How can I print or generate a pdf with 100% black

[Dazmondo77]

13 minutes ago, BofG said:

I tried quite a while ago with a CMYK document > cmyk print profile > PostScript printer (set to no colour management) and 100k in the source came out as a mix on all four separations. This was from Designer.

I tried loads of times and got similar results - I'm guessing it was prob December last year when I decided to re-calibrate my monitor, and dug out all my old press colour match stuff as I like to work end to end CMYK, and just thought I'd have another go with Affinity and found that the CMYK colour results to be the same as Acrobat by selecting the documents colour profile (Coated FOGRA27) which are solid CMYK colour bars that are a half decent match to my old press proofs 

[lacerto]

(...)

[Dazmondo77]

5 hours ago, Lagarto said:

 

Interestingly, I do get a similar printed result printing from Affinity pub, but only on graduated tint fills of 100% down to 0% where theres clearly a dot of yellow and magenta in the cyans and similar MYK yet still on solids and tints it remains pure - ????? anyhow - there is clearly a need for a straightforward path to CMYK print to capable printers - we should not be even having this debate as it's just a basic standard need for a pro print publishing app to be able to print accurate output - it's the only app I can think of that I've ever prepared artwork which is designed for CMYK output that can't easily print to CMYK printers??????? 

Below: crappy photo illustrating the differences between the same CMYK FOGRA27 test sheet sent from Acrobat and Publisher : only the set of colour bars which is set up as solid to white graduated tints reproduces as if converted to RGB then back to CMYK the rest, although Postscript sharp vectors is very hit and miss (very miss on this particular page), the other CMYK elements are pure???

Maybe it could be my printer sees an RGB tag to CMYK data and can just and just waft it away for the majority of data, I don't know?

I have also managed used Gutenprint in the past, which is a set of alternative print drivers for many consumer inkjets which enables extra features including direct CMYK printing - it works!  

[Dazmondo77]

12 minutes ago, BofG said:

there should not be any CMYK profiles in the print options

Damn I hope they don't change it back, I just did a black test and ran a page setup in grayscale just using auto settings for colour profile and got a four pass black then ran again and chose Fogra27 colour profile (same as doc) and got pure black with tints - pretty sure if they revert back to RGB only colour profiles for print I'll be looking to move on - any suggestions?

[Dazmondo77]

2 hours ago, BofG said:

I wouldn't worry about them changing it back, I doubt it's on their radar and even if it is I believe the "to do" list is pretty full with more important things.

Well it's still not great as it stands as it seems to pre rasterise before RIP,  I know my Xerox Phaser 6180DN has a lot of Pantone colour simulation tech built in so maybe it does some kind of on the fly conversion in RIP ??? - I can only trust Acrobat (or InDesign or Quark) for a pretty accurate quality printout, that is just really bad 

 

50 minutes ago, BofG said:

So in conclusion: I give up

And me, although I'm pretty angry to the point i'm looking for other options --- without subscription --- 😡

[Lorox]

On 6/24/2020 at 5:07 PM, BofG said:

It's a shame that Affinity print colour management doesn't work properly, I think the bigger shame is that it acts as though it does.

Exactly... For all of of us who do design for print this is so annoying. Each time when I'm finished with designing and I want to get proper PDFs for offset printing to my printers shop it gives me such a headache as from the Affinity apps' (especially Publisher) settings (document setup & export settings) I strongly feel like I've really set it all correctly but somewhere there must be some glitches in the underlying logic of the apps because more often than not I find the PDFs not to be what should have been expected considering the settings having been made (primarily "black" not turning out as just 100% K).

With InDesign you just set up your general colour management once for your apps, choose the colour profile you need/want on export and everything will be fine in 99+% of the cases. You just don't have to worry about it – it's highly reliable. With my Affinity produced PDFs, however, I'm unfortunately dreading each time what Acrobat Pro will actually unveil... It doesn't feel good and doesn't match the good feeling I – admittedly – generally have when I'm still in the process of designing with Publisher (even though there are some things I wish were handled more ergonomically by or added to the app).

[Jiorgos]

Yes, unfortunately, my fear formulated at the beginning has been confirmed. The problem is really annoying, and as long as it is not really fixed, Publisher is unfortunately out of the question for me for productive use.

[Lorox]

@Jiorgos I'm actually trying not to rule out Publisher as a tool for productive use as I'm thoroughly fed up with Adobe's general policies. I do want the Affinity apps to stay on the the scene and successfully compete with the near-monopolist. That being said I think that what's happening here in the forum is important to make the Affinity team work even harder to finally and fully make the apps live up to their promises. I really hope these issues we're talking about will be resolved sooner or (rather not so much) later...

