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CMYK and spot colour / changed colours in PDF export


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Hello forum,

I hope, someone can help me out with setting up a Publisher document:
The colours used are black (from cmyk) and one spot colour. By writing the PDF for printing, all texts (set to 100% black in Publisher) are being transformed to "rich black" containing cmyk colours. (Nooooo!)

How can I prevent 100%-black-elements from being converted to some cmyk colour?

I've found a suggestion to create a solid colour for 100% black. That solution is not working for me: I am using greyscale photos as well. So now the created PDF contains three colours. The first spot colour, the black from the greyscale photos and the spot colour I created to prevent texts converting to cmyk.

That is very annoying, I need the PDF to be used only the black from cmyk and the one solid colour.

Is there a soloution for this?

Thank you guys for suggestions / help.

Cheers

 

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Thanks @Lagarto

Yes, I was aiming for a propper PDF/X export... Unfortunately, I couldnt get it to work. It runs into an error (discussed here on the forum as well)
In my case, the reason is the used font. Without fonts, PDF/X export is working as expected. With fonts: no luck.

 

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@Legarto you pointed me into the right direction!
Doing the PDF/X based export with the option "Text as Curves" enabled is working fine. This seems to be the most consistent workflow for creating printable documents.

By doing these tests I ran into another colour-issue: I am Placing a drop-shadow on a spot colour. by doing so, the colours in the PDF will be rendered as the undesired CMYK as well. I am not sure how to address this. The wanted PDF-Output is the use of two colours only: black and one spot colour.

spot-colour-test.afpub

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I can't see, that the green area is spot, but anyway the colour of the (different blend modes) drop shadows contain all 4 colours. Reduce it to black only.

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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This is what I see how your drop shadow is defined. After I change this and export as PDF X-4, you can see the result. Strange ...

acrobat.jpg

drop-shadow.jpg

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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:/
umm.
I have no idea why this is happening. I double-checked all the settings. (I attached the file)

I think, I am overseeing something completely. This test is very important for me – We, as our office, are thinking about a complete switch from Adobe to Affinity.. The color settings is pretty essential for this task.

 

spot-colour-test2.afpub

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Same as before. Drop shadow has 4 CMYK colours. Try my attached version for exporting as PDF. My final advice would be to reset APu completely by holding CTRL while starting the programme. But be aware that everything you customised get lost, so make a backup of everything you might have customised (if possible).

spot-colour-test3.afpub

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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Okay,

the reset did the trick:
I found several reset-options in the applications settings. (I dont know the shortcut for starting up / reset in MacOS)

Now, I am getting the correct PDF-output from my documents as well. I understand, that this is something Affinity is still working on. I hope, the workflow for the colour settings gets improved with later releases. Although, it might just be me learning pretty slowly...

@Joachim_L Thanks for your help! And as you were pointing out: There seems to be some improvement in 1.8. I cant wait to get the next version released.

Cheers
 

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Alright. This is a helpful comparison.

If set up correctly, AP does not handle the shadow as overprinting black. InDesign does it the right way. As being seen in your comparison.
It seems to be a commonly known issue:

 

 

 

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