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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

Best reply

Baby-Boomer-USofA

Level 9

58,098 points

Posted on Jun 15, 2010 9:49 AM

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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17 replies

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.

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.

Color Picker not working correctly