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A technical solution would be if we could assign color spaces to swatches, i.e.: Do I want a device independent (profiled) color or a device dependent (unprofiled, CMYK or RGB “numbers“) color? In my latest project I wanted a lot of elements to be 100% cyan, regardless of output intent or other profile. I’m still hoping that it did work, keeping everything in ISO Coated profile. If the printshop would convert to a different CMYK profile (like SWOP or ISO Uncoated), they would convert my Cyan to some CMYK value, so that everything gets rasterized. On the other hand, I’d like to keep the “look” of RGB graphics. *And* I’d like to be able to convert RGB black to 100% K. The current state of greyscale pictures (even from AP) is that they are always handled as DeviceGray, i.e. device dependent color space, and get rasterized in CMYK instead of just K! (At least that is what Acrobat’s separation preview shows; I hope the printshop will do better.)

Affinity Photo 1.6.6 is now released on the Mac App Store. Thank you for your help with this Beta Status: Beta Release Purpose: Fixes Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo Mac App Store: Submitted Download: Here To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it. Thanks, Affinity Photo Team Changes since last App Store release HEIC support for Photos extensions. Fix for flicker in new OpenGL and Metal views when zooming with an active quick mask. PDF loading UI tweaks. Decimal separators are now taken from the OS locale - not the app locale. Fixed an issue which prevented some TIFF files from loading properly. Fixed arrow key issues in curves tool. Fixed perspective tool crash when applied to an empty layer. Small performance improvements. When soloing a mask (or any node with a built in mask), 32bit preview exposure and gamma are ignored. Added “Unlock All” and “Show All” to Layer menu. Fixed colour noise application in Edit -> Fill. Added presets for iPhone 8, iPhone X. Fixed incorrect grid scale for non-retina machines. Pasting pieces of pixel layers now pastes them in the right place. Fixed “rotation” brush dynamic. Dragging from Photos app can now create a new document. Fixed some studio glitches. Make the selection refinement preview more like the result of applying and hide the reference layers if the output is a new layer / new layer with mask. Fix selection refinement preview for when the reference image is an “Image Layer”. New layer output from refined transformed mask in a transformed group had wrong transform. The reference image for selection refinement of a mask is the parent node for an enclosure child mask and the previous siblings for a main child list mask. When refining a mask in a group with filter effects we don’t want to include the filter effects in the reference image. Refine Selection - undo doesn't work when used for a second time. Refine Selection - undo then brushing results in lag. Fixed some brush previews being invisible. Fixed some blurry text in the UI. Fixed issues where some images in a focus merge would be discarded. Resetting studio layout should reset the hide status as well. Support for properties in Affinity Photo from the stroke flyout. Fixed numerous Photos extension issues. Avoid some beach-balls when inpainting. Avoid spurious colours in the extracted selection when outputting to a new layer with mask. Fix selection refinement brushing offset bug. Improved reliability of applying object styles. The Develop histogram updates fast again. Fixed issues when loading old document snapshots. Fix for uncomitted nudge transforms getting reverted when the user hits Escape. Improved inpainting stability. Can now drop photos from the Photos app into the application. Numerous vector import / export improvements. Implement OpenType MarkToLigature rule. Font handling improvements. Localised macro and tone mapping presets. Retain EXIF information when creating an image stack. Fixed rotation / tilt input when using brushes. Added new GPUs to Metal compute acceleration (Iris Pro devices). More controls now automatically hide the tool when in use. “Find in Layers” will now automatically make the layers panel visible. Macro library now remembers expanded / collapsed state. CMYK improvements when using Metal compute acceleration. Fixed “Magic Mouse” issues. Don’t prompt to save unmodified documents on exit. Pressing tab will now show / hide the left / right studios correctly. Fixed numerous adjustment in LAB mode when using Metal compute. Circular maximum / minimum filters obey the channels tab properly. Fixed 32bit ICC profile serialisation. Fixed brush scatter not being random enough. Upgraded EXIF parser database. Pen Tool tweaked so that clicking on the start/end node forces it to become a cusp. Develop fixes for rotated photos. Fixed colour picket reticule lingering on the screen. Background grey preference now applies when there are no documents loaded. Fixed camera response function estimation. All spline editors (including Curves) can now be nudged using arrow keys. Improved handling of vertical panoramas. Don’t crash when loading corrupt JPEG files. Fixed crash when using a brush tool after frequency separation. Scrubby zoom shortcut now works in freehand selection tool. “Add” to selection can now move the selection in freehand selection tool. HDR merge improvements. Improved hint line for patch tool. Warn when leaving tone mapping without committing / cancelling. Attempting to refine an existing mask after a crop leads to brush offset issues. Default language should honour the currently set decimal separator. Don’t create Live Perspective filter layers with degenerate transforms. Ability to parse colour profile from EXIF InteroperabilityIndex. Fixed Multiply blend in 32bit RGB. Always use minimum fitting in the crop tool. Enable “Edit in” from Photos app in High Sierra. Updated LensFun correction database and engine. Fixed retouch tool issues in 32bit mode. Build with macOS High Sierra SDK, Xcode 9. Fixed panorama stitching when using Core Image RAW. Fixed problems with full colour brushes. PDF import improvements. Text Styles improvements. Documents which have no changes don’t require saving. Fixed floating windows in full screen mode. The visibility of the left / right studio is now saved per persona. Fixed some DNG loading regressions. Fixed drag behaviour in the Curves tool. Develop now has button to rotate the image. Fix issue where documents could get stuck when loading. Node tool now allows rotation of nodes. Fixed many localisation truncations. Fixed Shadows & Highlights filter artefacts. Live Halftone filter UI improvements. Selection brush was not remembering size between uses. HSL adjustment now contributes per-channel adjustments to exported LUT. Mitigated Live Perspective crashes. Liquify now behaves correctly on rotated images. Fixed occasional layer corruption under extreme load. Stopped Liquify slightly blurring images (with Metal Compute enabled). Numerous adjustment now do not pollute the K channel in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). Fixed halftone filter in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). New “Live Halftone” filter. Added noise reduction slider to “New HDR Merge” panel. Added menu to layers panel with an “Auto-scroll” item (to quickly enable / disable). Importing ASE files now supports spot colours. Increased performance of Metal compute mode. Increased the maximum size of the liquify brush tools. Fixed some grid drag / drop issues. Improved Metal compute acceleration of HDR merge. Small SVG import improvements. Further TIFF import improvements / fixes. Better quality equirectangular projection previews if Metal compute enabled. Fixed Diffuse Glow opacity slider. “Always show brush crosshair” is more completely obeyed. Fixed vignette artefacts. Colour correction fixes for Metal view on AMD cards. Fixed issues with the quick mask toolbar dropdown. Fixed crashing on export / save. Selection refinement performance improvements. Show progress when committing a refined selection. Handle layers with 0 width / height more correctly. Improved PDF / vector export. Remember Align To settings between sessions. Opening and saving document will now support macOS filesystem tags correctly. Export panel also support tags correctly. Improved RAW support - more cameras etc. Further efforts to reduce the size of the application binary. Improved TIFF loading correctness. Fixed some “Effects” brushes looking wrong on masks / adjustments. Prevent Tone Map being macro recorded (proper support for it will be reintroduced later). The “Undo” brush should do nothing on masks / adjustments. Fixed crash when loading a document with an OCIO space which is no longer available. Support malformed 8bit grayscale TIFFs (which were loading as sRGB). Fixed some flickering issues with sliders. Removed “Set as Default” for Pantone palettes. Improved drag & drop in the Library page. Metal compute acceleration. Metal display acceleration. Custom brush wet edges. Outlier stacking mode. Fixed Export LUT Red/Blue swapping bug. Fixed inability to hold shift and click in brush tools to create a straight line. Improved Photoshop Plugin support. Fixed bad / crashing macros cause by recording a 32bit preview mode change. Fixed B&C macro arguments issues. Fixed info panel samplers not being drawn. Fixed artefacts with Live Filters. Improved Live Filters performance Pasting pixel data should always past pixel-aligned. Fixed inability to load Procreate PSD files. First and foremost, the 1.6 version is mainly about: Light UI! (go to Preferences->User Interface) Improved view pan/zoom performance and new pixel-differencing pixel shader Improved performance with large documents New font chooser dropdown with recents, used fonts and favourites New Glyph browser Stroke stabiliser for all pencil and brush tools Align to key items (first/last selected) Text frame vertical alignment options Fit frame to text (double-click on bottom centre handle). Transform panel uses the rotation centre Scale/shear can now be performed about rotation centre Double-click now resets shape handles and rotate/shear handles Many PDF export improvements including vector export of multi-stop gradients Help improvements Localisation improvements.

