Essential features in Affinity Designer's color management missing

[Helge N]

I haven't been working with Affinity Designer for very long, but I'm taking a closer, more intensive look at the functions and am currently examining the color management more closely.
 The color management in Affinity Designer seems to be missing some important features:

1.
If I want to create a new color palette from an Affinity Designer document, in which also global colors were defined and used, these global colors are missing in the created palette. The colors and color values are there, but no longer as global colors.
The corresponding colors can also not be easily converted back into global colors.

2.
Unused, superfluous color fields can only be deleted individually, apparently there is no multiple selection. From my point of view a big shortcoming.

3.
Color swatches cannot be moved between palettes.

4.
Unused colors can't be selected automatically in the color management to delete them for example.

 

Maybe someone here can help me or correct me if I missed something

Best regards from Marburg, Germany

Helge

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Helge N said:

1.
If I want to create a new color palette from an Affinity Designer document, in which also global colors were defined and used, these global colors are missing in the created palette. The colors and color values are there, but no longer as global colors.

You didn't say how you're creating the palette. If you're using Create Palette from Document, make sure you select As Document Palette. Only a Document Palette can have global colors:

[Knorzel52]

The color management seems to be complicated (at least during the process of development). So I agree with Helge N + in addition this:

5.

I want to use Pantone 547 C (Publisher). Where is it possible to type in the number? (I can't find the correct color under hundreds of colors using the colorpicker.)

6.

If I did decide for a color: is Pantone 313 replaceable by process blue?

7.

Color replacement in a document: The figures seem not to be bound to color. If I change the color it doesn't change the figure so I'm not able to find a bad color without using Acrobat (So I have to pay for Acrobat!)

8.

Preview of the color separation before making a PDF? (CMYK and Pantone ... So I have to pay for Acrobat!)

9.

HKS are quite often a better choice than Pantone. (Either: Pantone plus HKS or keep the possibility of renaming the colors.)

10.

Two solid colors combined? (I don't want to correct text twice in two textboxes with multiplicated colors.)

There are certainly other wishes. Please stay simple ... (8. is probably not that easy. 9 is not that important. The others are ...)

 

I need a good development tool, a replacement for Freehand or at least InDesign. There is nothing like FH on the market since a lot of years. Contact me personally if you want.

Best regards from Zurich/Switzerland

[loukash]

3 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

Where is it possible to type in the number?

Swatches panel > Pantone > the search field at the bottom of the panel

3 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

is Pantone 313 replaceable by process blue?

To convert a spot color to process:

1. select the Pantone swatch to "load" it
2. open Color panel
3. switch the panel view via "hamburger" menu to Sliders > CMYK
4. switch back to Swatches
5. click the Add current fill to palette "button"
6. optional: make the CMYK swatch global

4 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

Color replacement in a document

Use "global" swatches, then Select > Select Same > […]

4 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

Preview of the color separation before making a PDF?

Sadly, none.

4 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

pay for Acrobat!

Your next best free option at the moment is Ghostscript. See this thread starting with my post:

… and read on from there for more development and further options.

4 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

Two solid colors combined? (I don't want to correct text twice in two textboxes with multiplicated colors.)

You mean duotone? / Meinst du Duplex?

4 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

I need a good development tool, a replacement for Freehand or at least InDesign.

The Affinity suite is on a good track there. The actual "killer feature", however, is the Studio Link, i.e. the combination of all three apps within Publisher, and the universal and "app agnostic" document format, i.e. regardless if it's afdesign, afpub or afphoto, you can open, edit and add unique features with either of the three apps to any of the document type. E.g. create an afdesign artboard based document with Designer, open it with Publisher, add all of its unique text features, edit on in Publisher's Designer or Photo persona as you see fit. This is a totally unique workflow, all of the missing – and arguably important – functions notwithstanding.

4 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

There is nothing like FH on the market since a lot of years.

I hear you! I still haven't recovered from Schmadobe's coup when they took my beloved Freehand away from me and forced me to "upgrade" the their Ill-conceived Ill-frustrator…

4 hours ago, Knorzel52 said:

Best regards from Zurich/Switzerland

Ä bärndüütsche Gruess us Basu

[Dazmondo77]

As a workaround, you can create a set of globals and assign it as a default palate, but this only works with new documents - just go to burger menu and import as document palate then set as default (I have it default for CMYK) - if it doesn't show up when you create a new document, you may find that you have to click on your palette name and roll up to document palette which should be your globals.

I've included my process globals palette in case you want to try it out 

Process globals.afpalette

[loukash]

On 4/22/2021 at 1:47 PM, Knorzel52 said:

Two solid colors combined? (I don't want to correct text twice in two textboxes with multiplicated colors.)

Aha, jetzt verstehe ich: Mischdruckfarbe! Wusste gar nicht, dass es sowas in InDesign gibt, weil ich es in den letzten, weiss nicht, 15 Jahren nie benötigte.

Not available in Affinity.

But you can work around it:

1. assign spot (global if you wish) swatch #1 to text
2. assign spot global overprint swatch #2 to a rectangle (or which ever shape your text frame is)
3. clip the rectangle with the text frame

The text remains editable and displays the color of the clipped rectangle.

To preview the overprint effect in Publisher/Designer, temporarily set the clipped rectangle blend mode to Multiply.
But an exported PDF (X-3 here) will overprint correctly:

Edited April 23, 2021 by loukash

[fde101]

On 4/22/2021 at 7:47 AM, Knorzel52 said:

I don't want to correct text twice in two textboxes with multiplicated colors.

Use character styles to apply the colors instead of coloring the text directly.

[loukash]

4 minutes ago, fde101 said:

Use character styles to apply the colors instead of coloring the text directly.

And how do you apply two spot colors as a character style?
The only other very ugly and dirty workaround known to me is an inside-aligned stroke set to the other spot swatch, and either one set to overprint, depending on the z-position of the stroke. Unfortnately, an inside-aligned stroke won't always fill every character shape; some characters will have holes.

[loukash]

3 hours ago, loukash said:

But you can work around it:

1. assign spot (global if you wish) swatch #1 to text
2. assign spot global overprint swatch #2 to a rectangle (or which ever shape your text frame is)
3. clip the rectangle with the text frame

The text remains editable and displays the color of the clipped rectangle.

Just to add:

You can clip as many rectangles as you want, i.e. overprint individual words or lines or use different spot colors.
What you can't do is to reflow the clipped rectangles. If the text reflows, you must reposition every rectangle manually.

What you can do however, is to apply the same workaround to individual words in their own text frames, and pin those into a parent textframe as inline object to make them flow with the rest: