Illustrator CS6 changes colours when saving as PNG or SVG

Question

I'm creating artwork for a variety of purposes:

• Facebook Cover Photos (RGB)
• Business Cards & Banner Prints (CYMK)
• Document Headers (RGB)

The red I am using for the FB Cover Photos is #b72025, however, when I "Save for Web" as PNG for the cover photos, it gets converted to a primary red. See below (LHS is #b72025 in Illustrator (what I want) and RHS is what is converted):

When I view the PNG file in Chrome and Firefox, it appears like I want it to with #b72025 as the colour. But when I view it in Safari, Preview, or Microsoft Word (by importing it) it appears as a bright, primary red.

I've tried:

• Creating a new file with the "Web" settings (RGB colour profile) and creating new elements from scratch and trying to save them. It did the same.
• Disabling the RGB Colour Management policies
• Turning on/off the "Convert to sRGB" option in the "Save for Web" screen.
• Saving as "SVG", which causes the same issues.
• Exporting as PNG instead of "Saving for Web".
• Saving for Microsoft Office, but that causes the same issues.

How do I fix this problem so that I can get the same colours across browsers? I would also like this to work when I save them as SVG or use it for Microsoft Office...

Answer 1

I created a test graphic and I was able to repeat the problem.

I found this page: https://superuser.com/questions/122235/why-is-safari-on-my-computer-rendering-all-of-the-colors-not-just-for-images

I went to my System Preferences-->Displays-->Color. I had a custom calibrated profile selected and I changed it to "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" and it fixed it.

The applications you listed obey the system setting. Chrome and Firefox do not.

The weird thing is in my test, if I put red (#b72025) PNG in an HTML document and set the background color to #b72025 in CSS it looks seamless, but taking a screenshot and sampling it photoshop I get both colors shifted differently. #db1921 and #b6222b respectively. Something else is going on.

Answer 2

Honestly, you need to get used to the fact that the color values you set are not specific colors at all.

#b72025 for example, on its own is not a color. It needs a specific color profile to define that color in a specific color space.

Different devices (and different programs—as you have seen) will have discrepancies in the color they show. Most probably due to mismatching color profiles.

If you are designing purely for the web you should be working in sRGB IEC61966-2.1. This is the defacto standard color profile for web browsers, which historically couldn't even read embedded color profiles in images (this isn't true anymore—but just adds to the confusion)