Status: Beta Release Purpose: Fixes Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo Mac App Store: Not Submitted Download: Here This is the eighth beta of a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 version. To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it. Thanks, Affinity Photo Team Changes this release Fix for flicker in new OpenGL and Metal views when zooming with an active quick mask. PDF loading UI tweaks. Decimal separators are now taken from the OS locale - not the app locale. Fixed an issue which prevented some TIFF files from loading properly. Fixed arrow key issues in curves tool. Fixed perspective tool crash when applied to an empty layer. Small performance improvements. When soloing a mask (or any node with a built in mask), 32bit preview exposure and gamma are ignored. Added “Unlock All” and “Show All” to Layer menu. Fixed colour noise application in Edit -> Fill. Help improvements, Added presets for iPhone 8, iPhone X. Localisation improvements. Changes since last App Store release Fixed incorrect grid scale for non-retina machines. Pasting pieces of pixel layers now pastes them in the right place. Fixed “rotation” brush dynamic. Dragging from Photos app can now create a new document. Fixed some studio glitches. Make the selection refinement preview more like the result of applying and hide the reference layers if the output is a new layer / new layer with mask. Fix selection refinement preview for when the reference image is an “Image Layer”. New layer output from refined transformed mask in a transformed group had wrong transform. The reference image for selection refinement of a mask is the parent node for an enclosure child mask and the previous siblings for a main child list mask. When refining a mask in a group with filter effects we don’t want to include the filter effects in the reference image. Refine Selection - undo doesn't work when used for a second time. Refine Selection - undo then brushing results in lag. Fixed some brush previews being invisible. Fixed some blurry text in the UI. Fixed issues where some images in a focus merge would be discarded. Resetting studio layout should reset the hide status as well. Support for properties in Affinity Photo from the stroke flyout. Fixed numerous Photos extension issues. Avoid some beach-balls when inpainting. Avoid spurious colours in the extracted selection when outputting to a new layer with mask. Fix selection refinement brushing offset bug. Improved reliability of applying object styles. Numerous other small bug fixes. Help improvements, Localisation improvements. The Develop histogram updates fast again. Fixed issues when loading old document snapshots. Fix for uncomitted nudge transforms getting reverted when the user hits Escape. Improved inpainting stability. Can now drop photos from the Photos app into the application. Numerous vector import / export improvements. Implement OpenType MarkToLigature rule. Font handling improvements. Localised macro and tone mapping presets. Retain EXIF information when creating an image stack. Fixed rotation / tilt input when using brushes. Added new GPUs to Metal compute acceleration (Iris Pro devices). More controls now automatically hide the tool when in use. “Find in Layers” will now automatically make the layers panel visible. Macro library now remembers expanded / collapsed state. CMYK improvements when using Metal compute acceleration. Fixed “Magic Mouse” issues. Don’t prompt to save unmodified documents on exit. Pressing tab will now show / hide the left / right studios correctly. Fixed numerous adjustment in LAB mode when using Metal compute. Circular maximum / minimum filters obey the channels tab properly. Fixed 32bit ICC profile serialisation. Fixed brush scatter not being random enough. Upgraded EXIF parser database. Pen Tool tweaked so that clicking on the start/end node forces it to become a cusp. Develop fixes for rotated photos. Fixed colour picket reticule lingering on the screen. Background grey preference now applies when there are no documents loaded. Fixed camera response function estimation. All spline editors (including Curves) can now be nudged using arrow keys. Improved handling of vertical panoramas. Don’t crash when loading corrupt JPEG files. Fixed crash when using a brush tool after frequency separation. Scrubby zoom shortcut now works in freehand selection tool. “Add” to selection can now move the selection in freehand selection tool. HDR merge improvements. Improved hint line for patch tool. Warn when leaving tone mapping without committing / cancelling. Attempting to refine an existing mask after a crop leads to brush offset issues. Default language should honour the currently set decimal separator. Don’t create Live Perspective filter layers with degenerate transforms. Ability to parse colour profile from EXIF InteroperabilityIndex. Fixed Multiply blend in 32bit RGB. Always use minimum fitting in the crop tool. Enable “Edit in” from Photos app in High Sierra. Updated LensFun correction database and engine. Fixed retouch tool issues in 32bit mode. Localisation improvements. Help improvements. Many other small improvements. Build with macOS High Sierra SDK, Xcode 9. Fixed panorama stitching when using Core Image RAW. Fixed problems with full colour brushes. PDF import improvements. Text Styles improvements. Documents which have no changes don’t require saving. Fixed floating windows in full screen mode. The visibility of the left / right studio is now saved per persona. Fixed some DNG loading regressions. Fixed drag behaviour in the Curves tool. Develop now has button to rotate the image. Fix issue where documents could get stuck when loading. Node tool now allows rotation of nodes. Fixed many localisation truncations. Fixed Shadows & Highlights filter artefacts. Live Halftone filter UI improvements. Selection brush was not remembering size between uses. HSL adjustment now contributes per-channel adjustments to exported LUT. Mitigated Live Perspective crashes. Liquify now behaves correctly on rotated images. Fixed occasional layer corruption under extreme load. Stopped Liquify slightly blurring images (with Metal Compute enabled). Numerous adjustment now do not pollute the K channel in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). Fixed halftone filter in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). Localisation improvements. Numerous other small fixes and improvements. Help improvements. New “Live Halftone” filter. Added noise reduction slider to “New HDR Merge” panel. Added menu to layers panel with an “Auto-scroll” item (to quickly enable / disable). Importing ASE files now supports spot colours. Increased performance of Metal compute mode. Increased the maximum size of the liquify brush tools. Fixed some grid drag / drop issues. Improved Metal compute acceleration of HDR merge. Small SVG import improvements. Further TIFF import improvements / fixes. Better quality equirectangular projection previews if Metal compute enabled. Fixed Diffuse Glow opacity slider. “Always show brush crosshair” is more completely obeyed. Fixed vignette artefacts. Colour correction fixes for Metal view on AMD cards. Fixed issues with the quick mask toolbar dropdown. Fixed crashing on export / save. Numerous other small fixes. Improved localisation. Selection refinement performance improvements. Show progress when committing a refined selection. Handle layers with 0 width / height more correctly. Improved PDF / vector export. Remember Align To settings between sessions. Opening and saving document will now support macOS filesystem tags correctly. Export panel also support tags correctly. Improved RAW support - more cameras etc. Further efforts to reduce the size of the application binary. Improved TIFF loading correctness. Fixed some “Effects” brushes looking wrong on masks / adjustments. Prevent Tone Map being macro recorded (proper support for it will be reintroduced later). The “Undo” brush should do nothing on masks / adjustments. Fixed crash when loading a document with an OCIO space which is no longer available. Support malformed 8bit grayscale TIFFs (which were loading as sRGB). Fixed some flickering issues with sliders. Removed “Set as Default” for Pantone palettes. Improved drag & drop in the Library page. Numerous other small fixes. Localisation improvements (especially Russian). Metal compute acceleration. Metal display acceleration. Custom brush wet edges. Outlier stacking mode. Fixed Export LUT Red/Blue swapping bug. Fixed inability to hold shift and click in brush tools to create a straight line. Improved Photoshop Plugin support. Fixed bad / crashing macros cause by recording a 32bit preview mode change. Fixed B&C macro arguments issues. Fixed info panel samplers not being drawn. Fixed artefacts with Live Filters. Improved Live Filters performance Pasting pixel data should always past pixel-aligned. Fixed inability to load Procreate PSD files. Localisation improvements. Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements First and foremost, the 1.6 version is mainly about: Light UI! (go to Preferences->User Interface) Improved view pan/zoom performance and new pixel-differencing pixel shader Improved performance with large documents New font chooser dropdown with recents, used fonts and favourites New Glyph browser Stroke stabiliser for all pencil and brush tools Align to key items (first/last selected) Text frame vertical alignment options Fit frame to text (double-click on bottom centre handle). Transform panel uses the rotation centre Scale/shear can now be performed about rotation centre Double-click now resets shape handles and rotate/shear handles Many PDF export improvements including vector export of multi-stop gradients Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements

