services
www.mainsoft.fr

A sincere thank you for your reply, Michael. Sorry about the "it just doesn't make sense" shortcut. I have been trying to solve this issue since LR 1.1, spending dozens of hours on different trials and digesting everything written on this forum and the B9180 forum about color management and double profiling. My shortcut was a summation of my experience (and my frustration) but doesn't really advance the conversation. Here are some data that should be more useful in diagnosing the problem.
I am running Windows XP SP2. I calibrate my monitor monthly with the Spyder. The reason I suspect this may be an issue of double profiling is because the results (moderately strong magenta overlay plus an increase in contrast) match what more knowledgeable people than I on this forum describe when double profiling occurs. Perhaps I shouldn't presume it is double profiling, and follow Patrick Philippot's lead in naming the problem "color shifts." Patrick does refer in post #2 of this thread, however, to obvious double profiling.
I certainly do have a successful and consistent print method. With PS CS3, and either my Epson 1280 or my HP B9180, the output is almost always dead on. Here is how I do it. In PS from the print dialog box, under color handling I always choose "Photoshop manages colors." Then under printer profile I select the profile designated by the manufacturer for a particular paper/printer combination. Then in the printer driver I disable printer control of color. With the Epson I check the box "Off (No Color Adjustment)." With the B9180 I choose the option "Application Managed Colors." While I sometimes may tweak the final output, these procedures have served me well with PS for several years.
Contrasted with my positive PS experience, my experience with LR printing has been inconsistent. I regret having to be so imprecise but truly sometimes LR produces accurate results that match the calibrated monitor, but most of the time it does not. I use standard procedures with LR that parallel the PS ones described above. In LR's printing panel, under color management, I specify the correct profile, just as I did for PS. Then in the printer driver I use the same procedures I use with PS. Most of the time the prints have the magenta overlay and too much contrast.
BTW, the inconsistent LR printing only takes place with my HP B9180. I have never had any problem with off-color LR prints with my Epson 1280. Again, I emphasize that I have standard procedures that always work with PS (no matter which printer) and LR (but only with the Epson).
Unfortunately the LR printing problems are intermittent. Some of the time (perhaps 20%) LR produces fine prints in the B9180, indistinguishable from PS prints. When LR is printing well, it will continue to print fine until "something happens" and the output shows the color shift. This means I do not get a random sequence of good-bad-good-bad prints, but rather good-good-x factor-bad-bad-bad. Ths problem is that I do not know what this "x factor" is. Once, when LR was giving me accurate output, I simply changed the default printer (Control Panel-Printers and Faxes) from the B9180 to my Samsung 1430 laser; immediately afterwards the LR output colors shifted. Did LR react to this change in default printers? Another time I had good LR printing success with version 1.2 but ran into the problems described above when I upgraded to version 1.3.
Sorry for the long post. I am hoping that someone will see something that I am missing and provide a hint. I think, though, that Patrick is correct when he states, "I tend to think that the problem is with LR. After all, similar issues (obvious double profiling) are observed only in LR but with various printers."

Colors shift when a PDF file contains transparent image

Hello,
I tried to programatically set a soft mask to an image by using the Addobe PDF Library, in order to make part of the image transparent. The image color space is RGB. I used PDEImageSetSMask() funtcion for setting the mask. I also have a PDF file that was created in the same way but without the part of the code that sets the mask. Therefore this PDF contains the same image as not transparent.
When I open two files in Adobe Reader 9.2.0 the colors are not the same. The colors in the file which contains the transparent image are a bit darker. The colors are different not only inside the image box, but in all page area. I also tried to open the same file in GSView and there was no such problem.
Can I fix this by changing the Adobe reader preferences, or this is a problem in the code that genereates the PDF?
If this is not the correct forum to ask this question, please direct me to the correct forum
Thanks

You need to set the transparency blending space of the page to RGB, since the default blending space is CMYK (hence the color shift). You do this by adding a transparency group dictionary to the page's dictionary when creating the PDF.

When converting multiple word and excel docs to a combined PDF random pages have blue background in the finalized PDF.

I have a user using Acrobat 10. It was installed two weeks ago and initially had no problems. Today she reported that when she tries to convert multiple word and excel docs by selecting them, and right clicking on them to select convert/combine to PDF, random pages in the finished PDF have a blue background. I did some searching online and can find no information about this problem. Can anyone here shed some light on this issue and maybe point me in the direction of a solution? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Gilad,
So, something I didn't consider was that this could be a setting in the office docs. The reason I didn't consider this was be cause we tested multiple docs and had similar results each time. I went back and looked into this possibility and found a setting in word that was causing this issue. Although the word doc showed no page color when opened in word, if I went to "Page Layout" -> "Page Color", a shade of blue was selected. By selecting "No Color", and then converting/combining the docs to PDF we got the desired result. Thanks again for your reply!

