PeterB. Posted April 7, 2020 Posted April 7, 2020 Hi, when I place masked images in publisher and export the file for print there is a rectangle with the wrong color around the image in the final PDF. I've made an example file. The color in the Background should be 100% yellow but around the image it is different (see attached screenshot). Flattening_Bug.pdf Flattening_Bug.afpub Random_Person.psd Quote
Jeremy Bohn Posted April 7, 2020 Posted April 7, 2020 It depends on what app you use to open the PDF. It looks fine to me everywhere except Acrobat Pro X. Quote
PeterB. Posted April 7, 2020 Author Posted April 7, 2020 try opening the pdf file in photo. There you can also measure the different values. As the difference is small you might not notice it visually. But on the printed product there will be a visual difference. Quote
thomaso Posted April 8, 2020 Posted April 8, 2020 10 hours ago, Jeremy Bohn said: It looks fine to me everywhere except Acrobat Pro X. So you do notice the difference in Acrobat – as I do with the OP's PDF. In case it's for print the issue is not a matter of the viewing app. 9 hours ago, PeterB. said: try opening the pdf file in photo. There you can also measure the different values. I didn't. Instead I exported with the default X-1 preset ... and got the same difference (total 100 vs. 98 %) – but I had not downloaded your psd file. After downloading + relinking the image then an X-1 exports with 100% yellow only: Flattening_Bug__ot_X-1.pdf Hm. After deleting the image from my disk, closing your .afpub and reopening the .afpub then an X-1 export still did *not* show the issue again. Strange occurrence. So I guess in the meantime maybe it is solved for you in a similar secret/magical way? Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1
PeterB. Posted April 8, 2020 Author Posted April 8, 2020 5 hours ago, thomaso said: the default X-1 preset thomaso, the default preset is actually not really suitable for high quality production use. (only 300 DPI, JPEG compression with 98% quality, subset fonts...). But I found out why this seems to solve the problem. If you turn on "Allow advanced features" the mask of the image seems to be handled different. From my experience this feature is a bit risky. I had some jobs where the final PDFs couldn't be printed because of errors in some printing companies RIP-Software. That's why I turned it off. I didn't use some sort oft black magic to solve it. I drew yellow rectangles, placed the persons (at least 68) inside and used rasterize & trim. Then everything looked fine. But I dont't think that this is the way it should be... So from my point of view this is something the developers should have a look at. Quote
PeterB. Posted April 8, 2020 Author Posted April 8, 2020 I just tried something different to check if it's maybe caused by the file type. Saved the PSD file as afphoto and tiff (with and without affinity layers). The afphoto file causes the same issue but the tiff files did WORK! Quote
thomaso Posted April 8, 2020 Posted April 8, 2020 1 hour ago, PeterB. said: the default X-1 preset (...) I found out why this seems to solve the problem. I don't understand your thoughts about X-1, I had used it just to proof your workflow. In my opinion every PDF/X version should be "suitable for high quality production use" (and I don't see a DPI resolution or JPG compression limitation with PDF/X – note that you may alter both and still can export as PDF/X). 1 hour ago, PeterB. said: If you turn on "Allow advanced features" the mask of the image seems to be handled different. It IS handles different, as the Affinity help says: Allow advanced features — when selected, all design features supported by the PDF file format are exported as vectors. If this option is off, depending on the nature of these features, they are rasterized or converted to curves on export. So if its off, all objects get rasterized... whereas the help sounds contradictory to me in: "when selected ... exported as vector" versus "If off ... converted to curves". [ In my understanding curves are vectors, too, and this way 'curves & vectors' to me sound closer together than 'curved & rasterized'. But possibly/probably here "curved" describes the way an applied stroke width gets handled or a gradient gets defined (both mentioned as advanced features in the further help text). ] However, I think you also could export as PDF 1.7 with the advanced option deselected. That way you possibly can limit the issues for some RIPs? Whereas the help warns about such issues, even though the option is selected in the default presets: 1 hour ago, PeterB. said: I didn't use some sort oft black magic to solve it. I drew yellow rectangles, placed the persons (at least 68) inside and used rasterize & trim. Then everything looked fine. But I dont't think that this is the way it should be... The "magic" appeared to myself in my three export trials: finally I wasn't able to get the differing color values again, I got it only in my first trial, when I hadn't downloaded your image resource, but did not get it in my 2nd trial and also after deleting the image from disk (made it "missing"). Nevertheless, I agree it should not be necessary to flatten or rasterize before export nor to choose a different resource file format to avoid the shift within the masked area from 100% yellow to 98% + 1% cyan + 1% magenta instead. That appears as a bug. Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1