I strongly support the idea of a dedicated preflight check feature as I don't think everybody using Publisher can fall back to a version Acrobat Pro on his or her hard drive to do that job properly. In another discussion on the forum here I also expressed my urgent wish that there should be some panel like InDesign's "Separation Preview" and an customizeable ink coverage checker which will tell you visuallly where in your document objects may have more ink coverage than a certain value which you can set beforehand. (e.g. to spot critical objects when you work with a printer that demands ink coverage in a CMYK PDF shouldn't exceed 300%) Another thing important to me would be the option to change/convert any spot colours which have accidentally found their way into the document (e.g. with some logo placed there) to global CMYK colours from within the colour pallette so as to remove spot colours completely from the document and not just not "honouring" them in the export settings.

if you have affinity photo, you can preview individual separation in persona photo with the channel studio and try different profil, but you don't have ink coverage...

I don't have much to add, just that I also need colour separation. Currently I use indesign to visually check the separations AND to send the print job. I do not like at all the way acrobat pro handles sending the print job. It does not seem to properly remember settings and you have to be really careful every time. Indesign is great in that way. I place print ready pdfs in indesign and print from there, so far it is the best workflow for my need. Even scribus has some ability to preview separations and print them. Other than that I am very impressed with Affinity publisher.

Status: Beta Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo Mac App Store: Not submitted Download DMG: Download Auto-update: Available. Hello, We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the latest beta of Affinity Photo 1.7 for macOS. Photo 1.7 is a (very) significant change to the currently shipping 1.6 version, so, as ever, I would strongly urge users to avoid the 1.7 beta for critical work. This is especially true as this is only an early build of 1.7 - we will release many more builds before 1.7 ships. Things will be broken in this build - please use it to explore the new features and not for real work. If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry. It’s also worth noting that we aren’t done yet - we are still working through reported bugs from previous releases and hope to fix as many as possible before the final release of 1.7. With all that said, we hope that you will enjoy the new capabilities introduced in this release and we look forward to any and all feedback you give to us. Many thanks (as always), Affinity Photo Team  Changes This Build - Fixed some mask rendering issues. - Fixed 32bit vibrance / saturation issues. - Added a “Reveal Canvas” checkbox to the crop tool - defaults to off. - Shorted the length of some crop tool context bar items. - Crop tool remembers settings for darken, reveal, overlay. More to follow. - Develop tool remembers the state of clipped shadows / highlights / tones. - Metal stability fixes when under extreme memory pressure. - Support for drag dropping .afstyles into Photo. - Support for drag dropping .afpalette into Photo. - Added new “Transform object separately” mode into Move tool. - Sub-brushes can now added by dragging from the main Brush panel. - Sub-brushes can now be drag-reordered. - Fixed some dark mode UI issues. - Potentially fixed some colour rendering issues (reported by ronnyb). - Live field blur control handle fixes. - Voronoi filter Metal implementation optimised - hopefully fixes issue where only part of it would apply on some GPUs. - Tool cycling will now start with the last remembered tool in the group. - Fixed Linear Burn blend mode issues. - Improved speed of painting with Wet Edges in 16bit mode with Metal enabled. - Removed extraneous “Filter” from live filters menu, added ellipsis. - Implemented subtract blend mode for LAB. - Fixed issue whereby setting clone brush to “Current Layer & Below” would produce hard edges. - Clone brush origin now follows cursor properly when using Aligned mode. - Fixed various issues with resizing documents - mainly to do with masks or filter effects. - Fixed copying areas on rotated documents not copying the correct area. - Frequency separation can no longer be “faded”. - Numerous other small fixes. - Help improvements. Changes In Previous 1.7 Beta Builds - Fixed occasional temporary corruption when using brush tools. - Fixed crashes with Apple Photos extensions. - Added round dot type to the halftone filter. - Grouped tool shortcuts now default to needing the shift key held to cycle (option in preferences). - Fixed orientation issues with tone mapping preset thumbnails. - Improved inpainting stability. - Add “Fill with Primary / Secondary” to the Edit menu for fast access. - Allow adding an empty group from the Layer menu. - Made more commands show a meaningful progress bar. - Fixed erratic behaviour when continuing to drag after shift-clicking for a straight line in brush tools. - Fixed failure to apply blend mode to Levels adjustment if Metal compute is enabled. - Improved UI colour controls when working in RGB/32. - Levels histogram how shows more visible black / white lines in light UI mode. - Blend mode flyouts are now ordered and grouped. - Fixed brushes with a “Final” texture looking different when used inside a pixel selection. - Switch to next view now works in separated mode. - Switch to previous view can now be assigned a shortcut. - Fixed issue with White Balance rectangle becoming detached from mouse position in Develop. - Fixed “New Stack” creating a blank document when “Align Images” is not checked. - Fixed issue whereby freehand selection tool can get stuck when using polygonal mode. - Fixed issue where rotating RAW can result in it getting clipped after developing. - Fixed issue where the move tool can report incorrect boxes for pixel selections. - The crop tool now obeys the global snapping enable state. - New “Duplicate Selection” item in Layer menu (old behaviour). Duplicate now duplicate the whole layer ignoring pixel selection. - Straightening in the Develop Persona now creates an undo entry. - Spacebar-pan now works properly in Develop Persona. - Numerous other small fixes. - Fixed gamut clipping issues in develop. - Develop now respects the output profile when previewing. - Fixed CMYK render issues when using Metal. - Fixed PSD import / export of 32bit masks. - Fixed some PSD path import issues. - Further Soft Light blend mode fixes. - Fixed Diffuse Glow when Metal is enabled. - Fixed blur