Export to PDF, colours don't match the original JPEG.

[IndigoMoon]

Hello Community,

Since a photobook project I'm facing a strange colour problem, after export to PDF.
For instance:

1. Open a profiled sRGB JPEG in APub
2. Export it as PDF (e.g. PDF for print as RGB with embedded sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile)
3. Now open the PDF in Acrobat Reader DC (latest version) and compare it with the original JPEG
4. The colours shown in Reader are slightly more saturated, especially the red tones are more saturated and shifted
5. But opening the same PDF in APub, the colours are absolutely the same as in the original JPEG
6. And finally, if opening the PDF in Firefox or even PagePlus X9 the colours are saturated and shifted like in Reader,
but opened in Google Chrome the colours perfectly match the original like in APub.

I'm pretty confused. Does anybody know what's going on here? Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Btw I'm on Windows 10 20H2

[IndigoMoon]

I'm still struggling with this issue, and i'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong with my colour management or just misunderstand something.

Would somebody be so nice to compare this two files on your system and see whether the colours of the PDF (opened in Acrobat Reader) and the JPEG (opend in Affinity Photo) look the same. It would help me a lot. Thanks!

 

IMG_1697.pdf

[lacerto]

(..)

[IndigoMoon]

Hi Lagarto,

Thank you very much for your efforts, I appreciate that! 👍

I did some research and found out, that Affinity accesses the default monitor profile assigned in the operating system directly.
Like Lightroom and Chrome, but unlike Photoshop CC or Acrobat Reader DC, which use the embedded sRGB profile.
I think that's the reason why these apps show slightly different colours. And that was what confused me.
The funny thing is that Firefox access for JEPGs the monitor profile and the embedded profile for PDFs.
In PagePlus X9, on the other hand, sRGB is selected as the default profile for monitors. Changing that, I'll get the same colours like APub.

Well, I will probably have to recalibrate my monitor to solve my problem. 😏

[IndigoMoon]

Hi Community,

just to close this thread and let the community participate my results:

Acrobat Reader DC does no real colour management (status June 2nd, 2021). According to some threads on the Adobe forum it could be a bug and some users hope it will be fixed, but I'm not sure. So, to be sure regarding colours use Adobe Acrobat Pro or the old Acrobat Reader XI legacy version (which is out of support!).