Colour picker/Eyedropper often wrong

[FOXDIE]

Hello! I've been having an issue while I am painting using this software in which 30% of the time I use the Eyedropper / colour picker tool I get the wrong colour. Not horribly incorrect but very noticeable. I use the HSL color gamut when painting and the error typically manifest's itself into the chosen colour becoming very saturated or very dark. I've looked around on forums and discussion boards and I cant seem to find anyone else having this issue, but some people who've had similar suggest messing around with colour profiles. I have, and to no avail. I've tried reverting to older versions of Affinity Photo, as far back as 1.7 iirc and the issue persists, even with update 1.9. I tried unlocking the colour gamut so that it switches freely between RBG, CMYK  HSL LAB which kinda works but is not a great solution to my workflow, and iirc I still have this error. Any help would be much appreciated! If you need photos or comp specs let me know, I've not added in any as it seems to me right now that its unnecessary. 

[walt.farrell]

First, do you mean the Color Picker Tool (the eyedropper in the Tools panel, keyboard shortcut I), or the eyedropper next to the color wells in the Color panel (or Swatches panel, or several other places)?

Next, if you're not finding anyone else with the problem, we may need some more info. Can you record a video of the problem occurring, or supply a sample document where it occurs and describe your actions in more detail.

Or, for a guess, are you picking a color through an adjustment layer, and then painting under that adjustment? That is, consider a Layers panel setup like this:

The pixel layer is painted in the bright green shown on the color wheel, or in the upper left color well. However, if I use the eyedropper in the color panel to sample that color, I get the darker green because the picker is sampling from the screen, not from the layer. And the screen is affected by my Brightness/Contrast adjustment, which has made the green darker. If I now paint on that pixel layer, then (a) I paint in the darker color shown in the small color well, and (b) it is affected again by the adjustment layer. So not only did I pick the darker color seen on the screen, but if I paint it under that adjustment it is even darker.

In pictures, here the brighter green line was painted in the color shown in the upper left color well, but with the adjustment layer making it darker as you see here. The darker green line was painted in the color from the small color well next to the eyedropper, but as that pixel layer is below the adjustment, it became even darker.

If I paint a horizontal line above the adjustment layer using that picked color in the small well, I get this, showing that the picked color was accurately picked as it matches what I picked from.

 

[FOXDIE]

Thank you for replying so fast! No, it is not an adjustment layer issue and I should have specified it is the toolbar tool, not the dedicated one on the top right of the color panel. For instance I will typically hold "alt" on my keyboard as the hotkey, though the choosing to manually pick the eyedropper over the hotkey doesn't fix the error. I will provide a document specially made to showcase this. Using a color leftover from a painting I am working on I drew a square and used "alt" to color pick from the square multiple times until the error occurred. There is a scribble in the middle of the square demonstrating a saturation increase even though I've been "eyedroppering" the same colour from the square. I should mention that saving the document and waiting for 5 seconds helps resolve the issue temporarily, but not always. 

EyedropperError.afphoto

[FOXDIE]

just gunna bump this real quick

 

[Gabe]

Hi @FOXDIE,

Sorry for the delayed reply. 

I can't replicate the issue on my end. Any chance you can catch this in a screen recording? 

[FOXDIE]

Hello! I found some screen capturing software and made this. In the creation of making this Im beginning to think that this problem stems from me having two monitors (laptop + Cintiq 16) but I could be wrong.

[Gabe]

Very odd indeed. Do you use custom ICC profiles for your monitors? Can you replicate this with the Cintiq unplugged? 

[FOXDIE]

Hello! Sorry for the late reply. My week has been very draining and I've not had much time for any testing or art. I have, however, just tested running Affinity Photo without my cintiq attached to my laptop and I couldn't force the error to happen within ten minutes and am forced to assume that dual monitors is causing my issue. If any one has any ideas to solutions I am all ears!