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Is there a way to link duotone PSDs to a Publisher project?


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I've searched the forum and found a few discussions about the lack of duotone capabilities in Affinity products, which is shaping up to be a major problem for me as a photobook designer. I really want to keep supporting Affinity, though, and my printer is also trying to be super accommodating. They've converted all of the images from my current book for me to meet their specifications for duotone since I can't get Publisher to do it with the hopes I'd be able to relink the images to the duotone versions and export without any additional color conversion happening, but when I try to replace the images with the duotone PSDs I get a "file type not supported" error. Is there any way to make this work or am I just going to have to go back to InDesign for any black and white work?

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21 hours ago, Matthew Crowther said:

Is there any way to make this work or am I just going to have to go back to InDesign for any black and white work?

Welcome to the Affinity forums @Matthew Crowther!

Unfortunately Affinity does not seem to support Duotone PSD yet!? But you can try to work around with placing Photoshop PDF files. Perhaps your printer is again helpful and delivers you some Photoshop PDF for testing purposes?

Edited by Joachim_L
Corrected

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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I’m sad there really isn’t a workaround for this that keeps the duotone mode alive for the images. The ones I’ve seen in the forums here seem to find ways to fudge a duotone look, mostly with black and one spot color, but I’d really hoped by now there would be a way to be send true duotone b&w files to a printer. I really hope that support is added soon. As it stands I’ve had to subscribe to InDesign again, which is a shame because I prefer Publisher but if I can’t send the files to press nothing else matters.

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4 minutes ago, Matthew Crowther said:

I’m sad there really isn’t a workaround

? A Photoshop PDF is still a sort of image and keeping the duotone colours when the PDF is set to Passthrough. Attached is a triplex PDF you can try.

triplex-.pdf

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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30 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

? A Photoshop PDF is still a sort of image and keeping the duotone colours when the PDF is set to Passthrough. Attached is a triplex PDF you can try.

iirc, I believe this fails with any PDF/X type of export.

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4 minutes ago, MikeW said:

I believe this fails with any PDF/X type of export

True, but it does not fail for PDF press ready preset.

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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2 minutes ago, MikeW said:

90% of the print establishments I deal with require one of the main 3 pdf/x type of pdfs.

Then give the attached PDF a try if it works for you.

triplex-2.pdf

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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37 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Then give the attached PDF a try if it works for you.

Why would it work as a pdf/x type? But, I tried it anyway and it fails to retain the spot colors.

Do understand your test document isn't a duotone. It simply has two spot colors in it. A duotone is/can be a more complex interplay with the spot colors.

At some point, Serif simply needs to make the creation and use of duotone images possible. Just like it needs to with 1-bit images and their possible coloring. And to have different export resolutions for different types of images. And ...

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On 6/14/2021 at 6:49 PM, Matthew Crowther said:

I can't get Publisher to do it

It's kinda an awkward workflow, but you can create duo-, tri- or quadtone layouts in Affinity.
The first and most important step is, however:
Forget everything about how you've been doing it in Adobe apps for the past few decades, and start anew with a blank mindset.

More on that here:

… and also here:

 

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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46 minutes ago, loukash said:

It's kinda an awkward workflow, but you can create duo-, tri- or quadtone layouts in Affinity.
The first and most important step is, however:
Forget everything about how you've been doing it in Adobe apps for the past few decades, and start anew with a blank mindset.

More on that here:

… and also here:

 

I read those two posts while researching this before started this one. Unfortunately, nothing in them solves my problems here. They seem to be able to get the look of a duotone but that doesn't help with file compatibility across systems and processes and seem way too labor intensive for a large book with nothing but b&w images. I really hope Affinity adds a real fix for this so I can get back to using it.

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1 hour ago, Matthew Crowther said:

way too labor intensive for a large book

If that's what you're working on, then you'd likely better stick with Adobe for the time being. Some workflows ultimately require bulletproof tools…

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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