PDF Export is darker than on screen colors. How to change?

[JonKoch]

I'm attaching a couple of screen shots to illustrate my point. The screenshot with the grid behind it is how it is shown on screen and then when I export, It gets much more saturated and dark. I like the muted look of how it is on screen. Does anyone know where I might find some settings to adjust this output?

 

Thanks!

[rDesign]

It would be useful to know which version of VW and OS you are using.

 

I don’t know of any saturation settings for the PDF export itself, but if these are Sheet Layer viewports in either Shaded or Renderworks mode, you could apply Image Effects to the SLVP.
 

In the Image Effects settings, turn the Saturation slider down below where you like it on screen to overcompensate for the added saturation in the PDF. It will take some tweaking, but you can then save the Image Effect settings as a preset and apply it to other SLVP.

[JonKoch]

@rDesignSorry, I'm using VW 2023 and I'm on Monterey 12.5

 

I'll give the sliders a try and see what happens. It's not a HUGE issue but just trying to refine it. 

 

Thanks!

[Pat Stanford]

Before you spend too much time, what is the final use of these PDFs? If it is to print, then you had better get samples from the printer before you start your adjustment tests as what ends up on paper will be different than what you see on screen.

 

And even if it is on screen, what the end user sees will be different based on their monitor calibration (or lack there of) settings. And will change again when their monitor goes to nighttime mode to minimize blue light 🤦‍♂️

 

And to my (very untrained) eye, the more saturated version looks better.

[JonKoch]

@Pat StanfordYeah I mean at this point I'm not going to get into to it too much. The only time it looks really weird is when the DTM is at it's stock color and it just looks super bright. 

[rDesign]

4 minutes ago, JonKoch said:

The only time it looks really weird is when the DTM is at it's stock color and it just looks super bright

In that case, you could skip the Image Effects and just modify the RW texture of the DTM so that it alone is less saturated.

[Jeff Prince]

2 hours ago, JonKoch said:

@rDesignSorry, I'm using VW 2023 and I'm on Monterey 12.5

 

I'll give the sliders a try and see what happens. It's not a HUGE issue but just trying to refine it. 

 

Thanks!

I’m betting this has to do with color space, and/or monitor calibration.  Perhaps something to do with Apples auto brightness and/or True Tone.  It happens with the built in Mac PDF engine?  Have you tried Adobe?  Is there a difference?

 

My Mac is a little over saturated when viewing a PDF when compared to the native app which created it.  Strangely,  my PC does not exhibit the same behavior.  I say strangely because Apple is famous for color rendition.

[Jeff Prince]

If you want to run some experiments, check out the attached .vwx file.

Do a screen shot of it, publish it(to pdf), and then print it (to pdf).  Take a look at the differences, especially where the opacity is not 100%.  I just did this on both Windows and Mac... results varied.

color chart v2023.vwx

[M5d]

Something does seem to have changed in recent versions though. There's an issue with desaturation via image effects reverting when exported to pdf (maybe related?) and all viewports now appear more saturated in the pdf versions. This is a recent development, they've always been very consistent between Vectorworks and Adobe in the past (on the same hardware that is). By contrast, when using Adobe to export these images out of the pdf and into an image editor, then back into the pdf, images remain consistent as viewed (roundtrip) between Adobe and other software, i.e. you get what you see from one to the other both as original and edited.

 

Printing is understandably variable, but there shouldn't be an obvious and consistent discrepancy between two softwares on the same hardware, should there?

 

[line-weight]

Has anyone managed to get anywhere with this?

 

Using the "publish" command results in PDFs with colours that look noticeably different on screen, compared to when they are viewed in Vectorworks.

 

This is a screenshot - on the right is the bit of drawing viewed in VW, on the left is the same drawing exported to PDF. I've overlaid the two application windows, Preview on the left, VW on the right.

 

The colour difference might not look dramatic here but it can with a rendered image.

 

Edited March 29 by line-weight