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?

Similar Messages

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.

Any temporary solutions to the washed out colors issue?

**Note: I posted this in the Boot Camp forum, but I received no response. So, I'll give this forum a try.**
I have a question about Windows XP and washed out colors on the display. I hear that there are some display driver issues with the new unibody MacBook Pros when using either XP or Vista on a Boot Camp partition. Just to be clear, when I say "washed out colors", I mean to say that the colors have a blue-ish, faded look to them. I know that this issue lies with the type of color gamma (or whatever it's called) that Windows uses versus what Mac OS X uses. So, now for the 2 main questions I want to ask:
1)Is there any permanent solution to this weird color problem?
And, if not, then:
2)Is there any temporary solution, such as maybe a program that can apply a color profile for you? For example, I read on another forum that programs like LUT Manager (http://www.exactscan.com/lutmanager/) can help apply an .icc color profile that you have in Mac OS X and apply it to Windows (you can even have it apply it automatically when you start up Windows). Do any of you know something that might be even better?
Also, how do you make an ICC color profile in Mac OS X without actually applying it?

Does anyone even know what I'm talking about? I'll be glad to elaborate further if necessary...

Has anyone solved the "washed out colors" / gamma correction problem?

I'm trying to create a high-quality slide show from pictures. I've tried iPhoto, iMovie, and FotoMagico. What they have in common in the Quicktime engine for compression. There seems to be a problem with washed-out colors - across all programs - when trying to export the slideshow. I've tried many different codecs (H.264, x264, Photo-JPEG, PNG, JPEG-2000), as well as a variety of settings and filter corrections. Nothing has been effective. Last year, I was able to use FotoMagico with the Photo-JPEG codec, and the photos looked great. This year, things are not working (see photo below). The folks at FotoMagico attribute problems to Quicktime. And since I've tried creating the slideshow on a variety of platforms, I have to agree.
And yes, I know this is a common problem - I've read many google links - but I wanted to see if there was any current workarounds / solutions.
Any other options?
Thanks.
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/1140668576_UHnXX-L.png

Seriously Apple... this has been an issue for many years now!
Why can't this be fixed once and for all?
The ridiculous thing is that VLC play H.264 videos with much better colors than QT.
This question has been asked many many times over the years and i have yet seen a single reasonable explanation from Apple.
Here's a quick test of a color image screen recorded to a mov and viewed on screen together with the TIFF image (screen shot of everything in OS X 10.6.6)
The washed out look doesn't show as much in this simple color test but is very obvious in normal videos.
http://screencast.com/t/qQFCKZ0lgg5
1. TIFF image
2. Screen recording of above image with Intermediate Codec, viewed in QT 10 (colors not 100% but ok)
3. Same screen recording exported from Intermediate to H.264, viewed in QT 10 (colors washed out, red very wrong)
4. Same H.264 video (viewed in VLC 1.1.5)
Will this problem ever be fixed, or just ignored until no one use H.264 anymore?
Cheers

Washed Out Colors When Digitizing From Mini-DV camera

Instead of renting a deck, I figured I'd just use a mini-DV camera to digitize some footage. The reasoning I'm using, is that there is NO DIFFERENCE in quality between digitizing mini-DV footage from a professional deck vs just a mini-DV camera. Is that correct?
The problem is that the footage on the LCD screen on the camera looks great. Vivid colors, solid blacks, great contrast. However, when I digitize into FCP 7 (Snow Leopard) the footage becomes murky. Washed out colors, milky blacks and hence it looks a lot more low-res than what I'm seeing on the camera's LCD screen when it digitizes.
Now, my first thought is that the screen is just compensating with more saturation and contrast. However, I'm also worried that somehow the footage isn't being brought in properly. I'm using the standard NTSC DV Anamorphic preset and capturing that way. Is there some gamma setting along the way could have affected the footage.
As it looks great on the camera's LCD, I'm wondering if there isn't some capture setting somewhere. Otherwise, I'm going have to boost the saturation and contrast to try and make the FCP footage match what I'm seeing on the camera.