PeterB. Posted April 8, 2020 Author Posted April 8, 2020 16 minutes ago, thomaso said: every PDF/X version should be "suitable for high quality production use" I did work in a prepress unit for some years and I can tell you from everything I've learnded there: PDF/X has nothing to do with "suitable for high quality production" , sorry . But maybe that's only my opinion. 21 minutes ago, thomaso said: PDF 1.7 If you're local printing company supports this, you're lucky! Most of the ones I know insist of version 1.3 as they want to reduce their own risk with letting RIP Software do the transparency reduction. 25 minutes ago, thomaso said: help sounds contradictory to me that's another reason not to use this function... 25 minutes ago, thomaso said: That appears as a bug. hopefully it will be looked at. Quote
thomaso Posted April 8, 2020 Posted April 8, 2020 6 minutes ago, PeterB. said: PDF/X has nothing to do with "suitable for high quality production" In the perspective of a print service provider a PDF/X can appear limited because it is a standard with restrictions and therefore less flexible to alter, re-define items inside the PDF done by the print provider. In this way "high quality" might mean "high flexibilty" (~"high worklifebalance") when handling a PDF. – It is hardly related to the quality of the data inside the PDF, even rather vice versa: PDF/X initially was defined to ensure output quality. "PDF/X is a subset of PDF – see “Technical side and requirements of PDF/X”, page 7, for an overview. As such, conforming with PDF/X means accepting specific requirements and restrictions to the use of the PDF format. One principle of PDF/X is that conforming files must be complete, i.e. fully self-contained. In addition, nothing may appear on a PDF/X page that is either not printable at all (such as video or 3D) or where print output is not fully defined (for example, if a font is not embedded). While the first rule is rather easy to implement, the latter is more difficult. PDF allows for many complex situations, for example, colors in semi-transparent overlapping objects. In other cases, it may not be clear whether objects on a layer are to be printed. There are many other cases of interdependencies in which it is difficult to determine whether the print result is unambiguously defined, or not. https://www.pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PDFX-in-a-Nutshell.pdf So don't be afraid of PDF/X, in particular X-4, which supports transparency. Nevertheless, in case you can trust your service provider or if you even yearn your exported PDFs to maintain flexibility for later adjustments done by prepress then of cause a non-X version appears more suitable. Quote macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1
Jeremy Bohn Posted April 8, 2020 Posted April 8, 2020 Did you use Acrobat Pro to open the PDF file and what version was it? I have Pro X and it doesn't render correctly, but Acrobat Reader DC opens it fine. I've seen that occasionally with some PDF's, even ones created in Illustrator and InDesign. Pro X just seems to fail in some cases, maybe because it's too old. Quote
PeterB. Posted April 8, 2020 Author Posted April 8, 2020 Jeremy Bohn, I am using the latest Version of Acrobat Pro DC to check my PDF files. Quote
MikeW Posted April 8, 2020 Posted April 8, 2020 Acrobat Pro X had several issues relating to transparency and even color. Quote
PeterB. Posted April 8, 2020 Author Posted April 8, 2020 I don't think this has something to do with viewing PDFs in acrobat with whatever version. The difference can be measured with Photo and even Photoshop. And when using tiff files, the export works fine. So for me no reason to blame acrobat... Quote
MikeW Posted April 8, 2020 Posted April 8, 2020 1 hour ago, PeterB. said: I don't think this has something to do with viewing PDFs in acrobat with whatever version. The difference can be measured with Photo and even Photoshop. And when using tiff files, the export works fine. So for me no reason to blame acrobat... Just a rabbit hole part of the discussion. Sorry. Quote
Jeremy Bohn Posted April 8, 2020 Posted April 8, 2020 On further inspection, when I open your PDF in Illustrator CS6 and use the eyedropper to get CMYK values, the yellow next to the photo is different than the surrounding yellow: 0.78, 0.78, 95.69, 0 vs 0, 0, 100, 0 Quote
PeterB. Posted April 8, 2020 Author Posted April 8, 2020 2 hours ago, MikeW said: Just a rabbit hole part of the discussion. Sorry. Sorry don‘t know what you mean 🤗 Quote
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