issues with Mesh Warp. - Histogram accuracy improvements. - Made auto-rasterisation more consistent across tools / filters. - Fixed HSL adjustment failing to clamp saturation and lightness properly. - Adding a Live Denoise layer from the layers panel now uses the improved new algorithm. - Added support for CR3 RAW when using the Core Image engine. - All brush tools can now be axis constrained once brush has started - not just the pixel tool. - The flood select tool now has a refine button. - The symmetry lines number is now more correct / meaningful. - Attempted to fix crashes with mixer brush etc. - Small Touch Bar improvements. - Fixed macro recording of brush commands (again). - Fixed issue which occasionally produced blank panoramas. - Improved selection refinement in 32bit RGB. - Improve healing brush performance. - New cube setup mode for grids. - Focus merge now correctly respects ICC profiles. - Fixed potential infinite loop in inpainting. - Better inpainting of transparent parts of a rotated image. - Fixed artefacts in the Patch tool. - Alt / Option is now used to make a pixel selection from layer luminance. You can now also hold shift to add the result to the current selection. - Fixed 16bit luminosity blend mode. - Liquify now updates the UI properly and remembers settings on a per document basis. - Inpainting now remembers the source mode properly. - Fixed issues with the default “G” shortcut (gradient, fill). - All brush tools now offer primary / secondary colours in the colour page. - Fixed issues with some Fuji RAW files showing at the wrong size. - Fixed colour picking issues in Edit -> Fill (mainly with CMYK). - Attempted to fix some Core Image RAW loading issues. - Attempted to fix slowness issues when doing a lot of painting. - Try to fall back more gracefully if Metal fails for a particular operation. - Numerous other small fixes. - Help improvements and search fixes. - Significant improvements to selection refinement. - More tools will now rasterise non-pixel layers on use. - Fixed histogram statistics (was including alpha channel in calculations incorrectly). - Improved TIFF import support. - Fixed some localisation issues on the Glyph Browser panel. - Small UI alignment tweaks. - Fallback to 96dpi for imported JPEG, PNG - not 72. - Fixed mesh warp blurry issues when Metal disabled. - Fixed Metal implementation of Diffuse Glow. - Fixed some PSDs which would not import due to path issues. - Fixed CMYK rendering (again) when Metal is enabled (blacks would go weird). - Attempt to fix the odd black square appearing in the view. - Further improved Scale / Rotate stacking alignment. - Fixed orientation issues with some panoramas (upside down). - Reduce file sizes by discarding old snapshots properly. - Fixed recording of resize document sampler method in macros. - Fixed recording of paint mixer brush in macros. - We now use Ctrl+number to change flow in the brush tools - not Cmd. This fixes Cmd-0 zoom etc. - Fixed resize document issues with layer effect scales. - Fixed liquify tool auto-commit issue when switching persona. - Crop tool Touch Bar fixes. - Assorted small fixes. - Help improvements. - Hide / Show / Show All Layers options in layers menu. - Remove new destructive modes from crop tool (for now - will revisit). - Fixed crash when RAW contains malformed GPS data. - Fixed levels adjustment alerts. - Fixed 32bit issues with Soft Light blend mode. - Fixed flood fill bugs when colour is not opaque. - Fixed various TIFF files which tried to load into develop persona. - Fixed Voronoi bug if image has alpha channel. - Allow Cmd key to be held when typing numbers in a brush tool (will change flow instead of opacity). - Fixed remaining LUT export bugs. - Small memory management improvements. - Fixed red-eye correction in develop. - Develop noise reduction performance improvements. - Improved visibility of selected hue range in HSL UI in light mode. - Fixed issues where sub-brushes could get reset. - Sub-brush spacing / size sync buttons work properly. - Dark / light UI improvements in brush editor panel. - Fixed more Radeon R9 issues. - Fixed more CMYK issues. - Fixed some PDF import bugs. - Numerous other small fixes. - Help improvements. - The crop tool now defaults to the old behaviour (destructive). - Added lens correction data for more cameras. - More double click support for resetting adjustment sliders. - Further HSL improvements in 32bit mode. - Fixed issues when using Edit -> Fill with a transparent colour. - Fixed issues exporting HDR files when some pixels have negative values. - Fixed TIFF ZIP compression issues. - Fixed a sporadic crash when exporting PSD. - Fixed lens correction for Panasonic DMC-TZ60. - Fixed orientation of RAW images during HDR merge. - Fixed noise reduction in non-RGB documents. - Fixed scale + rotate alignment mode in stacking. - Reduce develop memory usage and further improve loading speed. - Fixed recolour adjustment slider colour issue. - Fixed displacement map “load from beneath” sometimes including the current layer. - Fixed CMYK rendering on Radeon R9 GPUs. - Fixed motion blur etc. disappearing in 16bit documents with Metal enabled. - Fixed equation transforms not working in macros. - Fixed incorrect RGB / BGR / Red-major-order export of LUTS. - Ability to either rasterise or rasterise and trim a layer. Previously recorded macros will trim. - Fixed issues when parsing autofocus rectangles in RAW develop. - Show which autofocus rectangles were in focus and which were selected by the camera (yellow, green respectively). - Fixed inability to open photos from Apple Photos from file -> open. Now correctly asks for permission. - Threshold adjustment will always present an intensity histogram. - Improved histograms on curves and levels adjustments. - Fixed LAB issues with edge detection filters. - Switching between adjustments and filters will close any existing panels accordingly. - Fixed incorrect ability to drag a locked layer when there is no layer selection. - Fixed loading of 8/16bit images with linear RGB profiles. - Can now double-click most sliders in adjustments UI to reset the individual parameter. - Make it obvious which nozzle is selected in the brush editor UI. - Other small fixes. - Improved Metal stability / performance with large documents. - Fixed a number of dark mode issues. - Fixed preview glitches in split preview mode for filters / develop. - Fixed batch processor not obeying dimensions correctly. - Improved Procedural Texture UI in light mode. - Allow brush rotate / size key changes while dragging. - Numerous text engine improvements. - Fixed cursor issues with HSL and other adjustments. - Fixed issues with some menu shortcut keys. - Improved PDF export. - Improved localisations. - Numerous other small fixes. - Fixed CMYK rendering when using Metal. - Fixed loading of huge JPEG files. - Added “Alpha Similarity” to Select Sampled Colour tool. - Fixed a number of crash bugs in the adjustment panel. - Fixed issues with some existing user documents crashing in 1.7. - Assorted other fixes. - Show the Curves / Levels histogram in the correct colour space. - Fixed some GPU memory management issues. - A further attempt to fix the HSL UI crash. - Improve performance on Intel Iris Pro GPUs. - Improved help.
