Adobe Illustrator v26.3.1 PNGs turn negative or inverted after saving, issue under investigation (workarounds inside)

Adobe Illustrator is a professional vector graphics editor tool that is especially popular in the design of posters, banners and similar files.

The software offers many useful tools, such as support for PNGs files. However, currently Adobe Illustrator users are facing an issue where PNGs turn negative or inverted after saving the picture.

According to multiple reports, Adobe Illustrator users are unable to properly add PNGs after v26.3.1 update. A PNG file is a picture that has a transparent background instead of a solid color background.

PNG files are a basic tool in editing graphic files. But, currently PNGs are turning negative, inverted, or a solid color (such as yellow) on Adobe Illustrator pictures after saving them.

PNGs linked in show up in purple/white with yellow background

I linked in some photos and they have all the same specs as the other photos in the document but for some reason when I reopen the file, they show up like the coloring has been messed with. They are also both PNGs but only the one keeps showing up with a yellow background.
Source

Adobe Illustrator: PNGs turn negative after saving then reopening

I’m running version 26.3.1, my operating system is Windows 10 Pro version 21H1.

Every time I place a PNG into an illustrator doc, either CMYK or RGB color space, it turns negative when I reopen the document to work on it. I’ve made sure it’s an 8 bit PNG, doesn’t happen to any other image format, and it doesn’t matter if the PNG is transparent or not. It happens to both downloaded PNGs and the ones I make myself either in photoshop to remove a background or if I’m exporting a vector image as a PNG to place in a different doc.
Source

The Adobe team is aware of the issue and is investigating. They also offer more details about the conditions under which the glitch occurs:

We are sorry for the trouble. We are able to reproduce the issue at our end. We have already logged a bug with the product team, and they are currently investigating the issue.

This is happening with the Ai file, which has linked images. While saving, when the “Include linked files ” option is selected and then reopened, the Ai file images get inverted, or yellow color can be seen.
Source

In addition, Adobe offers an official workaround:

If the above workaround doesn’t work for you, you can also try the following:

Alternatively, you can resolve all issues by installing an Adobe Illustrator version where everything works correctly (prior to v26.3.1).

We will update this story as new related developments emerge.

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