Color in Graphic shifts color in Word 2007

[kmurdock]

Hi all,

I've created a graphic in Photoshop with a lovely blue background -- our business blue. I saved as a png and when I insert it into Word, the color shifts. I can see on the monitor that it's different and it prints out incorrectly.

I've printed the same graphic from Photoshop itself, Snagit and good old WordPerfect, and they all print the graphic identically and accurately.

Are there any controls to what Word does when inserting graphics? I'd just like it to print my business's blue the way every other program on my computer does.

Thanks,
Kim

[kmurdock]

I've resolved it! Here's what I found:

Photoshop CS3 allows the user to "Assign Profile" and save it with the graphic, or choose not to "Color Manage" the graphic.

Interestingly, not managing the color is the way to ensure that Word prints the graphic the same way Photoshop does.

Why Word is finicky and doesn't want someone else to manage their colors for them is ironic, to be sure, but I'm fairly certain this wasn't true last February when I created other related graphics. (Hey! Maybe this is what Adobe and Microsoft were meeting about last week?)

Anyway... it's working now, but I'm afraid if I cough or bump my desk I'll break it again. If anyone has any wisdom to share on this, I'll be happy to hear it, but otherwise, I'm good for now.

Best!
Kim

[jscher2000]

Interestingly, not managing the color is the way to ensure that Word prints the graphic the same way Photoshop does.

I think that means that Word is not able to apply the profile saved in the image file and therefore interprets the data as "sRGB." This problem can give rise to differences between web browsers, too, at least on the Mac.

[kmurdock]

Jefferson, you must be right, though I'm still not sure why this didn't come up last Feb.

I'm sure I wouldn't have adjusted the Color Profile (sRGB, actually) without a specific reason... perhaps one that I have since forgotten. So now I'm documenting before moving on.

Thanks much,
Kim