Converting RGB to CMYK - Huge color shift. Any tips on getting some decent color back?

I just downloaded a St. Patricks day background from iStockPhoto. Nice vibrant green. We all know when converting to CMYK from RGB, there is a color shift but this is pretty dang dramatic. Any basic tips on getting some of that vibrant color back after converting?

You can boost greens by printing another pass of yellow with the same halftoning on top of your cyan areas. Black and yellow naturalyl also can give the appearance of certain dark green colors, but this may only work on vbery fine rasters. Printing an extra color is always an option, but also keep in mind that a lot depends on what paper is used and how it interacts with the inks. Also many magazines use gloss coating on their front page, which hugely influences perception of "depth" in the colors. And don't forget all the perceptional tricks - such mags often use colored pages because the green looks more saturated when surrounded by a dark red, brown or ocre...
Mylenium

Lightroom Export Color Shift

Exported JPEGs from Lightroom have a significant color shift from how they appear inside LR and PS3, which is a distinct magenta shift and oversaturation.
I have read a number of related posts here and elsewhere that explain the importance of setting up color management correctly in Windows, LR and PS3. I have done my best to follow all this advice and still cannot export usable JPEGs from Lightroom. I am using a Spyder 3 and have carefully profiled my Dell 2408WFP monitor. I am processing RAW images from a Canon 30D into sRGB JPEGs for web viewing, and have set up LR to export sRGB while PS3 is set to the sRGB working space.
I have also read that Internet Explorer and other color-unmanaged applications will display images differently. I understand this, but then it seems to me that every image I view inside Windows Picture Viewer or Internet Explorer on this computer would have the same oversaturation and magenta shift that my Lightroom exports do, but this is not the case. Also, my Lightroom-exported JPEGs have an equivalent magenta-tinted and oversaturated appearance on other computers I use, not just my image-editing computer.
I have set up a web page with example images, screen grabs and system technical information, located here: http://www.dougvetter.com/lightroom
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

>What can I do to get predictable color output that looks good outside a color managed environment? All the web content I look at on this exact same system looks just fine in my browser.
The only thing you can do is to calibrate your screen and export to sRGB jpegs.
On average the images will look the same, however very few will look identical simply because there is a lot of variation among screens. The sRGB standard gives you the biggest probability of getting it right. Unfortunately with the current upsurge in people buying laptops, which have in general a far smaller gamut than sRGB (the purple blue problem is caused by bad laptop screens), sRGB is starting to deviate from the average because the average is shifting. At the same time desktop LCDs are giving greater and greater gamut as your DELL display shows. sRGB was designed to represent an average CRT screen. So the crappy quality of laptop LCDs and the refusal of MS to finally live up to their promise of color management in IE is really hurting our chances of getting the right color in front of people.
What we really need is omnipresent color management and some awareness of computers of their monitor's profiles without having to calibrate, similar to printing profiles being delivered by printer manufacturers. They might not be perfect, but they will be good enough. Lacking that, we can really only try to calibrate our screens and use sRGB for web images.

Please help. Color shift in Aperture, iPhoto, Preview ...

I get a color shift on all my photos to more pink colors.
Red gets pinkish
Blue gets purple
.. and so on
iPhoto screwes up like Aperture and so does "the slide show function" in Finder and Preview.
It's nothing wrong with my calibration. It's all hardware calibrated and Photoshop displays the pictures correct.
Does all of Apple's software that's supposed to be ColorSync friendly use the same resource when displaying pictures onscreen?
Seems like a common bug for all Apple Software built into the system.
Changing Color profile for my displays doesn't make a difference.
Please help !
I'm going crazy