It's all there in my initial inquiry.
Kind of...(let's not forget that your profile still lists G4 / Mac OS 10.4.2)...these details are important.
We ask for specifics, because often users have inadvertently tweaked settings, or run Software Update or some other upgrade, that can affect the system as a whole, particularly FCP.
Things like... exactly which version of QT are you using? Snow Leopard loads QTX (QT10) by default, which can cause it's own issues. It is possible to load QT7 additionally, but it will go into your Utilities folder (you should be able to move it to Applications), but since I'm not versed in SL, I'll not speculate whether it's an issue for you or not.
That's one example. So, please give us exact versions/info on...
OS/FCP/QT
Capture and Sequence settings (just to make sure)
How is the camera connected?
How are you currently monitoring your captured media?
K

Pdfs are washed out

i have generated a pdf, and just recently the colors seem to be muted. it prints fine but the pdf is washed out to the level its hard to read.

It may vary. I have seen some strange results from OFFICE 2007, where there apparently are some hooks built into the MS software. You might try with OFFICE 2003 or OpenOffice. I have used OFFICE 2003 for some things and gotten excellent results, where OFFICE 2007 created issues. I know that it is OFFICE 2007 since I also played with different versions of Acrobat for Office 2007 and got the same strange results, where things were fine with OFFICE 2003. There may be an issue with the
I just created a new PDF from PPT 2007 and the results were looking fine. For folks to be able to comment more effectively, they need to be able to duplicate what you did and I am not sure that can be done with the information you have provided. Specifically, what job settings file did you use in the Adobe PDF printer, etc.

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.

Washed Out Color on One User Account But Not The Other

Heyo,
I'm on my second Macbook Pro. Apple had to replace the first one. But that's behind us.
Anyway, I have a bit of a predicament. I've noticed that the colors on my main user account are washed out and dull. I created a new user account to see if the problem was a hardware or software issue.
The thing is, the account with washed out colors has Adobe Photoshop, and the rest of the Design Premium CS3 suite - as well as Final Cut Studio 2 - but these are not on the other.
So, I'm guessing that this issue is connected with CS3 and FCS 2.
This issue appears regardless of what color profile I use. But I normally use the Adobe RGB profile - which is what I used to test the other account.
Any ideas what I could do to get my color back? Is there a setting I can change for this?
Thanks for any help,
Michael

I'd try to isolate a corrupted user preference file.
Apparently, Diskwarrior now claims to fix those. Or you can just look through the preferences folder in your user folder and start pulling some of those out to the disktop, log out and then log back in and see if that does anything.
When something is affecting one account but no others, I think the clear majority of the time it is a user preference file that is responsible.

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

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.

Washed out color - McGamma Shift?

In a major bind... Since switching to a new machine and Snow Leopard, my video looks washed out when out putted....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/realestateconvergence/4341439404/sizes/l/
The link above takes you to the photo samples of the video...
Photo on the left is rendered in h264 using Snow Leopard
Middle photo is from the timeline
Photo to the right is rendered in h264... Again using quick time conversion
The sweater, skin tone and blackness of the chair are the most obvious indications of the problem.
The setting aren’t so important, I’ve been using the same work flow for years without any problems...
The drop off in color is my concern... I was told it was a Snow Leopard problem, so I un-installed it on one machine and downgraded to Leopard... As you can see there has been no improvement...
In most of the forums the problem is refereed to as the McGamma Shift...
I just need a fix....
Thanks to anyone and everyone in advance for your help.
Jeff Brooks
Video Fishbowl

Hi Jeff - hope this helps.
I was having the same problem since upgrading to a new i7 iMac with Snow Leopard. A post on Creative Cow directed me to a Quicktime Preference fix.
Go to your preferences and under the "General" make sure that both "Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility" and "Use high-quality video setting when available" are checked. This seems to have resolved the problem for me.
Cheers,
Karen

