Ideal Publisher PDF Export Settings for Kindle/Amazon Printing (or for Coherent Image in General)

[natecombsmedia]

Hey friends,

I would love to know if anyone has some steps in Publisher to get foolproof and coherent PDFs every time. I recently did a book cover for an Amazon KDP (Kindle) book that printed "fine" for the paperback, but visibly shows a subtle outline of things that are grouped or have certain effects applied (not exactly sure which one). I'm pretty sure it is in the paperback too, but just can't be seen.

It's basically a black box of a slightly different shade (cover is a black background, bad version attached) that reaches to the width and height of the elements it affects. You can't see it on a screen, but something in Amazon's printers detects it and messes it up...even the author easily noticed on the print when I pointed it out.

My typical export settings in the past have been PDF > Press Quality > 300dpi, include bleed. This option also has "include layers" unchecked by default in the "more" tab.

Since some of my effects are on the elements themselves and some are on larger groupings, I just want to see if I can learn anything before ungrouping everything and redoing effects (outer glow/gaussian blur also looks very degraded printed, but author requested for text if anyone has any ideas for a neater print).

Other options I am digitally playing with are:

• exporting with every layer/group rasterized (looks pixelated digitally close up, as expected)
• exporting without allowing JPEG compression (quality 98) on the "more" tab
• trying PDF > Flatten > 300dpi (objects will be rasterized), include bleed, uncheck include layers...which exported in half a second, far faster than the other PDF times. Seems similar to pre-rasterizing and using press quality

It seems obvious that something is happening with individual layers and Amazon is interpreting it like magazine cutouts pasted onto black paper, but any ideas would be greatly appreciated as I don't want to have to send the author tons of versions and then buy and wait for several copies of the book, which is now live, to test what exactly will do the trick!

Thank you all.

Slit Throat Saga Hard Cover.pdf

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Dan C]

Hi @natecombsmedia,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

10 hours ago, natecombsmedia said:

visibly shows a subtle outline of things that are grouped or have certain effects applied

What you're describing here sounds related to transparencies in the PDF file, which can occur when blending layers over each other etc.

10 hours ago, natecombsmedia said:

My typical export settings in the past have been PDF > Press Quality > 300dpi, include bleed. This option also has "include layers" unchecked by default in the "more" tab.

Amazon recommend using a 'PDF/X-1a' format when exporting to PDF, which should address the aforementioned transparency issues. When exporting from Affinity, please open the 'More...' dialog and then set the Compatibility to PDF/X-1a, or alternatively use the PDF/X-1a preset built in.

I hope this helps

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[natecombsmedia]

Thank you both!

I have done probably 35 covers for Amazon, the first few being with Adobe stuff before Affinity had Publisher. But for the rest, all Affinity! Now, I typically do my vector-heavy covers in Designer and my Photo-based and text/typography-heavy covers in Publisher, pulling photo edits directly from Photo. None of them have had visible issues with paperbacks luckily, though they were definitely exported in this same, not-ideal way. I guess with their recent release of hardcovers, it makes the issue apparent!

I will revisit all of my settings later today to get this all set as a standard for the future. A few things would really help me to export right if you don't mind a few more clarifications:

• I have looked into flattening with Publisher, and it doesn't seem possible like you can in Photo. Checked the forum too. When I played with flattening export types, that seemed to do the trick. So exporting with PDF/X-1a formats will act as my flattening agent, correct? This is one of the main things I wanted to get right before sending off new covers.
• Should I also rasterize things myself before exporting or just use PDF/X-1a assuming Amazon will rasterize again?
• I do have RGB versions for the various web formats. And yes, I find the CMYK versions always desaturate, though the digital versions look vivid and awesome. However, Amazon does request CMYK for print covers. @lacerto Are you saying that I should design everything as RGB and convert printing materials to CMYK later on myself? Or are you saying I should send them RGB set up a specific way so they can convert it? I may need some of your instructions there and on document color setup for conversions explained a little simpler.
• I guess my black background has four all four 100% values (but nothing else does), and you are saying just to use the K value. I will adjust that. I have had issues in the past with interiors (since interior book formatting is more my main Publisher skill) having blacks jump around to different values, including with this book. I had to go through and force every section to full black, and ended up using the grayscale option since CMYK was giving so much trouble and jumping around to random low percentages on C,M, and Y. I thought maybe Publisher doesn't like a 0% values. Should I use the grayscale for blacks and then verify the other three colors didn't get added in the CMYK interpretation, which is what I ultimately ended up doing with the interior of this same book?