Digitaldog:
Pictures are from a varied set of sources. Some from
SLRs like Canon EOS 5D & 10D, some from scanners.
DSLRs don’t embed true ICC profiles but instead EXIF data. ICC aware applications don’t look for that. The files are probably in Adobe RGB (1998) as you say but might be untagged (meaning, there’s no true ICC profile embedded in the file). It’s easy enough to test.
There's no difference in appearance between these
pictures onscreen
On screen where? Photoshop can read the EXIF data if you have your preferences set.
What do you mean?
Are pictures taken on my EOS 5D not tagget as Adobe
RGB?
Not as far as ICC aware applications are concerned.
Photoshop says different.
They all show up as tagged.
Still, humor me and use the Assign Profile command and pick Adobe RGB (1998) then save the file again.
You imply that a file can be "in Adobe RGB and
untagged" ?
A file can be in any color space an untagged. It’s RGB or CMYK mystery meat. The profile only defines the scale of the exiting numbers for ICC aware applications. Lots of dumb web browsers show similar issues. You have data that IS in Adobe RGB (1998) but the browser doesn’t know this. It sends the numbers directly to the screen and the preview isn’t correct.
True ICC profile? Does the opposite exist?
From page 167 of my book:
EXIF Data and the Lie about Your Color Space: For whatever reason, when a consortium
of Japanese camera manufacturers came up with a method of identifying the RGB color space
of their camera data using EXIF data, they did so in an obscure and confusing way. In 1999,
the Japanese digital camera industry implemented a “standard format”they called Design Rule
for Camera File Systems version 1.0,or DCF for short.In that specification,the EXIF data simply
specified whether the camera data was encoded into sRGB based on the matrix setting con-
figured on the camera. If a camera encoded the data to Adobe RGB (1998) or any other avail-
able color space besides sRGB,the EXIF tag was set to “none,”causing Photoshop to produce
a Missing Profilewarning dialog if the color settings were configured to warn the user. This
caused all kinds of problems,to the degree that Adobe had to produce a plug-in for Photoshop
7 (and a setting in the general preferences for Photoshop CS as well as CS2) called Ignore EXIF
profile tag(see Fig. 5-4). This sets Photoshop to ignore the color space specified in the EXIF
data and the result is a Missing Profilewarning dialog,which allows the user to pick the correct
profile to assign. In late 2003, DCF 2.0 was introduced and it does specify Adobe RGB (1998)
in the EXIF data. Not all new cameras necessarily support this, however. None of this has any
effect on RAW data although it still does apply when a camera is set to shoot RAW+JPEG files.
PowerBook, G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Color shift when using save for web

Hello,
I am converting my psd files to jpegs using "save for web". I am noticing that the colors are shifting from the original after saving for web. The color shift does not happen if I just convert the psd files to jpegs by using "save as". The psds have a profile of RGB1998. I am using CS3 and my monitor is color calibrated.
Do I need to convert the psd documents to sRGB first before I go to "save for web"?
The preview doesn't look any different if I check ICC profile in the save for web window. I have been told that you are not supposed to embed the ICC profile in the document when saving for web because most monitors are untagged.
Anyway I am wondering if I have to accept a color shift when saving for web or is there something I can do to get the saved for web jpegs to more closely match the original psd?
Thanks a lot for your help.

I think the reason why this question is asked often is because the FAQ entry is pretty lame and incomplete, especially for Mac users that by default have a color managed browser and by default have a screwed up rendering mechanism for untagged images.
Depending on your version of Photoshop, you can convert to sRGB before or during the Save for Web operation.
cesspool13 wrote:
...I have been told that you are not supposed to embed the ICC profile in the document when saving for web because most monitors are untagged.
You convert to sRGB for the systems that do not fully support color management.
and...
You include the sRGB ICC profile for the systems that do support color management.
Doing both covers your bum in most situations. You may choose to omit the ICC profile if you are working on common interface graphics that do not require strict color management. The ICC profile adds a few kilobytes to the file size that are not necessary on lesser graphic elements on a web page.

Why is there a color shift in attached email images?

I'm new to Firefox. I'm using a Mac OS 10.6.8. When I attach a B&W image file in my email account, and I view what I've sent the color shifts to a cyan instead of remaining neutral B&W in the original image. I've also tried to attach it in another email account, with the same results. However, when I open the image in another browser it appears as the original B&W is. Why is this happening?

It could that a color profile is present that Firefox doesn't support.
You can modify gfx.color_management.enablev4* prefs on the about:config page and possibly enable ICC V4 support in Firefox.
Close and restart Firefox to make the changes effective.
* http://cameratico.com/guides/firefox-color-management/
*[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=999600 bug 999600] - Turn on full color management to match Chrome/IE
Please do not comment in bug reports https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar.
You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

Color shift when going to the web?

I spent 2 hours yesterday trying to get a graphic I had done in illustrator to export for use on the web. No matter what I did, the color always shifted - it looked like a gamma or lightening thing. The thing is, I'm not a noob to graphics or the web, I've been doing this professionally for over 10 years. But either CS3, or my recent move to the Mac, or something... has completely thrown a wrench in the works. The final response from Tech Support was that it was inevitable, and that was it. ?? What? That makes no sense.
Here's the lowdown: Illustrator document is set to RGB color space. I tried the standard color profile, and also tried setting it to unmanaged. I then tried both export and 'save for web'. I always get this shift. Everything is lighter. soo.. I then tried taking it over to Photoshop and saving from there. Strangely, it looked right in Photoshop, and then still wouldn't export without lightening everything.
Ultimately, nothing worked. What am I missing?

