Colours Change When Importing PNG to Affinity Publisher

[owaaan]

Not sure why this is happening, but when I drag and drop a png into Affinity Publisher, the colours change slightly. Please see images for a comparison (photoshop is the original, Affinity is the changed colour): 

[MikeW]

That looks like an rgb image in a cmyk document. If so, there will be a toning down of the colors. 

[walt.farrell]

I agree, @MikeW

Here's that screenshot pasted into an RGB Publisher document:

and here it is pasted into a CMYK Publisher document:

[owaaan]

Thank you. That's definitely it. Should I use RGB16 or RGB8? Do the printers tend to prefer CMYK over RGB? 

[MikeW]

Most print establishments prefer/require cmyk pdfs. Some allow rgb pdfs. You need to ask the print establishment you will be using. Many have the requirements listed on their website. 

As for the rgb model, rgb8.

[owaaan]

Ok thank you

[leechi]

time for some basics my dudes.

RGB and CMYK are inherently different as RGB is literally a screen that emits light while print CMYK absorbs light on paper. (as emulated by your software in the screenshots provided in the opening post). hence your "super shiny" RGB colors will all vanish and that sometimes can completely destroy images in the process

the pros about keeping your workflow in RGB as long as possible is that your files are not tied to any output processes. 
lets say you keep everything in RGB, at the end you can convert it into an output medium color space of any choice in one step.

the cons are that your conversion from RGB to CMYK become uncontrollable. if you send RGB files to a printer you have no control over the end result and the printer wont give two fucks if a picture loses lots of details in the conversion.

if you convert everything yourself by hand you can see the effects from going from RGB to CMYK (as in your opening post) and adjust accordingly. the cons is that you work towards one very specific output medium.

see the attached LAB plots. the sRGB space (white) compared to CMYK ISOcoated v2. (colored)
CMYK is much much smaller than sRGB but sRGB cant achieve certain blueish tones.

second screenshot is Adobe RGB instead of sRGB. you can see that in a adobe RGB workflow, you will achieve better results in print.

no printer can output 16bit colors. so the question shouldnt be "8 or 16bit?" 
it should be "oh shit am i using sRGB? did i F**k up already?"

if you print it on office printers tho none of this matters.

 

 

[ubercool]

I'm seeing the same color shift towards the warm spectrum in a CMYK file placed in Publisher vs. InDesign. Color settings are identical.

Any ideas?