Thanks again.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[natecombsmedia]

Thank you! @lacerto I will get all this sorted out, especially since now that they are offering hardcover. I'm going to have to probably make new covers for some old projects who want to offer that option. (And yes, they do have separate uploads and image files for hardcover, paperback, e-book, and vella, hence the mix of RGB and CMYK docs).

Regarding grayscale for the interior, assuming that is safe to use since my layouts never have color. And in this particular case, I think I actually did the first couple chapters as RGB 0, 0, 0 before realizing changing the grayscale did indeed set those same RGB values. Both also kept the CMYK from freaking out and doing whatever it wanted.

Thanks again. I will let you all know if I have any more confusion.

[natecombsmedia]

Ok, I found another company called One Bookshelf Publisher that has a whole walkthrough on how to actually see (and theoretically get proper) ink coverage in Affinity, intended for publishing through them. It looks like Photo can display it (only on the area your mouse hovers over). They, of course, recommend downloading their color profile and converting to eliminate all issues. Perhaps that will be a good option. I wouldn't know. They recommend fixing it all in Photo if you have any photography before doing anything in Publisher.

For where I am, I did take the C, M, and Y values down to 0 (still in Photo), not planning to keep it there (this company does recommend it for them, perhaps for "ease"). @lacerto As you showed, 100%K was kind of grayish. I then, took K down to 0 so my rectangle was white, moved to RGB, and moved the full white down to 0, 0, 0. It then gave a nice black, slightly lighter than my previous rectangle.

However, when I flip back to CMYK, the values are 72, 68, 67, 88, which gives me a 294% ink coverage. This may also be what was happening in my interior. That's slightly different values than the conversion you mentioned. This company also said if you don't like the 100%K and want a richer black, then do 60, 40, 40, 100 but to be careful with layering. The hand shadow also sticks out, so I will have to actually mask it properly. The reason I didn't before is because making the bottom transparent was completely desaturating instead of a nice fade.

In the meantime, I noticed it is in Web-Coated (at least since sending to Photo) since authors almost always need their digital versions first. I will see if I can convert it and learn more. This book in particular is going to be a bit of a bigger deal, along with another coming after it, so I want to make sure I am doing it pristine. Thanks again for all the help!

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[natecombsmedia]

5 hours ago, lacerto said:

I am sure that changing to a printer that has properly color managed workflow and that knows Affinity apps is a good choice. I am not saying that you would get poorer results with Amazon (provided that you can deliver what they ask) but at least you get more individual service and possibly also detailed step-by-step instructions.

Thanks. The authors are all still with Amazon. I just found that option on the other site and didn't know if any of it would be helpful developing my own Amazon-based standard. They did say that if you use their color profile, you do need to export as a TIFF as you suggested. But because it is not specific to my case, I have been following your instructions on getting my ink coverage down. I mainly used that site to learn how to have Affinity show my ink coverage since I don't have Acrobat Pro.

I think I just discovered a little "genius" idea. Publisher has a Photo persona, and with it I can view the total ink coverage without leaving Publisher. The main thing I have to figure out now is getting the hand just right. Red is a pretty hard color to make rich in CMYK, and I did indeed use some adjustments to compensate for the orangey lack of saturation compared to the RGB files. Nothing is raterized or flattened, and using transparency in any way changes the skin to brown/gray in the parts that fade, which is why I originally painted the bottom shadows with a reduced-hardness black. The problem there I am still trying to figure out is black also fades saturation like a transparency unless I use a different blend mode. Multiply is what I had it as...but that is showing as an obvious different black over the rectangle. I can make the hand a selection and paint a new layer from the inside, but I don't know if it is possible to refine a selection so perfectly as to get exactly to the border without bleeding over to the black. I will have to play some more. The original RGB edit had no issues with transparency.

