Publisher Colour Chooser gives two different CMYK value sets.

[SamSteele]

Win 7 Publisher V. 1.10.0.1127

Why does the colour chooser give me TWO sets of values for one CMYK colour? (BTW, colour is spelled with a "u" in my version of the program). And, there is no "Help" entry no matter which way I spell colour. The red circled values are the ones recorded with the swatch panel.

[iconoclast]

Hi SamSteele!

The sliders on top have 256 possible values per channel (0-255 - like in RGB), the other ones on the right use percentage terms (0-100%).

[R C-R]

41 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

The sliders on top have 256 possible values per channel (0-255 - like in RGB), the other ones on the right use percentage terms (0-100%).

FWIW, on my Mac the sliders go from 0 to 100, same as the CMYK fields. Maybe a difference in the Mac vs. Windows versions?

EDIT: I first tested this in APub, since that was the app indicated in the topic title. I have now tested it in AP (same as APub) & in AD, where the top sliders go from 0-255 & the CMYK fields go from 0 to 100.

[SamSteele]

2 hours ago, iconoclast said:

Hi SamSteele!

The sliders on top have 256 possible values per channel (0-255 - like in RGB), the other ones on the right use percentage terms (0-100%).

I have never seen CMYK sec'd as other than 0—100%. The 0—255 sliders are fake—and distracting—as far as I'm concerned. Some computer nerd fooling around??

[anto]

Check if color is CMYK in top right.

 

[anto]

This work only on Colour panel.

If you open Swatches panel color is wrong.

Color Swatches is the one of the biggest bug not solved by years.

 

[lacerto]

I just installed Windows version 1.10.3 and the behavior seems to be the same as before (or might be partially fixed). I am not sure which conditions trigger which behavior but it seems that that if you double click the color from the Color and the Swatches panel, you can have Percentage reading in one (former) and 8-bit reading in another (latter). Having initially an 8-bit based RGB color selected seems to force CMYK sliders in Color Chooser also be shown in 8-bit scale.

When accessed from within the Color panel, having initially a percentage-based CMYK color selected shows the percentage based sliders also in the Color Chooser. If 8-bit reading is selected from the hamburger menu of the Color panel for CMYK sliders, the setting will be honored also when accessing the Color Chooser from within the Color panel.

On macOS, the old bug where 8-bit / Percentage display (chosen from the hamburger menu of the Color panel) is used both for RGB and CMYK seems to be still unfixed (I think the user should be able to choose whether 8-bit or percentange scale is shown as per color model, as on Windows, since it is common that RGB values are shown in 8-bit scale and CMYK values in percentages).

EDIT: On macOS (I have only tested Publisher) the feature seems to be much buggier otherwise, too, since there does not seem to exist sync between the percentage and 8-bit display of the CMYK values of the sliders of the Color panel and the Color Chooser, so when the display goes 8-bit in the latter, I do not know how it can be reverted to percentage display (it possibly got buggier now in 1.10.3).

[iconoclast]

5 hours ago, SamSteele said:

I have never seen CMYK sec'd as other than 0—100%. The 0—255 sliders are fake—and distracting—as far as I'm concerned. Some computer nerd fooling around??

Yes, it's verry unusual. Don't know if it makes any sense. I saw something somehow similar before with the Alpha channel (RGBA). As far as I remember, it was in GIMP. Normally the Alpha channel also is defined in percentage from 0 to 100. But there it was in values from 0 to 255.

[lacerto]

12 hours ago, iconoclast said:

Don't know if it makes any sense.

In a way it does make sense when there is no support for showing tonal variations in exact percentages (as decimal display is not supported in Affinity apps for CMYK color values, as it is e.g. in Illustrator, InDesign, CorelDRAW and VectorStyler) -- in input decimals seem to be supported, though.

Conversely, RGB values are not typically shown in percentages but it is good that it is supported in Affinity apps, as e.g. Adobe Acrobat Pro shows RGB color values in percentages.

[Old Bruce]

I only see 0 to 100 for the CMYK values in all three applications.

However I see something weird with the CMYK sliders jumping around... Doesn't matter if the document is CMYK or RGB.

[Hangman]

@Old Bruce I spotted that as well and posted about it here, though this is only happening with CMYK values for me, RGB values are are working as expected (i.e., without the jumpy behaviour)...

 

[lacerto]

Here are fresh screenshots of Publisher and Designer 1.10.3 (on macOS):

At first the CMYK sliders used percentage scale exclusively but as I was playing around a while (switching between 8-bit and percentage displays, color definition models, opening the Color Chooser dialog alternately from the Colors and the Swatches panel), the 8-bit CMYK scale appeared and I have not managed to revert to percentage view no matter what in either app (it does not matter which scale is chosen from the Hamburger menu). Affinity Photo is the only one that still displays percentage CMYK scale in the Color Chooser, and might well keep it because it behaves color-definition-wise differently than AD and APub.

As mentioned, on Windows the scale is synced with Color Panel (even if the dialog needs to be reopened, and even if RGB 8-bit scale always also triggers 8-bit scale for the Color Chooser CMYK sliders). Windows versions also allow specify 8-bit and percentage scale independently for CMYK and RGB.

[Hangman]

Seems a little 'odd' that Serif would have different behaviours between Windows and Mac apps so would certainly be interesting to hear from someone there to clarify whether this is by design (on Windows) or actually a bug since the behaviour appears to be Windows specific?

