Matching ChimeraX color with the Adobe illustrator colors?
Dear ChimeraX users, I am trying to match the colors of ChimeraX model to the Adobe illustrator drawing. I used Web safe colors to color my model in chimeraX and then used the same hex codes in the illustrator, but the colors did not match. Any thoughts or workarounds would be appreciated.
Best Rayees
Hello Rayees, Except that there will be lighting highlights and shading/shadows of the 3D scene in ChimeraX, the colors should otherwise be the same. It is unclear whether that can explain the difference without our being able to see images for comparison... and also we don't use Illustrator, so we can't advise on the details of that program or try it for ourselves. If you feel it is a bug, please use menu: Help... Report a Bug and please include a detailed description of what you did, and how you colored the ChimeraX models, and an image showing the difference. Also you would need to compare them on the same screen and using the same color space, because once you print something out, the printer color-matching may also cause differences.
As far as we know, the colors in ChimeraX are correct for whatever hex codes, RGB, etc. that you used to specify the color. https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/colornames.html
Best Elaine ----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco
On Jul 20, 2023, at 4:06 PM, Rayees Mattoo via ChimeraX-users chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu wrote:
Dear ChimeraX users, I am trying to match the colors of ChimeraX model to the Adobe illustrator drawing. I used Web safe colors to color my model in chimeraX and then used the same hex codes in the illustrator, but the colors did not match. Any thoughts or workarounds would be appreciated.
Best Rayees
Hi Rayees,
Image files from say a camera (e.g. cellphone camera) will contain a color profile. ChimeraX does not put any color profile information into the image files it saves. So it is up to the program displaying the image (e.g. Adobe Illustrator) to decide how to interpret the RGB values. Photo display programs often let you try different color profiles. For instance on Mac computer the Preview app has a Tools / Assign Profile... menu entry to do this.
ChimeraX is using exactly the RGB values you see in the ChimeraX user interface, and renders then directly to the graphics card without applying any color profile. But the operating system may tell the graphics card what color profile to use. I find that if I save an image from ChimeraX as PNG and open that image in Preview then it does have exactly the same colors as shown in the ChimeraX window. So Preview and ChimeraX are using the same color profile. But I suspect in your case Adobe Illustrator is using a different color profile for the image you are making, and that is why the RGB hex codes from ChimeraX come out looking different.
Tom
On Jul 20, 2023, at 4:52 PM, Elaine Meng via ChimeraX-users chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu wrote:
Hello Rayees, Except that there will be lighting highlights and shading/shadows of the 3D scene in ChimeraX, the colors should otherwise be the same. It is unclear whether that can explain the difference without our being able to see images for comparison... and also we don't use Illustrator, so we can't advise on the details of that program or try it for ourselves. If you feel it is a bug, please use menu: Help... Report a Bug and please include a detailed description of what you did, and how you colored the ChimeraX models, and an image showing the difference. Also you would need to compare them on the same screen and using the same color space, because once you print something out, the printer color-matching may also cause differences.
As far as we know, the colors in ChimeraX are correct for whatever hex codes, RGB, etc. that you used to specify the color. https://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/colornames.html
Best Elaine
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco
On Jul 20, 2023, at 4:06 PM, Rayees Mattoo via ChimeraX-users chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu wrote:
Dear ChimeraX users, I am trying to match the colors of ChimeraX model to the Adobe illustrator drawing. I used Web safe colors to color my model in chimeraX and then used the same hex codes in the illustrator, but the colors did not match. Any thoughts or workarounds would be appreciated.
Best Rayees
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participants (3)
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Elaine Meng -
Rayees Mattoo -
Tom Goddard