I am designing a book in InDesign. The color profiles are the same for my ID and PSD and all of the colors look good in InDesign, but all of the colors change when I convert it to PDF. In my pdf settings I have it set to the same color setting as my ID and PSD. All of my linked files are CMYK. What am I doing wrong? Are colors just never right in PDF?
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Color problems converting from ID to pdf
- Thread starter jgwatkins
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- #2
Ok, I just changed my Acrobat settings to the same color profile as my ID and photoshop and now the PDF file looks great just like the InDesign file. My question is...did those color settings affect how my document will print or just how it is viewed on my monitor? For example, I sent my file to the printer last week. When I sent it my color settings were not set and the color was dull. Today I changed the color settings on all of my programs and now the exact same file that I sent to the printer looks better (I stuck in the cd that I sent to the printer, I did not re-export.) Does this mean that all I changed was the way it appears on screen?
It depends on the settings. The RGB part will effect monitor and rgb printer (common inkjet) appearance. The CMYK effects the print.
It's also important if you enabled color management in Indoesign when you created the doc.
How does the thing look when you use a straight press quality pdf from ID as opposed to running it through Acrobat?
Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4
It's also important if you enabled color management in Indoesign when you created the doc.
How does the thing look when you use a straight press quality pdf from ID as opposed to running it through Acrobat?
Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4
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- #4
I enabled color management on it today when I realized that it wasn't enabled before and now everything looks great in InDesign. The pdf that I am using was exported as press quality from InDesign. It looks great on my computer but the fuji proofs are a lot darker and mostly a lot redder. I still have the cd of the file that I gavet the printer and now that I changed those PDF settings even that file looks good on my computer. I guess that means that changing those settings did nothing to the actual file, but just to the monitor? Is my monitor just that far off from the actual print quality? If so, how am I ever supposed to send anything to press?
You're never going to get 100% accurate color on your monitor vs the cmyk print. Even changing ligth conditions or changes to monitor brightness contrast effect things big time.
Your mac has extensive color profiling, matching and proofing software built in. If you go to the Applscript folder in applications and selet "install script menu, you'll get extensive applescripts including various color sync scripts for proofing etc.
The colorsync utilty in applications/utilites give other controls.
Color management is not easy. The best thing is to buy a hardware calibrator. They're not cheap though.
Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4
Your mac has extensive color profiling, matching and proofing software built in. If you go to the Applscript folder in applications and selet "install script menu, you'll get extensive applescripts including various color sync scripts for proofing etc.
The colorsync utilty in applications/utilites give other controls.
Color management is not easy. The best thing is to buy a hardware calibrator. They're not cheap though.
Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4
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