[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

18 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

There is no problem here, so whether we call the interface between a specific app and a driver that allows functionality not available for other apps as "communication" or something more elementary, one-sided, or  restricted, is not important. It just seems that as long as printer documentations do not mention apps other than Photoshop or Lightroom in connection of color management, we continue assuming, testing, and spending time in figuring out workarounds, at best.

Completely agree.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

1 minute ago, Lagarto said:

I cannot say, as i, too, have always used Adobe engine only. What puzzles me is the way printer drivers (Canon, Epson, etc.) seem to communicate directly with Adpbe apps. What printer documentations mention about color management with Adobe apps does not seem to be in applicable in other apps so even if the Windows versions of Affinity apps seem to offer similar functionality (like Color Management view of the WIndows versions of Affinity apps offering conversion options, not available on macOS), it really does not work. 

I think you have to think of app and driver/os as separate entities from one another. I don't think that printer drivers communicate with applications. However, the app communicates with the driver. If Adobe is offering you the ability to use the ColorSync engine to do a color conversion, that conversion is being defined by the app, say Photoshop, and handled by the ColorSync conversion engine. This is all happening within Photoshop and completely separate from the print driver. The driver is downstream from the app in the print workflow. Once Adobe or Affinity pass the job to the driver to print, the app is out of the loop. The job is now in the hands of the driver. If the driver is capable of handling the color conversion, it may be able to call on the color conversion engine provided by the os. So, on a Mac, it too could be calling up ColorSync. As an Epson user, the problem with using Epson's color management in their driver and selecting ColorSync is that while they allow me to choose my print profile, they don't give me the ability to define a rendering intent, and they don't provide black point compensation. For me, this is a "half baked" solution and not good enough. What's important to keep in mind is that once the driver has the print job, it is working on its own outside of the application that initiated the job.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

It says it is up to the app to support ColorSync. I know for a fact that the Affinity apps support ColorSync with some printers, for example my ancient Canon MP 620:

I even managed to create a fake non-functional IPP printer using the "Generic PostScript Printer" software built into macOS:

It also enables a Color Matching option with ColorSync & "In Printer" options, just like for the Canon printer & as shown in the step 3 image from that Epson manual. (I have more screen captures documenting this stuff but the forum software keeps giving me -200 errors when I try to add them so either trust me on this or wait while I see if I can add them later.)

So, while I am not certain about the exact cause, I doubt it is because the Affinity apps do not support a choice of ColorSync or printer color management (because they do). More likely, the cause is a corrupt or misconfigured driver.

I really don't think that there is much of a two way conversation between the app and the driver. When printing the app passes the print job downstream to the os, and the os pops up the print dialog box for you to set whatever print parameters you need to. The color management in the driver is specific to the os. These color conversion capabilities, because they are being provided by the os, have nothing to do with the app.

Years ago, there was a consistent problem for apps that provided color conversion. The app would convert from working space to printer color space and then pass the print job to the os/driver. If the driver had color conversion capabilities and you did not turn the driver's conversion capabilities off, then the print job would be converted twice, once by the app, once by the os/driver. Of course, this would create a print with incorrect color. So the rule of thumb has always been that you either convert your print color in the app or in the driver, but never both. 

This was a known issue, so software developers started putting warnings in their applications to tell users to remember to turn off color management in the driver if the app was set to convert the color. In addition, they implemented a process for the app to send some parameters (MS: FlagDefinition) to the driver along with the print job to tell the driver that the app had (or had not) converted the color and to turn off color management. I believe that is what this code is that Thomaso has provided in his post.

These look like flags that Microsoft uses to tell print drivers who is controlling the color conversion and to respond accordingly:

FlagDefinition

BR_DEVICE_ICM in BRUSHOBJ

XO_DEVICE_ICM in XLATEOBJ

Color management is being performed by the driver or the device.

BR_HOST_ICM in BRUSHOBJ

XO_HOST_ICM in XLATEOBJ

Color management is being performed by the application or the system (GDI).

