Quark Forums

Hello there,

When I export my webdesign to flash or preview in Flash Player the colors of solid squars are very different (much less warm). How can I solve this? Is this a bugg or setting? I changed color settings (CMYK to RGB) but this didn't help.

Regards,

Hi Dutch Dave.

OK, this could be a long one or a short one depending on how accustomed you are to Colour Management in Quark.

Basically, what you need to do is get Quark to put it's colours out in sRGB colour, so that they look good on a generic monitor.

First step is to set up some colour setups.

1. With no documents open go to Edit>Color Setups>Source... In this box, click 'New'

2. Under the RGB tab, you will see that there are two pairs of Menus, one for images and one for solid colours. In each, change the profile to sRGB (or sRGB 61966-2.1) this means is that any colours you create in Quark will be created in the sRGB colorspace, images that you import will be assumed to have been created in the sRGB space unless they have a different profile (such as Adobe RGB) embedded into them in which case they will be converted using the embedded profile. BE SURE TO CHECK THE MANAGE RGB SOURCES TO RGB DESTINATIONS box.

3. Under the CMYK and other tabs, you can leave it as it is unless you know exactly what CMYK profile you are using for prepress work.  Name this Source setup as sRGB Source setup. Click OK/Done to save it.

4. Now go to Edit>Color Setups>Output (this output setup will be useful if you want to print anything on a consumer inkjet or make an RGB PDF that will be viewed on a generic monitor such as a PC)

5.Click New. Select Composite under Mode; RGB under Model and select the sRGB (or sRGB 61966-2.1) profile. Name this setup as sRGB output. Click OK and save.

6. Now, go to QuarkXPress>Preferences...

7. Scroll right to the bottom of the left hand list in the preferences dialog and select Colour Manager under Default Web Layout. In the Source options sections change the Source setup to your newly created sRGB Source Setup and tick Enable Access to Picture Profiles.
Under HTML export select the sRGB (or sRGB 61966-2.1) profile. Click OK

8. There's a Colour Manager section under the Default Interactive Layout list on the left. Set exactly the same options in here too for Source setup and SWF export.

Doing all of this without a document open will make these changes appear on any new document you create. To make these changes apply to existing documents, you'll have to change the preferences on those too.

Hopefully now when you export or preview, you should get much better colours. There may be other considerations, like how your monitor is profiled for example that may affect how this all looks, but this will make a good start for you.

If you need any more info, just shout.

 Hi,

This doesn't work out for me. I have change the source in en out settings and preferences. But it still stays the same. I have changed all colors in RGB, calibrated the monitor to sRGB settings. Still totally different colors in SWF and on the web (maybe it was a Flash Player setting). Only is the solid colors and vector images though. Not in .jpg files.

 

Did you update the Colour Management preferences in the Document as well as doing it with no documents open? I notice you say that you are using placed vector artwork, and your screen grab certainly looks like how mine come out. I've not been able to make them work in SWF or Web export from Quark, but I've not really spent much time on that. Are the Green, Brown and Blue boxes native Quark objects? I presume you've tried converting the colours to RGB? BUT if they were converted to RGB before you updated your preferences, they may not have been updated to the correct sRGB version of the colour. Once you have verified that colour management is switched on in your document, re-create the colours in CMYK and then change them to RGB to see if any change occurs. It may be that your monitor is not properly calibrated. What version of OS X are you using? Because you may be using a screen profile with a Gamma of 1.8 which would make unmanaged colours appear 'washed out'

Yes, I had to it twice (not open and existing document). I have replaced the .eps file (ai, RGB) for a .jpg file (PSD, RGB) and that worked fine. So I think CS4 is not compatible with Interactive?

In the meantime I reopened the Quark file to make a new object and guess what? The colors stay the same... :-) I guess the changes in preferences started to work after I closed the file and reopened it again.

Thanks for your help!

PS. Concerning the other issue (unsharp egdes around images) I noticed that in Interactive unsharpens images in Flash Player when the image is set to say 50%. So when I decrease it in Photoshop by 50%, reimported the file in Quark and set it to 100% the unsharp edges disappear. It's fun learning new things with Quark Interactive features... sometimes frustrating though.

I have RGB JPEG images that look fabulous when exported in an App Studio layout, but they look dull and lifeless when I export them in an Interactive layout. I've managed to get the QXP view to look as dull as the Interactive output - but that's absolutely the wrong way around! How can I make the Interactive output look the same as the images look (1) in QuarkXPress, (2) in App Studio exports, (3) in Photoshop, nd (4) in Finder QuickLook previews. Basically, everywhere else.

Do I have to convert these images to sRGB? Is there a better way?

Actually, I have a custom red colour (R 75%, G 0%, B 0%), made in QuarkXPress, that looks great in App Studio output but looks duller and darker in Interactive output. How do I make it look right in my SWF end result?

To be honest, it looks to me as if QuarkXPress isn't converting the output colour profiles to sRGB. Browser plugins assume that all colour is sRGB, so things that aren't end up looking duller than they should. When I prepare images for final delivery as panoramas (Flash or HTML5), if I DON'T use Photoshop's Convert to Profile command to convert to (not assign) sRGB, the end result looks very much as my example above.

So the solution could be simply (hah!) having colour profiles CONVERTED to sRGB on output so they're what Flash expects. This would have to be done by QuarkXPress rather than the designer, as the above example shows that the problem is just as big with native mixed colours - not just imported images.