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100% Black is converted to CMYK


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I browsed all the topics but I did not find a solution.
When I open a new document in Publisher, color CMYK/8, ISO Coated v2 (ECI), place a PDF which I got from a client and export that as a PDF,
the result is not as it should be. All 100% Black is converted to CMYK

Because the delivered PDF has text which is 100% Black/overprinting 
When I do the same in InDesign, the result is like it should be.

I did nothing but open a new file in each programm placed the (same) PDF and exported a PDF for professional printing

The pictures show what I mean. 212 (the first) is from Publisher, 211 is from InDesign

Comments from the Serif-Team are very much appreciated.

 

Cheers
Thomas

screenshot_212.jpg

screenshot_211.jpg

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I opened the PDF with Publisher and changed all Black. But, the thing is it is not the only Ad I got. I'm doing a magazine (this is the client) and
when after opening and changing something in the ad has moved or being deleted, what maybe happens, I'll get no money for my work.
And the client has much more problems, because he's loosing money as well and in bad case his client.

So this is not an acceptable solution to say: "so you need to check..." or "… you need to reapply them."
It works with InDesign from all the way back to the beginning.
I wanted to switch, but so far you can use Publisher for Brochures and things you don't get any Ads or other things from other designers in different formats.
This is 50 to 80% of my business, so I got to stick to inDesign as long as this Black to CMYK-problem is not solved.

I bought the whole Affinity suite, but I'll leave it in the Programms-Folder and wait. It's great, but it does not work for me.
When you do all by yourself - it works perfect. If not - not. Sorry

Thomas

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To bad! I desperately waited for the publisher because I don't want the Adobe subscription model and I'm always interested in new things. And Affinity was a light on the horizon. So I always have to keep a MacBook Pro with OS 10.14.6 running. Or at least an external SSD-Drive. My purchased Adobe suite still works fine.

 

Thomas

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17 hours ago, HerrSchulz said:

new document in Publisher, color CMYK/8, ISO Coated v2 (ECI), place a PDF which I got from a client and export that as a PDF,
the result is not as it should be. All 100% Black is converted to CMYK

Since a few AfPub versions I don't have anymore that issue with 100 K. See attached sample PDFs: there 100 K remains 100 K in a placed PDF, regardless whether the placed was exported as 1.7 (print preset) or X-4. 

  test CMYK doc & 100k & pdfs 1.7 & spot.pdf 
  test CMYK doc & 100k & pdfs X4 & spot.pdf 


Occasionally I experience with placed or opened PDFs a manipulation of their profile – unexpected & unwanted done by AfPub – which, if set back correctly, exports as expected.

So there might be a workaround for your document:
1. In your document double-click the placed client's PDF.
2. Switch to its new document window (or tab) to check in "Document Setup..." > "Color Space" its profile.
3. What profile does it tell for this placed PDF?

– If the placed PDF's profile is different to your main document's profile select the according/same profile for the placed PDF - e.g. ISO Coated v2 (ECI) - and close its document window. Then export again.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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@thomaso

All what you say might be correct. But. The thing is, that I get PDFs from different advertising agencies, and each of them has another workaround.
There is a very sporty timing, so I have no time to check which settings or other tricks I have to make. 
When I use InDesign I place no matter what PDF or company logo with overprint settings or not. It works right away. No probs.

Don't misunderstand me. I really like to work with the Publisher, but as long as I face those problems I will not.
It's all about effectiveness. Theres no time to play or do development an research. even if I like this.... :10_wink:

But I have to run a business in between ....

 

Cheers Thomas

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@Lagarto

Quote

Another problem with placing a ready-made pdf (e.g., an ad or a company logo) is that you need to be careful for substistuted fonts (as embedded fonts are not supported), and features like overprinting. At this stage, I'd think twice before using Affinity Publisher for jobs that require these kinds of features.

That's it. 

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@Lagarto

Quote

I am not sure if the conversion was made in this case when the document was placed or when it was exported. I guess that as Publisher opens rather than embeds a placed PDF, all the color values of the imported graphics are basically similarly treated as colors of the native objects (as that's what they are, more or less), so I'd imagine the other K100 text parts would have been rich blacks, as well.

On the other hand, if the placed PDF does have an embedded color profile, and it deviates from the document profile of the Publisher document, the CMYK colors will be converted, K100 becomes rich black (see if you can reproduce this with the attached pdf which has Coated Forgra 39 embedded in an Affinity Publisher document that uses ISO Coated v2 (ECI). This file was produced from InDesign.

When you place the PDF it is just embedded. I think this because when you open the PDF in Publisher, you can click any part. You can change the Black to 100%. But this can not be the solution. To dangerous.

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@Lagarto

a) I assume, that more than 80% of the users are kind of designers or people who come from typesetting like me. Most of them have no clue about colormanagement.
And they don't care about 9_9. But if they do a test (what you have to do anyway, when changing systems/apps) they are screwed and don't know what to do.
That's why Forums exist.

b) In this case not. It's not such a famous magazine to to dictate to the customer how to deliver their PDFs.

Quote

If I were in a position of needing to place critical PDFs in a Publisher document, I'd simply render them in Photoshop and import them as CMYK TIFF bitmaps with no embedded profile (so you'd need to be careful with color profiles there, too, to not have rich blacks).