 - Numerous other small fixes. - Fixed hardware acceleration issues on certain iMac devices. - Fixed a number of brush bugs. - Fixed hang in HDR merge with GPU enabled. - Fixed HSL adjustment UI crash, - Fixed Procedural Texture UI issues when switching from dark to light UI. - Fixed Curves adjustment clamping issue when GPU is enabled. - Fixed 3DLUT adjustments when GPU is enabled. - Fixed issues with sub-brush UI. - Numerous other small fixes. - Added pixabay.com to Stock panel. - New welcome screen graphics. - New persona icon graphics. - New splash screen. Changes Since 1.6 Release Performance - The core processing engine in Affinity Photo has been rewritten to take advantage of the powerful discrete AMD GPUs in modern Mac hardware. It will now automatically use any compatible discrete GPU, alongside the Intel GPU support present in 1.6. Typically this improves compositing / editing performance by at least 1000%. Performance when using integrated Intel GPUs has also been massively improved. - External GPUs (eGPU) are also supported - including hot-plug-and-unplug support. - Multiple GPUs are supported - if you have more than 1 GPU (ie. Intel + AMD in MacBook Pro, or Intel + eGPU in other Macs) Photo will use them all, at the same time, to improve performance. There is no limit to the number of GPUs which can be used. Brushes - Photo 1.7 introduces a new “sub-brush” mechanism, developed in conjunction with Paolo Limoncelli (DAUB® Brushes). This exciting feature allows any brush to have a list of other brushes attached which will draw at the same time. Each sub-brush has a fully separate and customisable set of dynamics. You can control when the sub-brushes are drawn and how they blend with the main brush. - The brush engine in Photo has been rewritten to use the new GPU architecture described above. With GPU support, even huge brushes with 1% spacing will perform well. All brushes / brush tools are accelerated. - Symmetry (up to 32-way) is now supported - including on-canvas controls and optional mirroring. We have more symmetry features on the way - so stay tuned during the beta process. - Wet edges and accumulation are now available on colour brushes and brushes with HSL variance. - Brushes with multiple nozzle textures have always chosen the nozzle at random. In 1.7, the nozzle choice has a dynamic controller and ramp for greater control. - All brush tools now support left and right arrow keys for rotation - a common feature request RAW - The RAW processing engine in Photo has been rewritten - producing better results and improved performance. It also takes advantage of the GPU architecture changes described above. - RAW files now load much more quickly - especially if you have a compatible GPU. - Reimplemented support for XTrans sensors. - The denoise algorithm has been rewritten. It produces better results and takes advantage of the new GPU architecture. - Hot pixel removal is now automatically performed by the Serif Labs engine. - Profiled lens correction are more stable, apply more quickly, and can be toggled in the Develop UI. - The histogram in the Develop persona is now presented in the output colour space - as opposed to always being linear. Filters - New “Procedural Texture” filter with advanced presets support. - New “Voronoi” filter. - Denoise, Clarity and Shadows / Highlights filters have been rewritten (using technology from the Develop Persona). - More filters are now available as Live Filters - including the new Procedural Texture filter. - Live filters have been rewritten to improve performance - especially when multiple filters are used in a document. - Improved Polar to Rectangular and Rectangular to Polar filters. Adjustments - The HSL adjustment layer has been rewritten. It now supports custom hue ranges, a new algorithm, new UI and picker controls. - The Levels adjustment layer now supports output levels - a common feature request. - The White Balance adjustment layer has been rewritten. - The Selective Colour adjustment layer has been rewritten. - PSD import / export of adjustments has been improved. - The Vibrance adjustment layer has been rewritten. - The Recolour adjustment layer has gained a lightness slider. Tools - The Crop tool has been rewritten - it now supports resolution changes, absolute pixel size and has a much improved preset mechanism. - The Sponge Brush tool now gives more correct / pleasant results. - A general tools overhaul has been performed - providing editing of grids, guides, page origin, across multiple tools (not just in the Move tool) General - “Alternate futures” for document history have been added. Traditionally, if you roll back the undo history then do something else all your changes after that point are lost. Photo will now display a small branch icon in the history tab when you do this. Pressing that button will cycle between all the different “futures” after that history entry - meaning you will never lose work you have done. - HEIF images can now be loaded directly into Photo. If they contain a depth map, this will also be loaded as a second layer. Because depth maps are typically lower resolution than the main image, optional “smart” upsampling will be performed. - A large number of new cameras are supported for RAW development (we will provide a list of the new supported cameras as soon as possible!). - The batch process dialog now fully supports expressions for height and width - available constants are “w”, “h” and “dpi”. - Photo now supports custom document presets - a popular feature request. - A new blend mode - Linear Burn - has been added. - New “Move inside / outside” commands have been added - useful for quick operations on clipping masks etc. - The Hard Mix blend mode has been improved. - New provider options have been added to the stock panel - support for Unsplash and Pexels. Both of these providers offer full-resolution stock imagery which is free to use. - Metadata is now dynamically synchronised with your document - so if you resize then export, the values will be correct. - Numerous text improvements have been made - including new features. - Significant PDF import / export improvements and fixes.  - Numerous other bug fixes - too many to list!

