Color Picker not working correctly

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Level 1

5 points

Color Picker not working correctly

I have been designing a couple of websites and logos, and having some very frustrating problems with colors. The colors displayed are frequently not the same as the colors I select in the color picker. This happens in two separate applications (Rapidweaver and Photoshop Elements 4), so I have no idea what is causing the problem. I thought they were two separate color pickers, but maybe they function on the same basis.

The color is correct in the little color picker box in Rapidweaver, but is translated wrong to the website preview. When I looked in the CSS that is generated, I found out that the wrong numbers are being put into the code. They are in general much more red than what I am picking (15-20 units different), which explains why a lot of my bluish and yellowish colors are looking dull. In Photoshop Elements 4, even web-safe colors aren't displayed correctly in the picker. Or to be precise, a few of them are correct but most of them are not, when I check with the DigitalColor Meter. The Mac fix-it guys tell me that my Digital Color Meter is reading correctly.

I spent $50 already having my video card tested, so the hardware is supposedly fine. The Mac fix-it guys don't know what's going on either. I ran Disc Utility and fixed whatever came up but it didn't help. Somebody suggested to me that it might be an OS X problem, which is interesting, because as far as I know, I don't have the problem when using Inkscape (or trying out Gimp) in X11. Then again, I haven't noticed the problem in Graphic Converter either, which is just in OS 10.5.6.

Has anybody seen anything like this before? What should I do?

MacBook Pro 4,1, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jun 14, 2010 7:36 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

lazlototh

Level 1

9 points

Jan 4, 2015 2:51 AM in response to BlahBlahBlahBlahBlahBlah

You are wasting your money if you buy new hardware in an effort to fix this issue. The problem is that the Apple Color Picker is influenced by the monitor's color profile. I do web development on a Mac Pro with 3 monitors and I get a different result from the color picker when I sample the same color on each monitor. It's quite frustrating.

The only solution that has worked for me is setting my monitors (and the color picker color profile) to sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

*****You must change the color profile in "both" your monitor settings and in the color picker or it will not work.******

An easy way to test if the color picker is returning the correct colors values is to sample any color on your screen and then sample again from the results in the picker. It the colors change when it samples from it's own swatch then you know you still have a problem.

It's a crappy solution to the problem because you are then working on an uncalibrated display, which is not very conducive for producing professional graphics. A few years ago I was using a color picker that would ignore the monitor profiles and give me the correct values. With the newer versions of the Mac OS it no longer works.

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Answer 2

Jun 15, 2010 9:49 AM in response to Katedu

A few suggestions.......

"I ran Disc Utility and fixed whatever came up but it didn't help."

Boot up from your install DVD and run *"Repair Disc"* from the Utility menu.
If you have DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro *(not Deluxe)* run them _off the CD._

=====

System Preferences>Display>Display
Check the Colors & Brightness settings.
My Color setting is set to Millions which I believe is the default setting.

Now click on the Color button.
Check Display Profile
Is Show profiles for this display only enabled or disabled?
If necessary click on the Calibrate button & do the necessary.

Now in the bottom right corner, click on the purple button w/the black ? mark in the middle. This will bring up the help window.

Midway down, click on the Colorsync Utility link.

The next window should be Profile First Aid.
Read & follow the instructions/details of About Profile First Aid: & do the necessary to Verify & Repair.

========

"Somebody suggested to me that it might be an OS X problem,"

It's possible, you never know unless you inquire. If none of the above works, suggest that you cross-post over in the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard forums.

!http://i50.tinypic.com/izvwo1.gif!

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Answer 3

Sep 10, 2010 4:22 AM in response to BlahBlahBlahBlahBlahBlah

Sounds as though I'm not crazy and someone else is having this problem. I filed a bug report with Apple as well as posting on various forums and user groups. Check these and tell me if your problem is the same...

http://groups.google.com/group/coda-users/browse_thread/thread/267c5459c4bf9ba7
http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2561457&tstart=0
http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2535462&tstart=0

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Answer 4

Katedu Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 15, 2010 11:00 AM in response to Baby-Boomer-USofA

Thanks, I didn't know about the ColorSync Utility and Profile First Aid. It didn't find anything wrong though.