I deleted the original painted shadow, and to my surprise, none of the red is a higher percentage than the black anymore. Before, the darkest red spots were. For now, I will paint my new RGB 0,0,0 black to shadow properly fade from hand to nothing and hope it doesn't take me over any limits. And with the X-1a:2003 export, my original transparency issue will be fixed. Glad I had it though and used a lot of groups on this particular cover, or I wouldn't have learned all this!

Thanks for being patient with me. Yes, to your understanding of my reference to Web Coated. That is the document's default color profile. I never reassigned anything for the print version. Should I change to Sheetfed Coated v2? In both Photo and the Photo persona, I have the options to assign or convert color profile. And finally, being at the end of the project, would I do that after everything is finished and make adjustments (if that is a necessity), or should I stop what I'm doing and convert/assign as early on in the project as possible?

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

 

[natecombsmedia]

Interesting, thank you @lacerto.

On Thursday, I did end up redoing the hand and blend mode to leave no black paint beyond its border. In the RGB version, it was so easy to just fade it to black and retain natural lighting as requested (though the full hand without bottom shading looks lively and nice too).

I had also done some of those steps in the video and got as far as where you had the black at 294%. Since I didn't have the video yet, I was unsure of what conversion methods might be best. It was great to be able to see your steps for achieving 238%.

I have two and a half questions.

1. I have the RGB files, and though they are formatted for digital heights and widths, it's a matter of saving another version with the paperback and hardcover dimensions and pasting over some additional text. When you say your preference for Publisher is working with RGB and letting the PDF export convert, does that mean a PDF X-1a:2003 export will do it all for me? That would save tremendous amounts of time and effort. I want to make sure I'm not missing any steps of manual conversion first.
2. I noticed that the conversions in the video greatly reduced the saturation of the hand and even left it skin-tone color and washed out in the shadows (the huge issue I kept running into with shadows in CMYK). Since the character has deep red skin, I needed to avoid any altering of colors. Would working in RGB and converting at the PDF retain it at least to the level it was where I uploaded it (which is slightly less saturated than the RGB version)?

Finally, my half question-comment is looking at my proofs, both hardcover and paperback, the red is actually nice and rich (about where I aimed for with the RGB version despite the PDF looking a little less saturated on screens), and the blacks other than where I needed to flatten to fix transparency on the hardcover still printed. Since I originally gave the author the same files I uploaded here, what sort of conversion, etc. do you think they did to my files? I know Amazon has way more locations printing now than they did before, so that may be through their own branches or through outsourcing to printers in big cities (final page has which city each book prints in). The files I gave the author Thursday night were exported X-1a:2003 and 294% black, trying to stay below the extreme 323% you mentioned in another reply. I'm wondering if I should do it again and get it down to 238% or just know for the next cover, which I'm already working on (no black, luckily, but dark purples that show up wildly different on different screens and brightnesses and through the Kindle apps).

Thanks yet again!

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[natecombsmedia]

@lacerto Yeah, printing and print specs are a beast. Thanks for all the help! I'll definitely be looking at working with print in RGB in the future and perhaps test what they actually do to get it to have richer results. (I did look back at the hardcover and paperback proofs, and the hardcover is a bit richer, perhaps the reason why the transparencies stood out).

[natecombsmedia]

On 6/21/2022 at 12:40 AM, lacerto said:

If this is a problem (and you would rather have your RGB cover to match the desaturated colors of the CMYK version), then the best method to achieve this (if RGB conversions is really needed) is to open the CMYK PDF version in Publisher and tell it at open time that it is in RGB color mode (even if it is not) and then just export to a digital RGB, and you would get something like this:

Ok, yes. This is actually a problem but in reverse. So basically, from the same author, I have another cover for a book that isn't releasing print and Kindle editions until the end of the year on Amazon.

• The whole issue that arose with the Slit Throat Saga cover is that I wanted the CMYK to be more rich like the RGB, not the RGB matching the more desaturated version. That's why I was surprised they printed so saturated.
• In order to do that, I originally sent the RGB files to the CMYK doc, which desaturated them, and I added a bit more red through adjustment layers to bring back most of what it desaturated, getting everything to appear on screen as close as possible to the RGB covers. This is the file you have from me.

