GIMP Version: 2.8.10
Operating System: Windows
OS Version: Windows 7 Professional
GIMP Experience: Basic Level

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Hello,

I just discovered a new issue with the color output in Gimp. I currently have v. 2.8.10 which I downloaded a year ago. I've created some designs since then and saved as .jpg samples to go back later to create "final" versions. I wrote down all of the colors and their ID numbers that I used and also wrote down the exact features/filters (overlay, hard light, grain merge, etc.) that I used in the creation process so I could duplicate the design exactly. Now fast forward to the other day when I finally got around to recreating two of the final works...I followed my instructions for both of them to a tee but the colors are not showing up the same and the effects look slightly different too.

For example, a light blue color I used to stamp my brush design with and then using the grain merge filter on top of a dark purple background turned out a light teal color in the original design. But using the same exact light blue color in the same way on the recreated design turned out a soft purple color. Vastly different! The other design was a soft pink color and it was showing up as more of a magenta color. The effect difference on the pink color design was the stroke on the object was gray in the original but it was hot pink in the recreated design. Again I was following all steps to a tee that I had originally done.

Next, I brought the original artwork into Gimp and used the color picker to get the same color and I stamped my brush with that color and it still was not the same! The original image looks the same as it always has so it's not my monitor depicting the colors differently...all other colors on the web and everywhere else are the same.

I even went as far as experimenting (trying everything I could think of) thinking I had gotten my instructions wrong, but nothing produced the same color effect, and besides, it is happening with all my past designs if I try to use the same colors as I originally used...they all turn out differently now.

So you may be asking, what changes have I made to my computer color output (monitor or graphics card) or in my GIMP color management tool? NONE. The only thing I have done recently is I updated my NVIDIA 3100m graphics driver from my 'Device Manager' to v. 9.18.13.4144 (NVIDIA Graphics Driver 341.44). Could that have made the difference? Again, I did not have any custom color management changes on the previous driver...I don't mess with that stuff as I don't know enough about it.

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Unless you changed the colour mode from the original it should be ok. Although you should have saved as an .xcf. Maybe it was the NVIDIA Graphics driver update.

Thanks for the reply Sallyanne...I can't think of any other reason why it would be different, so maybe you are right about the graphic driver update.

But what is odd is that update only affected GIMP and not anything else on my computer. I was hoping someone else would chime in and know more about that but it dawned on me that I can try to roll back the driver to the previous version and see if things go back the way they were in GIMP. I wasn't having any graphic driver issues with the previous version, though I was getting some BSOD's and that is why I updated it just in case that was the cause.

I see that there is a more recent version of GIMP (2.8.14) and so maybe I'll try that version first before I roll back the driver.

I'll report back as to what, if anything, works.

Ok, reporting back...I rolled back the graphics driver and that did not resolve the issue. I haven't used GIMP for a while so I don't know when this issue actually started, but sure would like to know why the colors are not looking the same. If it were just the one design I'd just think I wrote down the wrong color code in my instructions to recreate the design, but this is happening on all of my designs that I wrote down and saved in a Word doc all the color codes and what filters I used.

Not sure updating GIMP to the latest version will make a difference but I guess that can be my next step unless anyone who stumbles in here is familiar with this issue and knows what to do to remedy it.

JPEG are compressed files, when saved they lose quality. They can color shift and do not retain transparency or layers. I doubt it's a computer or Gimp issue; in future use XCf until you're ready to export.
Good luck!

Thanks Odinbc. I am familiar with how .jpgs lose quality over time but that isn't what is happening here. The originals look the same as they always have (I have a pretty keen eye for colors and remember how they looked). That said, I have given up trying to figure this out and will just find new colors, and I will save my work in an .xcf file too (though I don't typically like doing that as it ends up being a much larger file and takes up more room, but I can move it to a thumb drive).

Use Save as, .xcf.bz2.
For example a 7.2 MB .xcf file is 3.9 MB .xcf.bz2 (almost 50% smaller).