It is not a matterof fairness. I was not searching for issues, I just wanted to correct the mask after refining and stumbled across this. If anything, the software is not acting in a fair manner, because of a completely counterintuitive behaviour... Besides I cannot see the point in having pixel layer and mask separated when both only work together... If the mask only works with this exact pixellayer changes, it is just useless to have the separation. Well, then why isn't colour decontamination an option in the refine dialogue? And why isn't it mentioned anywhere? Indeed, I tried to improve the mask after refining.. Well, using output to mask doesn't give you the exact same result as previewed in the refine dialogue as I already pointed out about two years ago: [AP] Refine selection preview issue

+1 for color separation preview... My goal is to eliminate any Adoabe product from my computer. The last one I still need today is Acrobat Pro to check PDF before sending them to my printer.

Hi there, I completely agree with what Fixx said. To me preparing my work ready to print is vital for 2 specific main reasons (there are others too but they are mainly related to my workflow). 1. I want my artwork to be print-ready so that i have control or let's say legal certainty and using a bitmap to tone an image with Spotcolors is the usual way how prepress will handle it. I do comic art and the reasons why this is important here has already been sufficiently explained earlier. 2. I have been working in a prepress department for quite a while and I do want them to have exactly what they want if need be and have them not necessarily do it themselves because the very least it will cause is a delay which of course might provoke other problems. So yes, bitmap is absolutely necessary and other prepress related features such as a preview of color-separation and overprinting.

hello jim, thank you for your reply. you are right, and my scanner does have a descreening feature. however, you may happen to work with images that were scanned by others, who didn't know about that feature, or didn't care to activate it, or whatever. i experimented a bit with the tools that AP already offers, and achieved quite satisfactory results applying the following filters: 1) fft filter to the original image 2) frequency separation filter to the fft-filtered image 3) gaussian blur to the high frequency resulting layer 4) unsharp mask to the low frequency resulting layer i'm no expert in this field, so there may probably be a better approach, and maybe more than one. in addition, all of the above steps require some experimenting to find the parameters that best configure the filters. for example, i found that the optimal configuration of the separation filter causes all (or at least most) of the noise that the fft filter could not remove to go to the high frequency layer. this is also the maximum detail desired on it, so you can start with a 0 radius and look at the preview to find the value where the noise stops to become more and more visible and stays constant. usually the optimal radius value appears to be between 0.8 and 1.5. i guess that a new descreening filter could be implemented as a sequence of filters, with 4 controls: - precision of the fft filter - radius of the frequency separation - radius of the gaussian blur - radius of the unsharp mask i feel (but i could be wrong) that there may be some correlation among the parameter values, especially among the three radius values: this could simplify the user interface of the filter, or at least allow to set some meaningful default values. optionally, the filter could offer to display the fft window and manually paint over the frequency nodes. i know that this is far more simple to put in words than into lines of code... but i'd really be happy to see something like this in one of the next releases.

