Photoshop Color Profile Question

[shorty83]

Hi, I am kinda new at the photoshop color management part of all this. I recently made some plates from a file a customer sent. The file is a 4cp illustrator.eps file with the photoshop file embedded in there. The color did not turn out how they wanted in the background picture and they sent over another file but this file had the photoshop file not embedded and had a color profile attached to the supporting photoshop image. So, I opened one right next to the other in photoshop and the colors look very different, but when I mouse over to see the CMYK values, both the files read the same values. So now I am confused, if they have the same CMYK values why are the colors looking so different?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

They have different profiles.
CMYK numbers are just "how much" of each colour you have. The profile tells what exact colour of C, M, Y and K as well as how a combination of these will look.

Most likeley the Photoshop file without profile is handled as a default profile, or in illustrator you are using a "Safe CMYK" meanning you are ignoring ICC profiles coming in for the first instance.
In the second you are seeing Colour management.

If you have photos inolved you will probably have to activate colour managent. If you set the Illustrator CMYK profile to the same profile as in the picture your two images should look the same. If that is not the correct profile, you can either convert the image to the correct CMYK and then continue with the "safe.CMYK" or you will have to activate Colour Management, including converting to profiles in Illustrator.