I wanted to do this.  Guess what. I made an update of my MBP and all the sudden Photoshop stops launching. Only Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator where not effected. For I had the Affinity Suite anyway, I did this test, thinking this is a good chance to switch. Way ahead before the magazine starts. After I send this test to the printing company I got a call which told me that color problem. Checking the client-PDF I found out, that parts of the text was 100% Black, set to overprint. Dead. Thanks to another  fix from Apple Photoshop came back to life, and I could do the magazine with my old tools. Now it's done and I tried another test, hoping that Serif did some updates.

As we see they didn't. And it seems, that they don't care about. They should, because they are loosing lot's of clients.

btw. I did a test with Catalina installed to one of my other MBPs. The non subscribtion model of Adobe is not working anymore. You have to subscribe for ID, PS and AI.

 

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19 hours ago, Lagarto said:

On the other hand, if the placed PDF does have an embedded color profile, and it deviates from the document profile of the Publisher document, the CMYK colors will be converted, K100 becomes rich black (see if you can reproduce this with the attached pdf which has Coated Forgra 39 embedded in an Affinity Publisher document that uses ISO Coated v2 (ECI). This file was produced from InDesign. 

(...)

100k_with_embedded_profile_coated_fogra39.pdf

Indeed I am not able to get the 100 K of the PDF with embedded Fogra profile if it is placed in an .afpub with a different document profile, e.g. ISO Coated v2 (ECI).

Which is very weird because obviously AfPub IS aware of the placed file's profile: If I double-click on the placed PDF and check the black object in its separate document window then it is shown as 100 K only.

259230809_Bildschirmfoto2019-10-17um03_26_07.jpg.870a8cb12fa890721fc385a4311a26e8.jpg

Now I would expect at least a switch from "Convert" to "Assign" would make the 100 K appear in my main document (with ISO Coated v2 (ECI)) – but the "Assign" button appears not to have a function.

So, to fix this Affinity bug I need to manipulate/change the color definition within the placed document – which indeed is a terrible need for two reasons:
1.) It forces me to manipulate a placed resource which actually dos what I want to make it fit to Affinity which is not able to handle its property properly – in case of a clients document kind of a No-Go.

2.) Even though I have placed the PDF as linked my color change does NOT affect the linked PDF but only it's placed copy inside my .afpub. That way it is never possible to determine whether the linked resource in .afpub  is the same as its original on disk.

For instance if I change the 100 K to 100 M and close the window (there is no "Save" dialog!) ...

1404317559_linkedPDFprofile3.jpg.d439371b4803accb7a03c74f52f8ff3c.jpg

... then the linked PDF definitely is not according to its original anymore and therefore it should create an according message. Instead in Resource Manager it still appears as before the color manipulation just as a linked resource. No missing status – and no embedded status, too.

253331961_linkedPDFprofile4.jpg.2b493b3b8c697688317bdbcc3e0b6a30.jpg


This AfPub behaviour is in particular weird and buggy because  in AfPubs preferences I have NOT checked to convert but to WARN:

1033993134_linkedPDFprofile5.jpg.dce8e235bf4e54d947227599f223ce2c.jpg

With this setting I expect for opened files (= embedded & linked resources) colors NOT being converted AND to get a warning if AfPub sees a conflict. – Both of this settings don't happen.
 

1 hour ago, HerrSchulz said:

I assume, that more than 80% of the users are kind of designers or people who come from typesetting like me. Most of them have no clue about colormanagement.
And they don't care about 9_9.

There are many forum's threads about color conversions, profiles and in particular the 100 K issue. The only change I have in mind since AfPub's beta versions was the implementation in the of "Embed profile" & "Convert image color spaces", which are auto-selected with the preset "PDF (for print)":

1036045945_linkedPDFprofile6.jpg.0efef9183e210bb60d4fd2a8a55d641f.jpg


The only workaround I see to assign a profile in an exported PDF as "Output Intent" – to make sure it will be respected when opened (or placed) – is to export as PDF-X. This lack of assigning a profile (not embedding) for the preset "for print" (and PDF v. 1.7 as the newest version) seems to be a major reason of AfPub for these color and/or profile issues – especially because AfPub itself ignores an embedded profile of a placed PDF even though it dos recognize it.

As @HerrSchulz pointed out, this behavior of AfPub which can force the user to manipulate placed files does make it hard and unnecessary time-consuming for effective and professional use.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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1 hour ago, HerrSchulz said:

I made an update of my MBP (...)

btw. I did a test with Catalina installed to one of my other MBPs. Adobe is not working anymore. You have to subscribe for ID, PS and AI.

In case you want to use a non-cloud version: As far I know for CS6 the latest macOS which supports with no harm is macOS 10.12 (sierra).

Possibly it also might help to entirely delete all cloud + CS files and do a re-clean install of your CS. If it's CS6 you do not need to install or activate the cloud at all. A while ago I experienced with Lightroom 6 (non-cloud) after quitting a Dreamweaver subscription that Lightroom did not start any more even though it was NO cloud. The chat-support told me to create a new account (with a different mail address) and install Lightroom again. That worked.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Quote

In case you want to use a non-cloud version: As far I know for CS6 the latest macOS which supports with no harm is macOS 10.12 (sierra).

Currently I run  Mojave 10.14.6 on my MacBook Pro.This works fine. I did the last magazine with this OS.
But if you install Catalina you're dead.

Now I will install me a clean Mojave to an external SSD and do the magazine this way.
I do this because I got to do other work which is not effected on which OS I run - and I like Catalina. 

Thomas

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39 minutes ago, thomaso said:

As far I know for CS6 the latest macOS which supports with no harm is macOS 10.12 (sierra).

Mojave runs CS6 just fine. Some minor problems like not being able to save defaults on quit. Photoshop CS5 seems to be unstable with Mojave.

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