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Proof printing with Publisher is really a mess - wrong colors!


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has anybody tried to proof a document with publisher?

currently getting mad with this! having a dedicated rip i am trying to get an accurate proof out of affinity publisher with no effort.

publisher seems not to be able to skip any color profile when printing - even when setting that colors are to be managed by printer, theres still a selection for a color profile that obviously interferes with the print and leads to wrong colors.

is there ANY way to tell Publisher NOT to use any profile when printing to the rip???

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2 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Use Acrobat or Adobe Reader perhaps? I don't print directly from any native application.

Alternatively, does your RIP handle pdfs directly?

use both - but not for printing.

rip is registered as a printer and creates its own .ps-files.

works with every native application just completely fine - except from affinity 😕

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9 minutes ago, dasigna said:

use both - but not for printing.

rip is registered as a printer and creates its own .ps-files.

works with every native application just completely fine - except from affinity 😕

I don't think Affinity applications can bypass using a profile while printing direct. Dunno, but I haven't delved much into it.

Which would go back to my suggestion. But hey, if you don't want to try and see if that resolves the issue, fine...

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@Lagarto

Affinity doesn't do anything specific for postscript printers, which would require specific postscript code, so any postscript printer output will be RGB. That is not a way to create CMYK files.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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12 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

That is not a way to create CMYK files.

no? which way then?

creating .pdfs and proof them, which doubles the amount of work?
using a dedicated rip with calibrated printer and have to trick again - really?

i have a document in cmyk.
printer output should be possible with that...
every other application i use can manage to print to a postscript printer and let it manage colors ... illustrator, indesign and even corel (!). in every program printer profile is then deactivated by default. works well and gives the expected results. (which then are even identical across all apps by the way...) why not affinity??

quite stunning! (if not weird)

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Windows specific reply ( comment added as an after-note)

Sorry to confuse I have just tagged Lagarto in that reply, as I was clarifying he should not expect CMYK files out of a postscript print path, as the Affinity print path is always RGB, (with no postscript exception).

On 2/14/2020 at 11:16 AM, dasigna said:

...why not affinity??

Printing of CMYK colours "as is" is not provided free by the operating systems, where for printer drivers only RGB colours are understood and so this postscript exception requires a lot of extra programming, that the Affinity range has not implemented.It is unfortunate that desktop printer drivers do not allow the colourspace to be specified, and for CMYK data to be sent through normal print commands, but they never have. "Postscript pass through" is a frig to get round this driver implementation issue.

There is nothing wrong with proofing on a printer but be aware that it will be converted to RGB and back and so some colours outside the RGB range are not going to proof well, unless using CMYK end to end, like ripping directly from a generated PDF X-4 file.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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o.k.
i do know, that desktop printers always are rgb. so for cmyk-proofing colors are emulated. otherwise we wouldnt need any rip-software and expensive calibration things ...

so in my case the rip acts as a postscript printer that generates its own .ps-files for printing then.
normal setting is to leave color conversion up to 'printer' and not to change cmyk-values - in every application. that is fu**** easy with also fu**** great results of 99,8% accuracy.

so if i understand the answer of patrick correctly - affinity simply cant do this! right?

so for affinity i have to output some .pdf print file and send this to the softrip via printing though acrobat ...?

rip cant handle .pdfs directly - only its own .ps files (efi_express btw.)

 

so in my understanding it would help already if color management through affinity simply would be deactivated automatically if one set 'leave color management up to printer' ... or even if it could be deactivated manually.

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  • 5 months later...
  • Staff

For context, my reply above is Windows Specific, where CMYK data cannot be sent to a printer driver. I am reliably informed that is not true of Mac devices, sorry for any confusion caused, I will edit the post also.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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Printing from Affintiy with a PostScript/CMYK printer is a waste of time. Proper colour control is impossible.

The annoying thing for me is that it's always blamed on the OS/driver. Serif should admit that they don't have proper pro level printing, and take those claims that they do off of their sales pages.

I know that sounds harsh, but if they weren't claiming to have this then I'd have no problem at all - I've said before the software is great value and does more than should be expected at it's price point. Just stop over selling it please :)

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I've been through the same tests as you (on Windows), another user also tried with their printer and has the same things. The drivers are very good at mapping RGB -> CMYK primaries. Any mix though goes awry (I set my printer to produce separations so there's no chance it's down to my eye spotting mixes):

Edit -Ha, I just notied @Lagarto you was one of the others in that quoted thread testing these things :)

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18 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

my reply above is Windows Specific, where CMYK data cannot be sent to a printer driver

Is this really true? I mean really really? One of my printers is an ancient 4-colour laser Kyocera FS-C5030N KX and it is able to print unmixed colours sending from ADesigner. The black was only built with black (even 50%), yellow was pure etc. The document was set up as PSO coated v3. The Colour Management in the printing dialogue was: Colour Handling performed by app, Printer Profile PSO Coated v3 and Rendering Intent was perceptual.

I was sending the same test file to a HP Laserjet 750 and there again the black was only black and the yellow was pure. Only strange thing on this printer: The text with 50% K had a small black outline which was not in the document.

So does this mean we can send CMYK to the printer without conversion? So does this mean eventually the printer drivers are to blame?

Screenshot_2020-07-28-12-04-24-10.jpg

------
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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5 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

So does this mean we can send CMYK to the printer without conversion? So does this mean eventually the printer drivers are to blame?

This about sums up the quality of information from Serif on this! No one knows what is going on!

I can tell you 100% it's not possible to get CMYK data into a printer on Windows. Unfortunatly I don't have MacOS to test.

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1 minute ago, BofG said:

I can tell you 100% it's not possible to get CMYK data into a printer on Windows.

I am on Windows too and can you see any other colour than black in the photo I shot two posts ago? I was using two glasses and a loupe. ;)

 

------
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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16 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Is this really true? I mean really really?

Apparently not https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/print/supporting-cmyk-color-space , sorry

Things seem to have changed since I programmed the Plus range, and now some printer drivers do support CMYK images & colours. I would say that a current developer (not this ex-developer) needs to clarify whether Affinity Windows ever uses this

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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5 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

I am on Windows too and can you see any other colour than black in the photo I shot two posts ago? I was using two glasses and a loupe. ;)

 

CMYK primaries are handled well by the drivers. See my post linked above.

 

4 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

Apparently not https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/print/supporting-cmyk-color-space , sorry

Things seem to have changed since I programmed the Plus range, and now some printer drivers do support CMYK images & colours. I would say that a developer needs to clarify (not this ex-developer)

I hope that means there's a possiblilty of this being supported in the future. Any ideas on how we would get a developer to clarify?

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22 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Is this really true? I mean really really?

and

1 minute ago, BofG said:

Any ideas on how we would get a developer to clarify?

I have asked the Windows developers to clarify

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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