On this new cover, I had originally begun in CMYK and developed a fairly desaturated version to start with.

• Text was a bit dull, but I had plenty of room to liven up the purple background since it had a lot of gray in it.
• I tested deeper purple levels to have options for a more rich look, which she ended up preferring.

Today, I converted the desaturated one we had initially moved forward with to RGB

• Instantly, the blues got to where I needed them, and the purple jumped to where the author liked on the second pass.
• Of course, it exports great as RGB
• When I export as PDF X-1a:2003, it coverts nearly exactly back to the original desaturated version, which I expected from your example above.

I think the reason it printed so deep for Slit Throat Saga was because I made two versions. I was thinking doing everything from one RGB "standard" of colors could save a bit of time when creating each edition (interior not done yet, so no defined spine width for print covers). There's no way to reverse engineer what you did is there and create a single RGB standard and convert to a richer CMYK? It seems as if I may have to make two versions after all, matching them the best I can.

Also, it looks like the purples locked in hard at 291% TAC within Affinity. Here are the three references if you want to see the differences. I slightly adjusted purples in the RGB one differences, so the CMYKs won't match quite as much. As you can see, I had to up the opacity of the background texturing, which sticks out terribly on the RGB to CMYK version. It also seems after exporting, the TAC went up. I don't have Acrobat Pro but tested in Photo.

Test CMYK.pdf Test RGB to CMYK.pdf

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[natecombsmedia]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Thank you. I will check if manual adjustments are best or if Amazon can convert RGB files for print. Thanks again. I think that's everything finally!

[natecombsmedia]

So time finally came for this other cover to be due, and the proof is terribly different from any appearance on any screen. Luckily, the author was able to show me what the cover looks like uploaded to Amazon before printing happens, and that seems to be where the change happens because it prints very close to the Amazon preview, which is wayyyy off from my design.

This led to some investigating, and it looks like Amazon has a list of requests to keep your covers looking as close as possible to what you want. One of those requests is to use no ICC color profile as they will remove it. However, Affinity doesn't seem to have a way to design with no color profile assigned. And assigning or using the soft proof adjustment to see other profile previews does not get me close to what they are doing to these purples, which come out nearly black even after making it much lighter.

Is there a way to see/edit what it would look like without a profile? Or is there a profile that would help me get closer to whatever they are doing to it?

Another option I will try today is exporting a jpeg and having her use their color creator tool to make it. Theoretically, if it is perfect as a jpeg, which is required to use their cover creator, they will do all the assigning, unassigning, and whatever other converting they do there and perhaps keep it looking good.

[natecombsmedia]

It seems the RGB method is indeed the way to go. Eliminates a lot of issues and matching along the way. She said it uploads and approves still looking like the original design through the cover creator. Whatever conversion they do must not affect jpegs. Gonna have a proof sent and hopefully with it, a much better process for the future!

[Cedar]

Why are there so many posts by lacerto that say Obsolete? By the read of posts on this thread he was providing info I might need to solve my RGB PDF problem.

[lacerto]

On 10/6/2024 at 3:27 AM, Cedar said:

Why are there so many posts by lacerto that say Obsolete?

This is basically a result of my quota having become full of images and videos. I have once asked Serif to remove about half or so oldest so that I can have more room, and once done myself qualitative deletions. As a big percentage of my posts have attachments, just deleting attachments would make them pretty much useless. I got fed up with their policy and decided to delete everything I have written so far...

Things also get obsolete because apps change along development, and needs are often somehow unique and deserve individual attention. I am happy to help again anyone needing assistance or advice!

[Cedar]

Thank you for your informed reply, lacerto.

My current problem is learning how to remove the white border around pages in Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 as they show up when I convert to PDF and they are still there after I convert to PDF and TIFF and upload to Kindle Direct Publishing. This is not okay. I need to figure out a way to eliminate the white borders. I thin it has to do with my black layer I created to make a black background. It must extend past the page boundaries and I think the problem is i there somewhere. Here is the line showing after uploading to KDP:

Here is the line (greyish because behind black lager is my guess, but still there) in Affinity Publisher:

 

Edited October 7, 2024 by Cedar
I replaced an image.