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Affinity Designer - Colour Profiles


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Good morning everyone!

I have recently purchased Affinity Designer and am using a printer that has a Xerox Iridesse sheetfed digital press and was wondering if anyone could tell me what colour profile I should select when designing for this machine? I'd also like to know what profile to use for a B2 Lithographic press as I sometimes use this method if I have jobs that require larger quantities?

In the past I've never really been told or asked what I should use so have always used the default in Adobe and things have come out looking okay. However, if Im using the wrong profiles I'm sure things could look better than they already do from these wonderful bits of kit! 

If any printers or professionals could advise what you use in the UK for sheetfed digital and B2 lithographic work, Id be most appreciative! 

Many thanks,

Lee Hayes 

Edited by LeeJHayes
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Just now, BofG said:

The best thing you can do is ask the printer.

If they supply you with ICC profile(s) to use for output, you can use them in a soft proof adjustment layer so you will see on screen more accurately what will come out (provided your screen is decently set up).

Thanks for the speedy reply!

I thought colour profiles were a national/international standard for controlling colour and are created by measuring output from a range of machines and stock to ensure consistency between a range of stocks and printers. Have I interpreted this incorrectly? 

I will contact both of the printers and hopefully they can provide me with the info i need. I just thought there was a generic profile for each type of production (web, litho or digital)? 

 

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Update: 

I have been told by the printers that they use FOGRA51 for coated and FOGRA52 for uncoated papers so have installed these into affinity and they said they will do some free testing for me to see if the colours come out as expected. 

I will keep you guys posted on the results with Pantone swatch comparisons. 

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25 minutes ago, BofG said:

As far as I know, all you need do is drop them in the folder like you have done. Did you close and restart Designer? Failing that restart the computer.

When you do get them working, you might want to consider using an sRGB document and applying those profiles at export time to an X-4 pdf. You can use a soft proof adjustment layer whilst working to see the output. The uncoated version will be a much smaller gamut than the coated one.

Yes, I did all of this and turns out its a bug as mod mentioned below. 

Hopefully they will have a fix soon otherwise I'll jump back to Adobe for now as this is integral to my workflow. 

Do these document settings look okay to you? And then I would export using my ICC profiles once they work in the Export menu shown below? 

If you wouldnt mind sharing your document and export settings for digital printing that would be great?

Thanks for your help so far!

 

Screenshot 2020-11-30 at 16.13.06.png

Screenshot 2020-11-30 at 16.18.26.png

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Afternoon @MEB, any progress or information on ICC profiles not being picked up? 

This is integral to my business operation to ensure consistency through branding and was hoping to export some files for production today. 

Please let me know when we can expect an update that can rectify this issue. 

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1 hour ago, MEB said:

Hi LeeJHayes,
No, sorry. We are still investigating this. We will let you know/update this thread as soon as we have news (no eta).

Can I load this software onto another Mac running the previous OS as a workaround? 

How many macs will this license work on? 

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15 minutes ago, MEB said:

As long as you are the only one using the software for commercial purposes, yes, you can install it in more than one machine running the same OS (macOS in this case).

Perfect, hopefully this will allow me to get what I need to do finished and sent to my printer. 

I am a solo designer so yes, im the only person using the license and have a macbook and desktop mac so would be nice to have it on both. 

Thanks for your help and please keep me posted on the ICC profile bug. 

 

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4 hours ago, BenjaminGrenjamin said:

The "Import ICC Profile" entry in the File menu is a workaround for me! You have to install all the profiles you need manually in Affinity until this bug is fixed.

Hi Ben, 

I believe this is the workaround for Adobe photo, however this option isnt available in Designer or Publisher unfortunately. 

Unless someone can tell me different? 

 

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  • 7 months later...

Thanks. On my Mac there is no such folder in the user library. After creating it manually, it won't be recognised.

There is a folder /Application Support/Affinity Photo... but it does not have a profiles folder although I have imported profiles previously.

Is there a workaround for this? Would it work to open a Publisher file with Photo, then import the profile, and then continue working in Publisher?

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Note that the file location will be different for Affinity applications purchased directly from Serif than for those purchased from the Mac App Store (and for the Mac App Store, different on Big Sur than on other macOS versions):

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.7, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.7

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