Washed out colors with Canon Pro9000 using ICC profiles

I recently bought a brand new Canon Pro9000 printer and have a problem getting acceptable results when using the supplied ICC profiles.
I believe I am doing everything by the book. First I select the correct ICC profile for the printer and the paper I am using in the Aperture print dialog, then I go into Print Setting and set the paper type in the Quality and Media section, as well as matching the print quality to the ICC profile.
The Canon driver I use (10.1.0.0) does not provide the option of explicitly turning off color management in the printer. If a choose a profile from the Aperture printing dialog and then go into "Printer Setting > Color Options" the Color Mode drop down menu is grayed out. After searching trough various discussion forums I can see that some people claim that color management is automatically turned off when selecting a profile, but I have not been able to get a confirmation on this.
The resulting print is quite disappointing, it is very bright and with washed out colors. I have tried quite a few different papers, including semi gloss and photo rag - all original Canon papers (of course using the matching profiles).
Using the default "System Managed" option on the Color Sync drop down menu produces great looking prints that very closely matches what I see on my display. My only take on them is that they are very slightly over saturated.
When I enable on screen proofing with the matching profile, I can see that the picture gets slightly brighter, but way less that what I get on the prints.
I have calibrated my display according to the suggestions from Bagelturf (http://www.bagelturf.com/files/694c5a88c7241f8f04c7cff33cde8e3e-560.php), which is in line with Apple´s recommendations in the Aperture documentation.
I have read trough discussion on similar problems, both here ("more color nasties" and "Printing problem since upgrading to Aperture 2") and at dpreview, but I have not been able to figure out this problem yet.
System configuration:
- MacBook Pro 2.4GHz
- Leopard 10.5.2
- Aperture 2.1
- Panasonic DMC-L1 camera (shooting RAW)
- Canon Pro9000
- Canon driver 10.1.0.0 (CUPS)
Any suggestions?
Regards,
Thomas
Sorry for posting this under the "Book" forum - mistake from my side
Message was edited by: tembla

Hi Thomas,
With my iP8500 I leave it on, so it appears to be specifically the behavior of the Pro9000. I did a little more testing last night as I recently re-calibrated my system, and have another method you can try. Instead of turning off "Black Point Compensation" which can leave photos with lots of shadow detail a bit too dark, open up the "Printer Settings" window and go to the color management options. The only thing you can change here is the brightness setting. Change it from Normal to Dark, leaving BPC turned on. I think you'll be pleased with the results. Good luck!

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.

Extremely bright iMac display with Washed-out colors

I recently purchased a 20" iMac and am having problems with the display. The colors are extremely washed-out and faded even at the lowest brightness settings. Although recalibrating helps, I have been unable to get acceptable color by doing so, and the only way I have found to reduce the brightness of the whites is to use a third party utility that reduces the brightness below Apple's default specs, but at the cost of making everything else darker.I have been unable to find an acceptable balance where the colors look reasonably accurate for home use.I would have preferred to get a refund on this machine, but I bought it from an Apple reseller which has a no-refund policy on Apple products.
Has anybody managed to find a workaround for this issue or has a custom calibration that works reasonably well to address it? Also, is there any way to disable the iMac's internal display so that I can hook it up to an external CRT and just use that? If not, I am wondering if using an external display will degrade the graphics performance overall, as the card is powering two displays.If not I would be happy just to do that for now. Because of the glare coming off the screen and inability to control the brightness, I am finding it extremely difficult to use this display. Does anybody know of an anti-glare screen for the iMac or any tips on reducing glare, as it is a serious issue for me.

Well I run a program DarkAdapted http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12134 to correct the brightness of whites, it even improves the viewing angle a lot, color shifts are almost non-existant.
Shades works just as well, but eats a bit more CPU.
http://www.charcoaldesign.co.uk/shades
A warning though when using Shades: you can darken the screen with it to a level you no longer can control the desktop/system, so I recommend you to memorize the short key to quit Shades, I think it is Command-Enter, so if you accidentily dim the screen just to see how far you can go (like I did) you don't have to panic

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

Possible solution to PDFs looking washed out/colors faded

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