Of course the printer manufacturers had to make sure that their drivers understood the flags when passed to them with the print job.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

4 hours ago, thomaso said:

I am interested in your experiences! (though I still think soft proof is not a proper offer when printing in Affinity apps)

Seems odd to me too. I would really like to see something similar to Adobe's approach.

 

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

36 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

But doesn't Adobe use by default color management engine of their own (ACE) -- or does Acrobat show these options also if you choose system color management (ColorSync)?

Anyway, I'm lost with this. I have produced for a while print files from the same source using Adobe app color handiing and Affinity app color handling. I can just say that they produce highly different results when using identical settings and profiles. Both clearly modify document color data but only physical media would show how the colors would actually print compared to the what is shown on the display.

As for ColorSync, I am not sure whether it is basically equivalent to Microsoft ICM (host color management vs. app and printer driver based color management), so the "Color Management" view available in WIndows app versions (resembling those provided by Adobe apps) is something that has never existed on macOS versions of Affinity apps? In Adobe apps this is the way to produce "on-the-fly" conversions much the same way Adobe PDF exports are created, and the available options are printer driver dependent. 

In many Adobe apps that provide color management services like Acrobat, you have the option to choose from a number of different color conversion engines. I've always left it at Adobe (ACE) and it's worked perfectly. It is my understanding that the different conversion engines are built to the ICC specification, so how different could they be?

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

As I understand it (which is far from completely), the Mac Affinity apps rely on the multi-layered printing system architecture built into the macOS to print out documents. So among other things, both the "accessory" items selectable from the popup in the lower part of the advanced printing dialog (like application-specific options, scaling, color management, & so on) and in which of these "accessory" items any of these items can be found depend on what the print driver makes available to the printing system.

So for example, the color matching options will appear only if the driver for the selected printer 'tells' the printing system it can provide color matching options. If it does, they will be organized into accessory categories & named according to whatever the driver specifies, and some of them may appear only in combination with others.

Apple claims this makes including printing functions easier for developers & simpler for users, but in practical therms it means that users wanting to use any of the 'advanced' printing features offered by the macOS have to figure out how they can be configured with  each printer they use for each app they want to use them with, & even among printers of the same type from the same manufacturer the configuration & choices may be considerably different. 

This makes sense to me and is the reason why setting the color conversion from working space to printer space upstream in the application is important. You can then simply turn off color management in whatever print driver you are using. It makes the color management process for printing very consistent.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

3 hours ago, Lagarto said:

Yes, I understand this perfectly. But I cannot understand why this interface is not available on macOS. On Windows version of Affinity apps the interface is basically same that you have in Photoshop. It is just that I am not sure if this works as expected (and cannot check it at the moment as I am out of office). In lack of this interface Soft proof might be useful as a workaround.

It is my assumption (emphasize "assumption") that the color management controls that you see when printing on Windows is coming from the operating system, where Windows is providing the ability to make settings similar to Photoshop. In other words, this capability is not being provided by Affinity. From what I see in the Mac apps, when you print, Affinity immediately hands off the print job to the driver.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

Sorry, I meant that last post for Logarto.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

Thomaso, thanks for the ColorSync information. This is not method that I prefer. As stated, I would prefer that the app do the converting. Also, sRGB, being a relatively small color space, is great for the web or viewing content on a screen, but is not that good for printing. I would prefer working in AdobeRGB as a “print graphics” working space and converting to a color using an ICC profile made specifically for the printer/paper. I would rarely use sRGB as a working space, unless I’m working with someone else’s file and they have already converted down to sRGB.

 

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

Thomaso, I had the same issues when printing from InDesign. I had to gen a PDF and print from Acrobat which did a better job of providing accurate print results. I could never understand why that problem existed since the Adobe apps all use Adobe color conversion engine, AdobeACE.

I had the thought of exporting out of Affinity apps to a PDF and using Acrobat to print, but it’s just adding more steps to the workflow.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

Thank you everyone for your input, feedback, and suggestions.

Your posts clearly identify and focus on the issue that I am trying to avoid, using the operating system (Windows or Mac) and the printer’s driver to perform the print color conversion. As you have clearly noted, there are inconsistencies in how print color conversion is handled depending on OS and selected printer. This is why having the app perform the conversion is important. It provides a consistent way of converting the color from the working space to the printer’s color space prior to handing off the job to the print driver (where color management is turned off).

