Deviation when printing from Affinity Publisher

[Ralph Hulick Art]

Whenever I print from within Affinity Publisher I consistently get darker prints. I have set the printer profile to the same that I used before getting the software, but when I print it's always darker. I have even printed from the file that I exported from AP and had more accurate results. Attached is a photo of the same image (both printed on 11"x17" glossy paper), the left one printed from within AP, and the right I printed from the exported pdf in Adobe Acrobat Reader. And it's not just color images either; I printed a grayscale calendar page both from within AP and from the exported pdf, and the one printed within AP is darker.

Is there a setting somewhere that I'm missing? I used to print from InDesign exclusively, but now I'm trying to switch to AP. I can still print fine from PDFs, but I'd really like to print accurately from within AP. Thanks in advance for any help!

[stokerg]

Hi Ralph,

Have you tried using the Soft Proof Adjustment as outlined on this link to see how things look on screen before printing from within Affinity?

[Ralph Hulick Art]

I have not yet, but I don't know why it would be relevant if it prints correctly from the outputted file. In my eye, it should print the same from within as it does from without if it's being printed from the same computer to the same printer.

[Ralph Hulick Art]

I tested several different profiles while I was using InDesign and found RGB: ASUS_ GL704GM_8086_AF06409D yielded the best printed results, so I've set up all my software to use that one. I invariably get better prints using RGB over CMYK, and have for years, so I know that isn't a problem; or at least, it shouldn't be if it works well in every other software.

[Ralph Hulick Art]

So, I want to start by thanking you all for reading my post and commenting with advice. As for my history, I have worked both in a printing shop and in a publishing house. My query is on what I need to do in Affinity Publisher to make it print accurately from within the program; every other program that I have printed from prints just fine, and the files that I export from AP print fine in other programs, so I know that the file colors are set correctly within AP. In my workflow I save paper and ink for testing by printing thumbnail size illustrations on an 11x17 glossy photo paper. In AP I have a layout set up with a grid of image frames; I will turn off all but the newest frame and put an updated illustration in it to print on the same page. The problem is that, since I cannot print accurately from within AP I have to export each step as another PDF and print from that. This ends up taking up a lot of storage space over time, as I like to keep everything for backlog purposes. It would make everything so much simpler if I could just tell Publisher to print the page, rather than export another file.

Thank you for putting up with my comments, and I hope we can find a solution quickly.

[ronnyb]

On 8/21/2020 at 5:53 PM, Ralph Hulick Art said:

 

A bit off topic, but I just wanted to commend you on the beautiful illustrations! 

 

[Ralph Hulick Art]

Thank you @ronnyb, I appreciate it!

[Ralph Hulick Art]

Okay, I just noticed that I was asked about the OS earlier and I forgot to respond.

OS -> Windows 10

Some of the information you're asking for I'm not sure where to find, so I made some screenshots of what I could and compiled it together. It's 20.6 mb, so give it time to load; also, it's vertical scroll format. I hope this helps to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

 

And thank you @BofG!

 

EDIT: In case you find it relevant, I don't care about display appearance, only print matters.

[Ralph Hulick Art]

As for Soft Proofing, nothing I set it to changes anything of the appearance in app. I put it on the top of the layers list, change the settings, nothing. I do my illustrations within printing gamut, so I wouldn't expect to have this much trouble getting the software to cooperate. The color profile is the one I settled on a while back after testing several profiles; it's the one that came with my laptop (a Republic of Gamers laptop). All that testing was done from InDesign and holds up to current, though only when I export.

I've attached a photo of a series of prints that I've done with minor changes between them; each change is directly after printing the previous. Nothing that I've changed has gotten me any better prints within the software.

[walt.farrell]

37 minutes ago, Ralph Hulick Art said:

As for Soft Proofing, nothing I set it to changes anything of the appearance in app. I put it on the top of the layers list, change the settings, nothing.

Can you upload a sample .afpub document with an image and a Soft Proofing adjustment set up on top of the layer stack, as you've tried?

[Ralph Hulick Art]

34 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Can you upload a sample .afpub document with an image and a Soft Proofing adjustment set up on top of the layer stack, as you've tried?

I made a new document and have included it and the image. Put them in the same location and it should read fine. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this.

Ralph Hulick Art_ Soft Proof Test.afpub

[walt.farrell]

Thanks.

First, I'll note that your sample .afpub file has this color information:

I am more used to seeing RGB/16 or RGB/8 for printing.

However, even with RGB/32 and the Linear color profile, I see changes in the image when I select different ICC profiles in the Soft Proof adjustment, or when I change the rendering intent. So I can't explain why you don't see anything change. Sorry.

[Ralph Hulick Art]

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. When I changed it around the ones above and below the ASUS option I saw no changes; when I change it to some others there are changes, like the Greyscale D50 it shows it grey, and others have some minor changes. But all the ones around the sRGB look the same.

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, Ralph Hulick Art said:

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. When I changed it around the ones above and below the ASUS option I saw no changes; when I change it to some others there are changes, like the Greyscale D50 it shows it grey, and others have some minor changes. But all the ones around the sRGB look the same.

Thanks for the clarification.

For reference, here's how your SoftProof Adjustment is set when I open your file:

I think that's the ASUS profile you mentioned.

My guess: You're soft-proofing using an ICC profile that is intended for display, not one that is intended for printing. All the sRGB-based display profiles are probably too close to each other for you to see the changes on the screen. And, generally in my experience, one would use display profiles for displaying and print profiles for printing

[Ralph Hulick Art]

Eureka! Okay, I want to thank all of you for putting up with me as we figured this out. Attached are the last two pages of printing edits. With everything that we went through, I discovered that the culprit was having the document set to RGB/32 (HDR). I changed it to RGB/8 as @BofG and @walt.farrell suggested and it worked. Just to make clear my testing I also tested it at RGB/16, RGB/16 exported and printed from Adobe, and RGB/16 with the original ASUS document setup. The colors printed just fine under both RGB/8 and RGB/16.

Also, something that we did through the process cleared up the slight green tinge and fixed the values, so, still not sure what did that, but thank you all so much! Now I can print directly from within Affinity Publisher!