BofG
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Posts posted by BofG
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Can you post a pic of the colour settings in the source Affinity document?
Is there a colour setting in Photoshop for the actual document as well as those defaults that you showed?
If you open the png in Affinity does it show the same colour value as the source or is it the same as in Photoshop?
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The exported image must have either a different colour profile or bit depth.
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I'm afriad I can't help, I don't know how it all works on MacOS. There must be some way of setting that ColorSync profile from "default" to you actual profile, hopefully someone who knows how will drop by soon.
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Can you edit those settings or is that just a list of information?
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That's a printer profile that you have, so you shouldn't be applying it to your document. It's to be applied in the print output only.
Hit print, then have a good look around on there to see if you can find where to apply a profile. I wish I could help more but I've literally never seen a MacOS print dialogue in my life
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7 minutes ago, Umalum said:
Where do I see colour management within Affinity?
I'm afraid I don't know exactly how it is on MacOS. I think there's just a "ColorSync" button on the print dialogue. @Dan C can you assist?
I'm curious as to how you applied that ICC profile before, as I thought that was done through ColorSync?
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The changes in the values could be down to:
a) A change of the colour profile of the source document
b) Exporting the pdf using a colour profile different to the source document
c) Exporting to a non 'X' based PDF (which yours is) or embedding the ICCa) & b) above cause the colours to be re-calculated and hence they end up different. If you embed the ICC in the non "X" type pdf if causes the issue. I don't really know why it does as it messes thing up even if it's the same profile as the actual document.
If your source document still has the correct colour makeups, then export to the default "PDF/X4" and it should be fine. If the colours in your source document have already been altered then you will have to manually fix them.
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I couldn't find the profile, but looking at the printer it must be an RGB one so that should be fine with Affinity.
Does the image look different between the two apps on screen, or is it just the print that is off?
Are both applications showing the same profile for the image? (in document setting, colour on Affinity)
I'm not a MacOS user, but does Affinity give you the option to have it manage colours? Or do you have to use the ColorSync system?
If you've been happy with the print output from PS there's no need for any calibration devices, it's just a setting messed up somewhere (although Adobe does have a slightly better print output in general).
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@Umalum what is the exact ICC profile you are using?
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I'm probably talking nonsense, but on Windows you can get a "tool-less" view by pressing tab.
I think holding ctrl whilst starting the program will give you an option to reset it which might help.
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45 minutes ago, LogosByDim said:
I can check that out if you want.
I won't trouble you, was just if you knew off the top of your head. I'll take a look on the Adobe website, I want to get my head around all the acrobat functions anyway, I might have to subscribe to it for a bit to see what it's like.
Overall though I do think Affinity could use some improvements in this area. Would be nice to have a more featured pdf output where it's all less ambiguous.
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Thanks, interesting to see. I'm mostly just musing - I don't need to produce such a file. I fell into the hole of colour management when I got a small digital press, and I couldn't get accurate colours to print from Designer (it turned out that Designer cannot send cmyk data). From there I've just taken an interest, and there's a wealth of knowledge in the members here so I like to get involved and try to learn more.
With acrobat, can you specify the colour model as well? So can you take a pdf and convert the actual colour data to a new profile, as well as setting the output intent?
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33 minutes ago, LogosByDim said:
Why would you want RGB as a profile in the Output Intent?
Some large format machines now have additional inks (orange being a common one) which takes it beyond any CMYK gamut. I guess the RIP is free to ignore the output intent and work from the RGB ICC colours directly from the document. That could mean though that what comes out doesn't match what a normal reader shows, because the reader will likely apply the output intent.
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3 hours ago, v_kyr said:
See:
- PDF/X in a Nutshell (...of course as a PDF file LOL)
Interestingly (or confusingly).. in that document it states:
"All PDF/X formats require that an output intent is defined (see “Technical side and requirements of PDF/X”, page 7 that uses an ICC profile to characterize the intended output. Output intents use normally CMYK ICC profiles, but for PDF/X-4 or PDF/X-3 that can also be RGB or even Gray profiles."
So you can have an RGB output intent in a pdf/x-4, but if you try that in Affinity you get SWOP. The PDF spec does mention though that such a thing is for pdf/a, but I think there was a statement saying pdf/x specifications take precedence if there's a conflict in the documentation.
So now I'm back to square one, maybe I'll have to find the officially official pdf/x-4 spec and find out for sure, unless someone here knows the definitive answer and can save me the effort
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I was aware of the "X" types, I know they are defined specifications (technically they are all still "just" pdf files). I tripped myself up as I had read the base pdf spec and knew that the output intent can also be an RGB profile (although having double checked it is noted that is only for pdf/a). When Designer gave me the option to export from an RGB file with the output profile "as document" I assumed the spec allowed for an RGB output intent.
