Publisher 1.8.3 -- finally sent two test books to MagCloud

[MikeA]

MagCloud, a division of Blurb, does not have templates for Affinity Publisher or instructions re: the desirable PDF export settings in Publisher. So for now there's some guesswork involved.

The first .afpub made for the test had as its native color space CMYK, with the default CMYK profile selected. The second was an exact copy but with the native color space changed to RGB/16 and the garden-variety sRGB profile selected. Both PDFs passed MagCloud's preflight checks.

In both cases I left the PDF export dialog's "convert images" check-box UN-checked. All of it will end up CMYK when MagCloud prints the books. But it will be interesting to see differences between the two. When I changed the native color space there was a noticeable change in contrast between white text on a black background. The characters' edges seemed to distinctly sharper in the RGB version. Could it have been only a screen artifact? Certain colors of the photographs had a bit of saturation boost in the RGB version as well — at least on-screen.

I'd be interested to hear from people with a lot of pre-press experience: Given the differences in document color spaces and profiles used, would you expect significant differences in the printed pieces? (I won't be seeing them for a couple of weeks yet.)

Something I didn't change in creating the documents: the Assign (versus Convert) setting found in Document Setup. This is one place where a "Lightroom style" UI does the user no favor: It's hard to tell which of those two buttons is "pushed" by default. For now I assume black means selected. The tool tips for these controls read "Assign color profile" and "Convert color profile." Does "Convert" apply to every possible object in the document, including photographs that were previously exported in RGB from their original raw format?
 

[lacerto]

(...)

[MikeA]

Thanks as always for the time you put into these replies. After going back and forth here 'n' there about the output preset I finally decided on PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5). I'd have to go back through some of the older threads here to remind myself why the one you're referring to in your reply above didn't seem as if it would work out as well. As I recall, MagCloud itself (per their instructions for InDesign) seems content with PDF 1.4.

I did wonder if RGB/16 would be overkill. The resulting PDF was 6 MB larger than the CMYK version. The two documents' contents are identical. Fortunately the difference in upload time was negligible. But I'll select RGB/8 the next time.

If the Document Setup : Convert setting does not immediately convert images, then I'll stick with it for now. In both the RGB and CMYK versions I left the Convert image spaces box unchecked during export. In retrospect I wonder if that was the wrong setting. Is one ahead of the game by allowing Publisher to do the RGB-to-CMYK conversion during export, or on the other hand keeping the box UN-checked and leaving to the book provider to complete the conversion?

In any case if either or both test books look awful, I'll know it's back to the drawing-board.

I've just had a look at one of the pages with a solid black background — in the RGB version. To get it I used, simply, RGB=0,0,0. Looking at the CMYK sliders, I see that same object as: 74C, 68M, 67Y, and 90K. So hopefully nothing that happens during export will force it to CMYK(all)=100.

 

[lacerto]

(...)

[MikeA]

4 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

Basically these settings should not normally be used at all.

Meaning  Document Setup : Convert. I should have put it this way: Unless I'm misinterpreting the "Lightroom UI" look of the document setup dialog, "Convert" is selected by default as you create the new document—so I'll simply leave it as-is.

I can understand that it's better to create the document using the preferred color space and profile. For these tests it would have meant starting from scratch in the second document and re-creating it page by page. It took quite a while to make that first test book. Copying the finished file to a new name and changing its color space+profile afterward saved a huge amount of time I'd otherwise have spent making the thing all over again. But I should look into whether it's possible to have two documents (say, one CMYK and one RGB) open at the same time and simply copy entire pages or spreads from the completed document into a new, empty one. Not something I've tried yet with Publisher.

[lacerto]

(,,,)

[MikeA]

13 hours ago, Lagarto said:

I would change the color mode to RGB/8 and see that color profile is sRGB, and save that publication with a new name. This would then allow you to create optimal output for digital use.

I'll find out shortly how good a job I've done of it. They've already shipped the two test books (turnaround in less than 24 hours, not bad—though they are very small books to be sure).

In editors like Photoshop I'm accustomed to "assign" making major changes, visible on-screen, and "convert" making no change (or at least a change so small that I can't detect it). I was a bit surprised to see the noticeable differences when I changed color spaces within the Publisher document. Despite "Convert" being selected by default in the document properties dialog, some kind of "assigning" seemed to have occurred.

[MikeA]

On 4/14/2020 at 12:44 AM, Lagarto said:

If you create from the same source for both CMYK and RGB

And speaking of that — to return for a moment to the matter of how to specify black for press work like this... MagCloud's recommendations are much the same as yours. Don't set all CMYK values to 100, for starters. For black text, they recommend 0C 0M 0Y 100K. I thought I'd see what would happen if text is set to RGB=0,0,0 and then the CMYK sliders are examined afterward. (This test document is in CMYK color space.) So, set text color to RGB=0,0,0. The CMYK sliders now display 74C 68M 67Y 90K. Not much like 0C 0M 0Y 100K. But is that so far off as to be ill-advised for some reason? Knowing as little as I do about preparing documents for 4-color printing, I don't want to make possibly bad assumptions.

Then I give the type some random color, then reset the CMYK sliders to 74C 68M 67Y 90K. I again have what appears on-screen to be black type. Switching to the RGB sliders, I now see 2,2,3 — not exactly 0,0,0 as before, but close. (Close enough?)

[lacerto]

(...)

[MikeA]

Thanks as always.

When I have nailed down this Publisher-to-MagCloud routine (two sample books will be arriving in a few days) I plan to write up the procedures I followed. If you'll permit, I'd like to include a couple of quotations from your posts about this.

[MikeA]

Today I received the small test books from MagCloud. Overall impression: not bad, not bad at all for the price. (MagCloud uses a dull-coated stock that doesn't seem to be the best possible—at those prices, how could it be?—but it could be worse.)

I followed all prior advice about the PDF version (1.4) for both test books. One was in CMYK color space and the other in RGB—in both cases, with profiles embedded. I expected the RGB document to print with the colors seriously "off". To my surprise, they weren't. Deep shadow areas in images were lighter than in the CMYK version, but to my surprise the RGB document printed with better saturation in yellows. Blues — no appreciable difference that I can see so far. Skin tones look about the same in both versions (slightly too magenta for my taste; time to re-profile the monitor, I guess). But that slight boost in yellow did catch my eye. Large expanses of dark grey are noticeably lighter in the RGB version — and very slightly yellowish.

The oddest result was that apparent sharpness (of fine details in images) seems slightly higher in the RGB version. This kind of thing usually requires "pixel-peeping" viewing distances to detect, but I noticed it almost unconsciously...then, pixel-peeping distances confirmed it. I am guessing the effect might be only some "artifact" of a particular press run, but I don't know yet.

It has been an interesting experiment. One thing I know now: If you're going to print a book on MagCloud, give it at least 24 pages so that you can select "perfect" binding. The web site notes that the alternative for shorter books is saddle-stitching. But these test books were so short that I guess they were stuck with using staples — and the stapled binding is just no fun at all.