I have to admit, though, that so far I tend to use Publisher productively only on small projects (the odd flyer or leaflet – completely new or maybe even migrated/converted from InDesign) where there's a good chance any glitches won't slip through unnoticed (and if they do nevertheless the actual damage will be quite limited).
Right now, however, I'd in fact be very reluctant to use Publisher on any job where hundreds or thousands of euros/dollars in printing costs will be involved. But – exactly this will have to change: professional users must eventually be able to be confident straightaway that their designs for any project will be output in a correct state of the art way for commercial printing without having to worry what could have gone wrong again this time (colours, rasterization effects etc.).
A truly ergonomic user experience and bulletproof reliability regarding its final output for me is what will really make a publishing app meant for professional and productive use actually "professional" in the end.

[Jiorgos]

Since I am also thoroughly fed up with Adobe's licensing policy, I have been looking for an alterantive for quite some time. Scribus was interesting to me as an open source project, but unfortunately it does not yet meet my requirements – I primarily design complex books – especially in terms of ergonomics. I was all the more pleased when I discovered Serif PagePlus X9 and found out that the program had been further developed with Publisher. But with the deficit described here, I can't use the program for my jobs with a quiet conscience, because the risk is too great for me. I need reliability for the creation of print data. Therefore I hope that the problem will be solved as soon as possible.

[feelingprettyred]

On 6/23/2020 at 12:39 PM, wonderings said:

Really have no idea how you are not getting 100% K in a PDF file. I set up this file in 2 mins and exported to PDF. K is 100%. No CMYK makeup.

Again as I posted before I made a new document with CMYK colour mode. Typed my text, made my black box. Set to 100% K in the slider. Export to PDF with "PDF for print" default option. I did not change anything in the more section. PDF is 100% K. Am I missing something here?

100 K.pdf 383.11 kB · 1 download 100 K.zip 31.79 kB · 3 downloads

I just downloaded your file, exported with no changes, print ready export, and when i took it into acrobat it wasn't 100k black. im having the same issues as everyone else and its driving me crazy, if i take the same file EPS it and Pdf via AI, it comes out perfect 100K black, deffo an affinity its problem but whyat i would love to know, apparently you're either bless by the print gods and able to 100k or you are not.

[wonderings]

25 minutes ago, feelingprettyred said:

I just downloaded your file, exported with no changes, print ready export, and when i took it into acrobat it wasn't 100k black. im having the same issues as everyone else and its driving me crazy, if i take the same file EPS it and Pdf via AI, it comes out perfect 100K black, deffo an affinity its problem but whyat i would love to know, apparently you're either bless by the print gods and able to 100k or you are not.

Does the PDF I uploaded not show 100% K as well or only the publisher file? If my PDF is fine for you then I still think there is a setting somewhere before exporting. 

I completely agree this is an Affinity problem, lots of people having this issue and this should not be complicated. I never even think about this and never have issues with any RIP I use, any outsourcing printer I use or internally for digital or offset. 

I just went through this again, downloaded my original publisher file from the post above. Opened it, exported as PDF and opened in Acrobat DC. Black is 100% K

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, feelingprettyred said:

I just downloaded your file, exported with no changes, print ready export, and when i took it into acrobat it wasn't 100k black.

Just in case: Because Affinity doesn't export with its presets "(for print)" and "(press ready)" a rendering intent you might get presented by Acrobat a differing result when watching the PDF with your default Acrobat profile AND if this is different to the profile embedded in the PDF. In that case choose the display profile in Acrobat according to the PDF profile to get for the same PDF content CMY values = 0.

[rizzosan67]

Hello
I don't know if the information can be useful but if you don't select the "embed profiles" check box, the pdf export keeps the black at 100%

Regards

[Lorox]

26 minutes ago, rizzosan67 said:

I don't know if the information can be useful but if you don't select the "embed profiles" check box, the pdf export keeps the black at 100%

If I remember correctly (it's been some time ago) the printing service which has been doing a lot of my print jobs once stated that they actually and specifically don't want to have any colour profiles embedded in the PDFs they receive for printing... They will just take for granted that you create the PDFs according to their specs (including the use of – say – ISOcoatedv2_300% profile for PDF export) and then print accordingly. Which especially means there will be no CMYK to CMYK conversion taking place within their workflow. The PDF just stays "as is“. So leaving the profile embedding option unticked while exporting may in fact be a good idea (though it may depend on the print service's actual workflow eventually).

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, Lorox said:

no CMYK to CMYK conversion

If you don't embed the profile but activate the "Convert…" option for export then you request a CMYK conversion to the exported data. If then the printer uses a different profile than the one of your .afpub (or its resources) then the 2nd conversion will happen. If the printer uses the same profile then your first conversion (on export) maybe redundant. – However, it still appears Affinity doesn't handle profiles on export quite well (unless on PDF/X export because of its output intent).

ps: possibly you had that thread in mind? https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/100969-pdf-export-problem-black-text-is-not-100-k-in-pdf/&tab=comments#comment-650790

 

[rizzosan67]

Hi Lorox

some printers say as a color profile they use, no others, so maybe it's better not to integrate it.

Regards