Great program... will it have "Separations preview" to see the colour separation, good when we do films for printing

Status: Beta Release Purpose: New features, fixes Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo Mac App Store: Not Submitted Download: Here This is the seventh beta of a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 version. To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it. Thanks, Affinity Photo Team Changes this release Fixed incorrect grid scale for non-retina machines. Pasting pieces of pixel layers now pastes them in the right place. Fixed “rotation” brush dynamic. Dragging from Photos app can now create a new document. Fixed some studio glitches. Make the selection refinement preview more like the result of applying and hide the reference layers if the output is a new layer / new layer with mask. Fix selection refinement preview for when the reference image is an “Image Layer”. New layer output from refined transformed mask in a transformed group had wrong transform. The reference image for selection refinement of a mask is the parent node for an enclosure child mask and the previous siblings for a main child list mask. When refining a mask in a group with filter effects we don’t want to include the filter effects in the reference image. Refine Selection - undo doesn't work when used for a second time. Refine Selection - undo then brushing results in lag. Fixed some brush previews being invisible. Tweaked some inactive colours in light UI mode. Fixed some blurry text in the UI. Fixed font issues when switching between light / dark UI. Fixed issues where some images in a focus merge would be discarded. Resetting studio layout should reset the hide status as well. Support for properties in Affinity Photo from the stroke flyout. Fixed numerous Photos extension issues. Avoid some beach-balls when inpainting. Avoid spurious colours in the extracted selection when outputting to a new layer with mask. Fix selection refinement brushing offset bug. Improved reliability of applying object styles. Numerous other small bug fixes. Help improvements, Localisation improvements. Changes since last App Store release The Develop histogram updates fast again. Fixed issues when loading old document snapshots. Fix for uncomitted nudge transforms getting reverted when the user hits Escape. Improved inpainting stability. Can now drop photos from the Photos app into the application. Numerous vector import / export improvements. Implement OpenType MarkToLigature rule. Font handling improvements. Localised macro and tone mapping presets. Retain EXIF information when creating an image stack. Fixed rotation / tilt input when using brushes. Added new GPUs to Metal compute acceleration (Iris Pro devices). More controls now automatically hide the tool when in use. “Find in Layers” will now automatically make the layers panel visible. Macro library now remembers expanded / collapsed state. CMYK improvements when using Metal compute acceleration. Fixed “Magic Mouse” issues. Don’t prompt to save unmodified documents on exit. Pressing tab will now show / hide the left / right studios correctly. Fixed numerous adjustment in LAB mode when using Metal compute. Circular maximum / minimum filters obey the channels tab properly. Fixed 32bit ICC profile serialisation. Fixed brush scatter not being random enough. Upgraded EXIF parser database. Pen Tool tweaked so that clicking on the start/end node forces it to become a cusp. Develop fixes for rotated photos. Fixed colour picket reticule lingering on the screen. Background grey preference now applies when there are no documents loaded. Fixed camera response function estimation. All spline editors (including Curves) can now be nudged using arrow keys. Improved handling of vertical panoramas. Don’t crash when loading corrupt JPEG files. Fixed crash when using a brush tool after frequency separation. Scrubby zoom shortcut now works in freehand selection tool. “Add” to selection can now move the selection in freehand selection tool. HDR merge improvements. Improved hint line for patch tool. Warn when leaving tone mapping without committing / cancelling. Attempting to refine an existing mask after a crop leads to brush offset issues. Default language should honour the currently set decimal separator. Don’t create Live Perspective filter layers with degenerate transforms. Ability to parse colour profile from EXIF InteroperabilityIndex. Fixed Multiply blend in 32bit RGB. Always use minimum fitting in the crop tool. Enable “Edit in” from Photos app in High Sierra. Updated LensFun correction database and engine. Fixed retouch tool issues in 32bit mode. Localisation improvements. Help improvements. Many other small improvements. Build with macOS High Sierra SDK, Xcode 9. Fixed panorama stitching when using Core Image RAW. Fixed problems with full colour brushes. PDF import improvements. Text Styles improvements. Documents which have no changes don’t require saving. Fixed floating windows in full screen mode. The visibility of the left / right studio is now saved per persona. Fixed some DNG loading regressions. Fixed drag behaviour in the Curves tool. Develop now has button to rotate the image. Fix issue where documents could get stuck when loading. Node tool now allows rotation of nodes. Fixed many localisation truncations. Fixed Shadows & Highlights filter artefacts. Live Halftone filter UI improvements. Selection brush was not remembering size between uses. HSL adjustment now contributes per-channel adjustments to exported LUT. Mitigated Live Perspective crashes. Liquify now behaves correctly on rotated images. Fixed occasional layer corruption under extreme load. Stopped Liquify slightly blurring images (with Metal Compute enabled). Numerous adjustment now do not pollute the K channel in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). Fixed halftone filter in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). Localisation improvements. Numerous other small fixes and improvements. Help improvements. New “Live Halftone” filter. Added noise reduction slider to “New HDR Merge” panel. Added menu to layers panel with an “Auto-scroll” item (to quickly enable / disable). Importing ASE files now supports spot colours. Increased performance of Metal compute mode. Increased the maximum size of the liquify brush tools. Fixed some grid drag / drop issues. Improved Metal compute acceleration of HDR merge. Small SVG import improvements. Further TIFF import improvements / fixes. Better quality equirectangular projection previews if Metal compute enabled. Fixed Diffuse Glow opacity slider. “Always show brush crosshair” is more completely obeyed. Fixed vignette artefacts. Colour correction fixes for Metal view on AMD cards. Fixed issues with the quick mask toolbar dropdown. Fixed crashing on export / save. Numerous other small fixes. Improved localisation. Selection refinement performance improvements. Show progress when committing a refined selection. Handle layers with 0 width / height more correctly. Improved PDF / vector export. Remember Align To settings between sessions. Opening and saving document will now support macOS filesystem tags correctly. Export panel also support tags correctly. Improved RAW support - more cameras etc. Further efforts to reduce the size of the application binary. Improved TIFF loading correctness. Fixed some “Effects” brushes looking wrong on masks / adjustments. Prevent Tone Map being macro recorded (proper support for it will be reintroduced later). The “Undo” brush should do nothing on masks / adjustments. Fixed crash when using File -> New Batch Job in light UI mode. Fixed crash when loading a document with an OCIO space which is no longer available. Support malformed 8bit grayscale TIFFs (which were loading as sRGB). Fixed some flickering issues with sliders. Removed “Set as Default” for Pantone palettes. Improved drag & drop in the Library page. Numerous other small fixes. Localisation improvements (especially Russian). Metal compute acceleration. Metal display acceleration. Custom brush wet edges. Outlier stacking mode. Fixed Export LUT Red/Blue swapping bug. Fixed inability to hold shift and click in brush tools to create a straight line. Improved Photoshop Plugin support. Fixed bad / crashing macros cause by recording a 32bit preview mode change. Fixed B&C macro arguments issues. Fixed info panel samplers not being drawn. Fixed artefacts with Live Filters. Improved Live Filters performance Pasting pixel data should always past pixel-aligned. Fixed inability to load Procreate PSD files. Localisation improvements. Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements First and foremost, the 1.6 version is mainly about: Light UI! (go to Preferences->User Interface) Improved view pan/zoom performance and new pixel-differencing pixel shader Improved performance with large documents New font chooser dropdown with recents, used fonts and favourites New Glyph browser Stroke stabiliser for all pencil and brush tools Align to key items (first/last selected) Text frame vertical alignment options Fit frame to text (double-click on bottom centre handle). Transform panel uses the rotation centre Scale/shear can now be performed about rotation centre Double-click now resets shape handles and rotate/shear handles Many PDF export improvements including vector export of multi-stop gradients Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements

Hey, Ashf, I have Foxit here but I dont see that tools for pro printing, or what is it precisely? What I need is a color separation preview, where I can toggle individual color channels (CMYK / Pantone) for checking if things are right. Affinity Team: This is the one puzzle I am still missing in your suite. I still need Adobe Acrobat Pro only for exactly this.