Here are a couple of good links about sRGB and color spaces in general.
http://www.color.org/sRGB.xalter
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_spaces.htm
The first one gets pretty technical after a few paragraphs; don't worry about the more technical aspects, just read the first part.
To make a long story short, the reason we create in or convert to sRGB before posting to the Web is that it has become a standard reference space for work that is intended to be displayed on monitors. No individual monitor behaves exactly as sRGB describes, but historically it was developed to be a good average color space that most monitors can achieve, or come close to.
When you go to choose a hex color for a web page, if you watch what you are doing, you will notice that the same color has a different hex code for every different color space you might try out. For instance, I have a client that uses PMS 109C in their logo and all their packaging. The only way I can select a hex color for that PMS color in a reproducible manner is to choose that color in a defined working space.
For the Web, we have all already agreed that working space should be sRGB. If I chose that color in my monitor's display space used as a working space, it would be different on every different machine I have available to me. I work on 4 different monitors, so I personally could potentially choose four different translations of that color. Which would be correct? None of them, because each monitor is different, each has a different profile, and so each would give me a different translation of the same color. So I need to make that translation while working in a standard working space. I can either select my color directly in sRGB, or I can select it in Adobe RGB (or another standardized working space that actually contains that color), and convert the entire file to sRGB before publishing to the web. Either approach works.
Since sRGB has the 2.2 gamma, you want to set your display to 2.2 so you won't see a lightening of the image when you view it without a profile.
why strip the profile? As far as I am concerned, you often do not have to, but under some circumstances will want to.
For photographs, illustrations, and paintings I leave the profile on jpegs, because color managed browsers will display them more accurately with the profile embedded. This is particularly true of Safari, for reasons I have already stated.
For graphics that need to match hex colors, I leave the profile off, because safari does not color manage hex colors. so Safari will set-up a mismatch between tagged jpegs and hex colors. If you need to match a graphic to hex colors on the page, it's better to leave the profile off.
If you are working on a page or a site with very large numbers of images, you may want to leave the profile off to save on disk space and download time as well. For me that is usually not a big consideration... but for some sites it may be.

Color Profile and Color Shift Headache

I am having a terrible time trying to fix a color issue. I have seen suggestions in various discussions. Here's what I have tried:
Reset PRAM
Calibrate monitor
Double checked Univesal Access
Trashed preferences file
Tried using other profiles
Created seperate user account
I even tested to see if the video card or monitor was bad but when I plugged in a Viewsonic LCD display into the ADC port (using a converter) my Hitachi CM721F CRT monitor apparently "slaved" and mirrored off of the Viewsonic profile and everything was fine. When I disconnected the Viewsonic, the problem reappeared. Since then I have also had an Apple Cinema Display hooked up and there was no problem.
In fact, just this evening I was using iPhoto and all my photos had a red shift to them. Out of curiousity I played them as a slideshow and they looked fine. Additionally photo previews in the Finder, when set to column view look fine but when I open in preview I get a red color shift
What exactly is going on here?
Thank You
G4 Quicksilver Mac OS X (10.3.9)

HI
Even if bit depth and color profile aren't related, we can say that a small bit depth (8 bit) can have problems with posterization effects if a large (i.e. ProPhotoRGB) color space is used.
More colors can be "reached" in a large color space, so, if many of them are in a small range of RGB values (XYZ coordinates in color spaces are translated in RGB values at the end), some "near" colors could be "rounded", practically disappearing. So some "posterization" effect could be visible (posterization stands for colors that do not "fade" between them but are clearly separated at the eye).
So, in practical use, a 8-bit color depth is better used with sRGB and AdobeRGB color space, while larger color spaces like ProPhotoRGB need a 16-bit depth. Using "dithering" (random distribution of color pixel) technique can reduce the posterization effect (for Web image for example), but is better to keep the larger color spaces with large bit depth.
Hope it helps.
Massimo

Color shift when filling with pattern

Hello!
I use the 'define pattern' and 'fill with pattern' feature in photoshop all the time to prepare graphics for print / production in my business. However, I have noticed a small but problematic color shift going from the main image (defined pattern) to the page (filled with pattern). You can see it in the image included here. The main image is vibrant, and lighter and the page behind it is dull and darker. It will print this way too. The main image prints great, and gets approved. But the page layout doesn't match. Both documents are set to sRGB color space when I check the Edit -> Color Settings option. Any ideas how to correct this? Thanks!!

Hello, in your screenshot, the first tab in the background has no profile that's what (#) means in the title of the tab, untitled one and two have the same profile as the working space (which tab is visible?), while the one in the foreground as a different profile than the working space that's what (*) means in the title bar.
So, that tells me they do not have the same profile.
Also, is there noise or very small textures in the circles? You might want to look at them all with the same magnification.
Finally, a smart object can be of a different color space than the document that holds it.

Color shift on random pages

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