[Old Bruce]

I would say the bug is in the CMYK values being more than 100. The CMYK are inks for use in presses, with the zero to 100 being the amount of coverage expressed as a percentage.

[iconoclast]

Just now, Hangman said:

Seems a little 'odd' that Serif would have different behaviours between Windows and Mac apps so would certainly be interesting to hear from someone there to clarify whether this is by design (on Windows) or actually a bug since the behaviour appears to be Windows specific?

I think it's a bug.

If you drag the point in the colourfield of Publisher's colourchooser to the top - so absolute white - all values of all CMYK-sliders turn to "0", except the Magenta-slider of the sliders on top: it has a value of "1". But this only seems to happen with the FOGRA 27 colour profile. Verry confusing!

[lacerto]

11 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I would say the bug is in the CMYK values being more than 100.

I do not think so. The Colors panel has in the hamburger (context) menu options for scales. For CMYK the options are 8-bit (values 0 to 255, i.e. the number of tonal variations that an 8-bit color component can have), and Percentage. As I have mentioned above, other apps (Corel, InDesign, Illustrator, VectorStyler etc.) accept decimal CMYK values, which allows accurate display of tonal variation within a percentage scale. Affinity apps take the decimal input but do not display it. But 8-bit scale works. For RGB the scale values are 8-bit, 16-bit and Percentage, and this works fine on Windows. Both color models have and retain separate scales. The macOS implementation is all confused, the Windows version less so. 

EDIT: Attached is a gradient in cyan from values 200 to 255. Works perfectly even if saved and shown in fractional percentages when opened in e.g. Illustrator. When opened in Designer, it shows integer percentages (because as far as I know Affinity apps cannot show decimals), but the apps support fractions, and when the scale is changed to 8-bit, integer values 200 to 255 (converted from fractional percentages) are shown.

cmyk8bit.eps

[Hangman]

On 10/25/2021 at 11:11 PM, SamSteele said:

Win 7 Publisher V. 1.10.0.1127

Why does the colour chooser give me TWO sets of values for one CMYK colour? (BTW, colour is spelled with a "u" in my version of the program). And, there is no "Help" entry no matter which way I spell colour. The red circled values are the ones recorded with the swatch panel.

That's because Serif is a UK company so they've spelt colour the correct way... 😂

So, the problem/issue turns out to be very simple... basically changing colour values between 8 bit and Percentage using the hamburger menu in the colour palette updates the sliders in the Colour Palette correctly but this doesn't pass through to the Colour Chooser until the respective app is closed and re-opened.

1. If you open a new or existing document and the Colour Palette is set to CMYK 8 bit, double clicking the fill colour to open the Colour Chooser will also display CMYK 8 bit sliders.
2. Close the Colour Chooser.
3. Change the Colour Palette to Percentage from the hamburger menu and the Colour Palette sliders update correctly to reflect the change however,  open the Colour Chooser again and it still shows CMYK 8 bit sliders.
4. Close the Colour Chooser and then Quit Publisher (or any of the apps, it affects all of them) and re-open the document, when the Colour Chooser is opened again it will now correctly display CMYK Percentage sliders.

NB: The app has to be closed, not just the document and the same issue exists with RGB colour as well.

This explains why it is possible to see a mix of CMYK 8 bit and Percentage values in the colour Chooser at the same time.

Having said that the CMYK values displayed in the Colour Chooser on the right hand side only ever display as percentage values which means when using 8 bit there will always be a mix of both 8 bit and Percentage values shown in the Colour Chooser, so my question would be, should both the RGB and CMYK values on the right of the Colour Chooser update to reflect the respective slider values, i.e. 8 bit or Percentage values?

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

So, the problem/issue turns out to be very simple... basically changing colour values between 8 bit and Percentage using the hamburger menu in the colour palette updates the sliders in the Colour Palette correctly but this doesn't pass through to the Colour Chooser until the respective app is closed and re-opened.

Thanks! That explains why I was getting different results on my Mac with the different apps -- I never really paid any attention to the CMYK hamburger 8 bit/percent options until you mentioned this.

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

so my question would be, should both the RGB and CMYK values on the right of the Colour Chooser update to reflect the respective slider values, i.e. 8 bit or Percentage values?

For CMYK, I would not mind if they always show percentage values & the top sliders always show 8 bit values. For RGB, I would like to see the top sliders show 8, 16 (or 32?) bit values depending on the document's color format. I would also like to see the percentage fields accept & display fractional values at whatever decimal precision the bit depth of the format permits.

[SamSteele]

34 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Thanks! That explains why I was getting different results on my Mac with the different apps -- I never really paid any attention to the CMYK hamburger 8 bit/percent options until you mentioned this.

For CMYK, I would not mind if they always show percentage values & the top sliders always show 8 bit values. For RGB, I would like to see the top sliders show 8, 16 (or 32?) bit values depending on the document's color format. I would also like to see the percentage fields accept & display fractional values at whatever decimal precision the bit depth of the format permits.

To be honest, I went back to my document where this occurred and I don't know how I got there. However, I'm glad to see the phenomenon has been given a good airing. I'm not sure if 4C print shops (or digital printers) can reproduce individual inks to 1 or more decimal places (i.e 34% magenta ink, yes, but not 34.2% or 34.25% magenta ink). Some printer will tell us, I'm sure. Always listen to your printer!

Cheers.