I should have been more specific; I did run Disc Utility from my install CD and actually fixed quite a few things (long overdue maintenance!). Problem stubbornly remains. I only have TechTool Deluxe, so I guess you're suggesting that that won't do the trick. Maybe I should buy a new DiskWarrior, as we only have an ancient one.

As for preferences and calibrating the display, everything looks fine to me except that the Color Picker picks wrong colors. I think my computer is displaying correctly the wrong colors that it picks, since I confirmed in Rapidweaver that the actual data is wrong in the CSS. I don't understand why Photoshop Elements 4 doesn't show web-safe colors correctly though. But the problem isn't just that the colors LOOK wrong, the numbers ARE wrong, so I don't understand how trying to recalibrate would help. My color calibration is set on standard and I wouldn't have a clue how to "improve" it anyway.

Is it considered okay to cross-post to another forum? I had a hard time picking which one to post in, since I don't know where the problem is. I mean, I think it clearly lies with the Color Picker, but that doesn't seem to be a thing that one can just download and replace. So I don't know if that means it's part of the OS, or what it is.

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Answer 5

Jun 16, 2010 8:30 AM in response to Katedu

"I only have TechTool Deluxe, so I guess you're suggesting that that won't do the trick."

Deluxe is a light duty utility. Pro is heavy duty. Has a lot more options than Deluxe.

"Maybe I should buy a new DiskWarrior, as we only have an ancient one."

You must use the versions that are compatible w/your OS system & _keep the utilities updated_ to avoid damaging/harming/trashing your system.

!http://i50.tinypic.com/izvwo1.gif!

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Answer 6

Jun 30, 2010 2:42 PM in response to Katedu

I have been running into the same issue.

When I use the built in color picker, the preview swatch has the correct color/code
but actually painting appears with a slightly different code

In graphic convertor, if I pick a color with the eyedropper then open the OSX color picker preview swatch, the color preview is wrong but actually painting appears with the right color.

The Acorn graphics editor doesnt use the built-in color pickers and so it works without any problems.

Its a confusing issue, because often the colours look very similar e.g. they go from CCCCCC to either C1C1C1 or D5D5D5

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Answer 7

Nov 8, 2010 6:10 PM in response to Katedu

Katedu

Have you been sampling the colors from your screen using the little magnifing glass?

In that case the swatches will have a little grey triangle in the top right corner.

The grey corner indicates that the color was picked from the screen and is a warning that this in the *Device RGB Color Space*, ie +not in any particular color space+, and probably does not match the color space in the rest of your document.

It is likely to appear quite different from one document to another and when transferred to another machine.

You can give it a *Color Space* by clicking on the rainbow box next to the slider color mode menu in the *Slider Tab.*

Peter

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Answer 8

Jan 13, 2011 11:52 PM in response to Katedu

I've confirmed the color picker bug in 10.6.6. I filed a bug report.

Copy of my report:
Summary: The color picker dialog reports incorrect values on the RGB slider, using DigitalColor Meter as a reference. On the RGB sliders, the picker can fix itself if you use the spyglass on the test color patch.

However, the "web safe colors" Color Palette also has problems. The color names do not match the values reported by DigitalColor Meter.

This is reproducible on both my and my wife's mbp 5,5 13"

Steps to Reproduce:

a) for the RGB sliders:

1) Quit TextEdit if open
2) Open TextEdit
3) menu, choose: Format->Fonts->Show Colors
4) Using RGB sliders, pick Red=50, Blue=0, Green=0 (DO NOT TYPE, USE THE SLIDERS)
5) open DigitalColor Meter
6) chose RGB as Actual Value, 8-bit on Digital Color Meter.
7) Hover over test patch on color picker dialog of textedit.

b) for the "web safe colors" palette

1) Quit TextEdit if open
2) Open TextEdit
3) menu, choose: Format->Fonts->Show Colors
4) Using the Color Palettes, choose "web safe colors".
5) open DigitalColor Meter
6) chose RGB as Hex Value, 8-bit on DigitalColor Meter
7) Hover over the selection patches on the color picker dialog of textedit.