It’s interesting, Logarto, that the Windows print dialog provides a section for handling color conversion. If I were to guess (and I could be wrong on this), Windows is doing the conversion, not Affinity.

Thomaso, thanks for trying to figure out the postcript printer. Again, this process would use the print driver to do the conversion.

It is hard to understand why the Affinity apps don’t seem to provide this feature since they already have color management capabilities built into each app, unless they have a different way of handling it that I am not aware of. There is nothing in their documentation or on their website that I can find that describes this process. I’ve done web searches, and watched YouTube videos and found nothing that describes how to print. It makes me wonder if they don’t care about individuals doing their own printing (is no one doing their own printing anymore?).

I’m going to test my theory on using a Soft Proof adjustment layer. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks again for your input.

 

 

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

It just occurred to me that the color conversion for printing could possibly be handled by a Soft Proof adjustment layer. Since the adjustment layer provides settings for assigning a printer profile, a rendering intent, and black point compensation, I believe if I execute the print job with the soft proof layer unhidden and turn off color management in the print driver, that this will render colors accurately. I'll have to test the process to know.

Is there anyone on this forum who has tried this and can weigh in?

Thanks.

The screenshot is from Affinity's Help document...

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

Thomaso,

Thanks for your input and providing screenshots.

It looks like your postscript driver is providing color conversion capabilities. If you can point me to the driver (virtual printer?) on the web, I'll test it out - pretty sure that I will get the same results as you.

I'm looking for something in Affinity's software that will allow me to make the color conversion settings before my file is actually handed off to the print driver, something similar to the way that Photoshop handles it (see below). When I get to the print driver dialog box, I simply want to tell the driver not to do the conversion (Epson: "Off: (No Color Adjustment")).

It's hard for me to fathom that Affinity's software does not have this capability since they have color management features. Maybe they have a different way of handling it, and I just haven't figured it out yet.

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

BofG, thanks for your reply.

As a photographer my workflow is almost 100% RGB, so I would rarely use the CMYK color mode. Also, using a RIP is a good thought, but I'd rather not have use an additional application when printing if I can avoid it.

I find it hard to understand that printer color conversion is not built into any of the Affinity apps. In other graphic apps that I have used, there are methods for setting print parameters like "Application Manages Color" or "Printer Manages Color" prior to initiating the print process. If I set "Application Manages Color", then I can assign my printer's output profile, a rendering intent, black point compensation, etc, and the app will automatically handle the conversion when printing and leave the original file in my working space (typically ProPhoto or Adobe RGB). Are none of the Affinity apps able to handle "Application Manages Color" when printing? With all of the color management capabilities that are built into these apps, like assigning and converting color spaces or soft-proofing, it's difficult to understand why they would not have included color conversion when printing.

What I am trying to avoid is having to do a manual color conversion because after converting to the printer's color space and then printing, I would have to remember to undo the color conversion. The only other solution that I have come up with so far is to use the Color Management setting in the printer driver and use ColorSync (Apple) which allows me to assign a printer profile, but there are no settings for rendering intent or black point compensation. This is an inferior solution and doesn't really work for me. 

Thoughts?

[Assigning an ICC Color Profile when Printing]

I'm new to Affinity products and having a difficult time understanding how to assign a printer output profile within any of the Affinity apps. I want the Affinity app to perform the color conversion when printing, not the print driver. Coming from the world of Adobe, where this process is pretty straight forward, I cannot find a similar methodology in Designer, Publisher, or Photo.

Can anyone please explain to me how to tell an Affinity app that I want it to handle the color conversion, and to assign an output profile for my printer and paper, rendering intents, etc.? Typically, I use AdobeRGB as my working space. I do not want to have to do a manual conversion (menu: Document/Convert Format / ICC Profile...) from the working space to the printer color space before printing. I want the print process to handle the conversion on the fly.

I'm on v1.8.3 on all apps, MacOS v10.15.5

Thanks!