The whole thing is one big usability nightmare
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It's a shame that the pdf output is so badly presented. I've read the specs (although clearly not the "x" type standards) and there's some very fine grained colour control available, yet the export options either give no control or just default to questionable settings.
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RGB values are relative to their colour profile. What profiles are your Affinity documents set to?
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24 minutes ago, v_kyr said:
though I would have expected an ISO CMYK profile for european localized users.
Yep, this is what I mean about the software obscuring things. That profile isn't refered to at all in the output settings, I see now why it's in the document but it's very obscure and is selected by the program in an opaque manner.
It then begs the question, what colour model is being used internally? Would it be ICC tagged RGB? I don't have the tools to see the internal setup of the pdf unfortunately.
The more I learn the less I understand
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I find it an interesting topic, it's also interesting how many different viewpoints there are on things. There's also a lot of misconceptions, it's a bit of a minefield! :)
The way the applications handle colours can add to the confustion, take the following example:
1) Create an sRGB document.
2) Export to PDF X-4 with default settings:
- Clearly the colour space will be sRGB right? Well....
3) Open the document in Adobe Reader, click the "standards" icon:
YEP! That's good old SWOP v2 in your output intent - which Adobe Reader certainly honours. Why???!??!? RGB colour spaces are supported in X4 pdf files, so who only knows why Designer does this.
On top of that, when actually trying to print, you've then got colour management at the OS level, the application level and the driver level. All of which are quite happy to be set in conflicting ways. Colour management is a very fractured setup. I'm still enjoying learning about it though, and discussions on here have helped my understanding so thanks all for participating.
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24 minutes ago, MikeW said:
ID is (depending on settings as mentioned) color agnostic. QXP is fully color agnostic (and only color agnostic). Any/all color conversions happen at output. Which is what APub/AD out to have been made as. But that is now water under the bridge.
That's interesting, do you know how it's done technically? To apply a profile on output would require the colours to be in CIE Lab/xyz, I wonder if the documents are working in that space behind the scenes, or is it some other approach?
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As far as I'm aware, there's no way to work with unmanaged colours in Affinity. If you are going from one cmyk colour space to another you have to either convert (ie. Map back to the Profile Connection Space then forward to the new profile) or assign (ie. Use the "raw" numbers with the new profile). I don't know how InDesign handles it. There is always the possibility that the two profiles are so similar you wouldn't actually notice. I can't imagine though that it would be truly non colour managed. Although I have been known to be wrong
My point was the "CMYK values" are not a guaranteed "colour". It's like saying a client's logo is a "purple-ish blue", saying "C:100 M:80 Y:0 K:0" is no different - they are both open to interpretation. If you say it's "C:100 M:80 Y:0 K:0 in SWOP coated" then you are talking about a specific colour. The profile anchors the colour values to a real world output that is defined and consistent. If you then wanted that colour on some ivory stock you would be printing quite different values for the same final colour.
It could be that InDesign is keeping the same colour values in your document by setting the pdf output intent to the assigned profile, but is not using that itself when you read the file back in.
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2 hours ago, BofG said:
People talk of CMYK like it's a defined thing, but it's not an absolute space like CIE lab/xyz.
44 minutes ago, Lorox said:Colours of CMYK vector objects should – in my opinion – be preserved anyway 1:1 by the layout application they are placed or copied into, because it generally seems to be a sound assumption that the colour values defined in CMYK for these objects are actually meant to be precisely as they are
This is where I have to disagree
CMYK is not a fixed thing, you need a profile to map those values into the "real world" as it were. CMYK values without a profile are not anchored to anything. Keeping them "1:1" isn't possible, you either have to convert them or strip the current profile from them and assign the new one.
You can have "DeviceCMYK" in a PDF, which are taken "as is" by the press, but these are a final step in the colour management, they are produced by the upstream icc profile(s).
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17 minutes ago, Chris26 said:
My obvious question mark banging up and down on the top of my nicely brushed and radiant hair as I read this was: Exactly which of the myriad of cmyk profiles should one adopt when setting up one's document?
I've asked this too, and on other threads.. People talk of CMYK like it's a defined thing, but it's not an absolute space like CIE lab/xyz. Unless you know when starting a design which print profile it will use it's going to be easy to select a profile that's actually smaller than the capabilities of the press. Affinity defaults to SWOP coated which is very limited.
- Chris26 and LogosByDim
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Color issue
in Pre-V2 Archive of Affinity on Desktop Questions (macOS and Windows)
Posted
@Johan Abrahamsson, @Chris26 asked all the pertinent questions. The other contributions are red herrings.