Printing with ICC profile does not give a proper result

[thornlab]

Hi,

I think there is an issue in Affinity Photo with printing module. When I use color handling 'Performed by App' with custom profile created by external company, the print result much differs from that one I get using Photoshop with the same way of color management.

Affinity Photo version: 1.8.3.641

Windows 10 X64 Professional

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open an attached reference picture (please download it from http://www.on-sight.com/download/Onsight_Media_Selection.tif)
2. Run Affinity Photo and load picture downloaded in previous point
3. Set printer properties to do not use any color management by the printer driver
4. Set color handling to 'Performed by App' and select custom color profile (can be downloaded from the internet)
5. Print it

Please, see images from below links to see the issue with color after printing using Affinity Photo

https://freeimage.host/i/printed-affinity.JXGC1s - this scan was taken from image printed using Affinity Photo

https://freeimage.host/i/printed-photoshop.JXGEkQ - this scan was taken from image printed using Photoshop

Both images have the same profile used for printing and the printer settings was the same for each printing session (printer color management was set to off).

Issue: printed image looks like simulated on Photoshop soft proofing with 'Preserve RGB numbers'.

I expect that image printed by Affinity Photo with color managed by the Affinity Photo should look same as printed in Photoshop with color managed by the Photoshop with the same profiles used for printing.

Edited May 24, 2020 by thornlab

[Chris B]

Hey thornlab,

Which ICC profile is it you're using? You said to download the custom colour profile from the net but I can't see where you've said which one. 

I also do not have access to a printer at the moment as Serif is still working from home. I will need to ask a colleague to try this for me. 

I just wanted to let you know we will be looking into it as soon as possible. 

[Chris B]

I think we would need a screenshot of the exact Adobe settings and Affinity settings as well as your printer. Your defaults might not be the same as ours and with this type of thing, we need to make sure the environments are as closely matched as possible. 

[thornlab]

Hi,

Please try with attached profile. I record the video from Photoshop soft proof simulation where You can clearly see that the colors becomes as after printing in Affinity Photo. It cannot be simulated in Affinity Photo due to lack of this option in UI, but unfortunately the shades of cyan becomes to be shades of blue and the shades of blue becomes to be shades of violet. The printer settings was all the same for both applications. I record a video to show that the print using Affinity Photo gives similar result as Photoshop's soft proofing simulation when preserving RGB values is selected.

Regards

PrinterProfile.icc

[Chris B]

If you go to File > Import ICC Profile and then go to Document > Convert Format/ICC Profile and select the Brother ICC Profile, does it print correctly.

Unfortunately as we are still working from home, I do not have a printer to properly test this. 

Can you confirm if you're actually using a Soft Proof Adjustment layer as well? If so, turn it off. 

[thornlab]

Hi,

If I do all as You described (importing profile then convert to my printer profile) printed image is correct. When it comes to Soft Proof - after conversion I did not see any differences when soft proofing was applied for the selected image with same profile as document. Before printing soft proof layer always was removed.

I think it is good for You all when You working from home - there is much more time for family instead of wasted for traffic jams.

[Chris B]

12 hours ago, thornlab said:

If I do all as You described (importing profile then convert to my printer profile) printed image is correct

That's good. I will feed this back.

12 hours ago, thornlab said:

I think it is good for You all when You working from home - there is much more time for family instead of wasted for traffic jams.

Absolutely agree! 

[HalClark]

Hello Chris B.  Affinity provides 2 excellent color management videos that do a great job of explaining how to handle and/or modify the colors on screen and if the image is being posted to the web.  What is missing (and what I understand this post is about) is the handling of how to color match the printed image to the display image.  Many of us who are long time users of Photoshop (I no longer use it, I do not rent anything) and print on surfaces that may not be the surfaces that the printer manufacturer sells ( i.e. I use Strathmore Watercolor paper, not Epson or Canon watercolor paper) know that many of those surfaces have been icc profiled by the paper manufacturer or make their own profiles, as I do.

All we need to understand (and the person who has made the training videos for Affinity Photo would be perfect to help us understand) is how to apply our paper profiles during the printing process. It needs to be done within Affinity Photo because almost every printer manufacturer does not give you the option of adding your own icc profiles to the printer driver.

I believe this post has uncovered the need, I am looking for guidance on how to handle printing with custom (i.e not from the printer manufacturer) icc profiles during printing.  I have purchased the Workbook, hoping it was addressed in it, and it is not, and I have reviewed the Affinity Photo videos as well.

Thanks for the help

Hal

P.S. I also have the equipment to make icc profiles for my DLSR, Scanner, Monitors and the 20 different surfaces I print on, so this is a major stumbling point for me and I currently take the image from Affinity and load it into Photoshop CS6 (the last version you could purchase) and use CS6 to print, but CS6 is 32 bit software and it is preventing me from upgrading my system.

Update: using the test files in this post and a couple of my papers and profiles, I have found that one of the profiles prints properly (i.e. matches how the profile looks in soft proof) while the other has a definite color shift where the gray border and other gray areas end up blue. I have screen captures of the images and soft proofs, did not attach them since without scans of the prints they would not provide any real information, other than to show both soft proofs have gray where it is supposed to be.

Edited December 23, 2020 by HalClark
added info about the test I ran

[HalClark]

Hello Chris B.  I left out one important item, I am using a Mac Pro (6 core Intel Xeon E5, 32 GB RAM, 2 AMD FirePro D500 GPUs) and macOS Mojave (10.14.6), not Windows. So the Windows profile printing issue noted above (and my issue printing the test files) also applies to the Mac version of Affinity Photo as well (I am hoping this will help the team figure the issue out since it must be common software shared between the Windows and Mac versions).  I also have added captures of the Soft Proof for the two ICC profiles I used, and the scans of the printed results.  NOTE the blue border on the printout of the RR Paper Canvas profile and the gray border on the RR Paper Canvas SoftProof.