Thanks guys, just found the search field in list view. Coming from Indesign this is not very intuitive. But yes, it kind of works. I'd love to see a preview for overprinting/separation to work safely with spot colors. Hope this will come soon.

I'm stuck with Acrobat pro 9 that came with cs5 - would love to go with PDF Toolbox but way too expensive for me MikeW - sounds like the guy who knows his onions with toolbox and say's "callas pdfToolbox is the only other pdf application that can do separation preview and is color managed. callas is who licenses to Adobe much of what Acrobat does. The one thing it doesn't do is edit text in a pdf". So looks like I'm stuck with Acrobat 9 and El Capitan if I want to check PDF/x compliance and seps and spots and all that, just for piece of mind before sending off to the printers, that is unless..... Serif can come to the rescue as they did with Designer, Photo and Publisher???

In addition to the current sampling settings in the Healing Brush etc., a "Current Layer and Below in Group" option would be very useful. One frequent use case would be frequency separation. I like to use two groups, one for the low frequency and one for the high pass image. I can then create additional layers in each one. For the low pass group, that's pretty simple since "Current Layer & Below" will work fine. To work with layers inside the high frequency group, however, I need to manually hide all layers below until I can clone/heal from the high frequency image only onto a new layer. That means I currently get no live preview of my results, and checking what I am doing involves manually selecting and toggling all layers below all the time. Being able to restrict sampling to the current group would solve these issues. Also, a checkbox inside the Frequency Separation command to create groups with layers in them instead of single layers would save the trouble of creating the groups, setting the high frequency layer's blend mode to normal and setting the high frequency group's blend mode to Linear Light every time, and it could even create empty layers above each base layer as well. While I am at it, it would be very nice if the Blemish Removal Tool could also get sampling options since that is really the only way one could work non-destructively with that particular tool.

1. Create a layer 2. Try running Frequency Separation 3. Notice you need to change some settings to see a preview of high/low freq. It's not showing up by default.

Update: Global/Across Document Layers Separation Preview Overlapping pages on spreads

I wanted to experiment and test something. I did a Photoshop color separation then I opened the Photoshop file with Affinity Photo Desktop version. It successfully opened and all channels show up. So it is possible in Affinity Photo to create custom spot colors. The only problem now is how do I preview my channels? How do I turn them on so I can see it on screen how it will print? See attachment.

When you create a Macro for Frequency separation, the preview for the radius doesn't work. Regardless of whatever value is selected, there's no way to see the effect. Also, it looks like the range differs from using FS manually. When I manually use it, setting the radius to 3px is adequate in some cases. When I use the same setting in the macro, it barely affects the Low Freq layer.

callas pdfToolbox is the only other pdf application that can do separation preview and is color managed. callas is who licenses to Adobe much of what Acrobat does. The one thing it doesn't do is edit text in a pdf.

I haven't tested this, but, if one applies a Pantone color to one of the stops in the Gradient Map adjustment layer applied to a greyscale image, does the art get separated out onto a single Pantone color plate, or does Publisher separate the image onto the four process color plates? EDIT: I just tried to use the Gradient Map adjustment layer to recolor a Greyscale image in Publisher. Uncovered a number of issues: Pantone spot colors do not display accurately in a CMYK Publisher document. Appearance seems to be fine in either CIE Lab space or in RGB spaces. Working with the Swatches Panel is a very tedious and fiddly experience. The number of clicks required to add a spot color to one's document palette should be reduced. Although I applied Pantone 173 to my Greyscale image, Pantone 021 got added to my document palette. Spot colors added to the document palette are identified generically as "Global Colour x" rather than by their proper name. When one highlights the generically named spot color in the swatches palette and then selects the Pantone swatch book from which the color came, the color chip is not highlighted or identified in any way among the thousands of other Pantone color chips. The only indication of the spot colors actual name comes if/when one switches to the Colour Panel. There doesn't appear to be a Channels Panel or a Separation Preview Panel that would enable one to check color separations prior to exporting to a press-ready PDF. And FINALLY, I exported my test document (wherein I applied a spot color to a Gradient Map to recolor a greyscale image) as a press-ready PDF, opened the PDF in Adobe Acrobat, used Acrobat's tools to inspect the color separations and found that an empty frame filled with Pantone 021 separated onto a spot color plate for Pantone 021, but the spot color applied to the greyscale image using the Gradient Map adjustment got separated into the four process color plates, CMYK. These issues needs immediate attention. I think I'll repost this as a separate discussion thread item. Spot Seperations.mov

I am a former graphics designer and worked 15 years ago in PrePress. Nowerdays I still use Macromedia Freehand on Windows for occasional design work and recently purchased Affinity Photo and Designer. I was looking at the options related to spot colors and noticed that once I created a random color, I can't change this color to be a spot color. In order to create a custom spot color, I have to mark the "spot" box in the color creation tab the moment I create the color. This makes it tedious if the decision to use spot colors is made later on in the design process. Another issue is how to check or preview correct color separation in respect to spot colors? The reason I chose Affinity as my main tools is because I want to avoid the use of Adobe applications at all cost. Freehand can print separations, which can be saved as PDF and previewed without any third party software. What do you recommend as a workflow for Affinity Designer user in order to check separations of spot colors, but without the need to use costly third party software? Ralf Maeder.

Here's what that PDF is as displayed in Acrobat's Separation Preview: It is a CMYK build. It just has the appearance of gray. This is the sort of thing, using ID, that it should be: The above is only using the black plate. Mike