Expected Results:

for a) the rgb sliders, DigitalColor Meter will report 71,7,8 (instead of 50,0,0)
for b) looking at color "CCCCCC" DigitalColor Meter reports D4,D4,D4
Actual Results:

Regression:
I am using osx 10.6.6 as is my wife, problem appears on both computers. I first noticed this with the color picker invoked by OmniOutliner Pro 3.9.5, but reproduced with the color picker invoked by TextEdit.

I have color calibrated my screen with a huey pro, however switch back to the factory profile did not affect the "Expected Results:" shown above.

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Answer 9

Mar 24, 2011 4:33 PM in response to BlahBlahBlahBlahBlahBlah

After much futzing around I traced this behaviour to the RCWeb color picker which is installed automatically by GraphicConverter (though you can turn it off in prefs) and probably a few other graphic programs too.

Deleting that color picker and using either the Default Apple picker or the wafflesoft version below solved the problem for me.

http://wafflesoftware.net/hexpicker/

^ The hex picker has an options button for "Don't generate Calibrated colors" you need to make sure this is NOT selected to avoid the behaviour where all the colors go slightly wrong.

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Answer 10

Oct 18, 2011 2:26 PM in response to BlahBlahBlahBlahBlahBlah

Didn't work for me. I trashed the two files I found using that RCWeb name. The numbers expressed by DigitalColor Meter and Apple's color picker are closer, but they still don't match exactly.

I guess I'll put 'em back.

--Gil

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Answer 11

Sep 8, 2013 5:03 AM in response to Katedu

I'm now running 10.8.4 on new hardware and still getting the same issue.

The bug affects Graphic Converter and Acorn, basically anything that uses the OSX colour picker.

Drewmweaver which has its own colour picker (does not use the OSX picker at all) is not affected.

Things that seem to make a difference:

** Rebooting the Mac completely

** In the WaffleSoft Hex color Picker untick the option for "Dont generate calibrated colours"

Graphic Converter will usually select the correct hex number, but once you OK to close the picker and return to actually using the color it will silently change - if you reopen the picker you will see that one digit of the hex code is different. In my tests it always seems to be a shade darker

Acorn will usually select the correct hex number, but once you close the picker it will also change the colour. In my tests it drew a slightly lighter shade.

Workarounds:

In the WaffleSoft Hex color Picker tick the option for "Don't generate calibrated colours"

Select the colour - this will give you the right Hex code - copy it to the clipboard

Now untick the option for "Dont generate calibrated colours" - this will change the hex code slightly

Now Paste in the first hex colour - the pickers sample swatch will look wrong

Press OK and draw in Graphic converter - the colour will come out right

The Apple DigitalColorMeter can also be used to select the correct Colour code but you will have to convert the RGB number to hex and then copy/paste into the drawing program.

The Colours App (http://mattpatenaude.com/) selects colour codes that are the equivalent of having "Don't generate calibrated colours" ticked.

This bug doesnt seem to be in the Color pickers ability to select the right colour (or have anything to do with colour space) but something about the way the value is returned to the calling application.

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Answer 12

Jul 6, 2014 1:41 PM in response to Katedu

Another year later, this problem still exists with the Colour picker and Graphic Convertor.

I switched to Pixelmator and that seems to be OK, they recommend switching to the sRGB display profile in System Preferences/Displays and now I can use the colour picker to select colours (eg from http://www.color-hex.com/ ) and Pixelmator will insert the right colour into an image.

If I go back to Graphic Converter with the same profile selected and an image with the profile sRGB specifically selected, the colour picker will select the right number but when added to the image the colour is still wrong.

So it seems that Adobe fireworks and Graphic Converter are both unable to work with the OSX colour picker but Adobe Dreamweaver and Pixelmator manage to get it right.

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Answer 13

CMCSK

Level 6

11,452 points

Jun 15, 2010 2:41 PM in response to Katedu

Is it considered okay to cross-post to another forum?

Yes

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Answer 14

Katedu Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 15, 2010 4:01 PM in response to CMCSK

Thanks.

I did read up on color calibration by the way, and I re-calibrated my screen. It didn't help with my main problem, but it's probably an improvement to color management in general.

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Answer 15

Jun 30, 2010 2:50 PM in response to BlahBlahBlahBlahBlahBlah

I also tried paintbrush
http://sourceforge.net/projects/paintbrush/

That also uses the OSX color pickers but doesnt have the same issue, it's a cocoa app if that makes any difference?

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