Help exporting gradients to pdf

[TristanN]

I'm having serious trouble exporting my file. Originally I had my colour profiles set to RGB and when I changed to CMYK there was some funny business with colouring. To make sure I wasn't outside the colour gamet I reset the colours with new CMYK ones. Then I started a new document to test the colours. This is where the trouble really started.

I made 3 squares on top of one another. Solid colours top and bottom and the middle had a gradient running between them. I've attached pictures so you can see. One of them worked and the others had colours messed up. I feel as though I've run through every colour setting but I'm not sure anymore.

Curiously, the working document only worked when I set export to rasterise nothing. In contrast, I can force the broken versions to work by manually rasterising them. I'd prefer to not do this to keep editing and scaling capabilities.

Even with the working version the exported colours are a bit muted, though I made the document in CMYK. Am I missing something with my export settings, document setup? It's not making any sense.working gradient.pdf

broken gradient.pdf broken gradient 2.pdf

[TristanN]

If this helps, I've managed to solve the problem by saving as PDF/x-1:2003. It preserves the colour and there's no need to alter the rasterisation setting. 

I'd still like feedback on what is going on here though if anybody can help? It doesn't feel like this should be the correct solution.

[Dan C]

Hi @TristanN,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

I'm glad to hear you've been able to find a workaround for this issue, however without a copy of the Affinity document, and a screenshot of your PDF export settings (including the 'More...) options, I'm not 100% certain of the 'expected' result in the PDF files you've provided.

Can you please provide a copy of the Affinity document(s) before exporting, and a screenshot of said export settings so I can investigate this further?

Many thanks in advance!

[TristanN]

Absolutely! I've taken a a bunch of screenshots ranging from setting up a new document, making the design, viewing the document setup and then the pdf export settings. I've done it with both the pdf and pdf/X-1a:2003 formats. Then I've added a screenshot me placing the pdf into the file to view the colour changes. Oh and the actual file.

Help would be much appreciated! I really need to solve this colour change issue.

broken version.afpub test pdfX-:1a.pdf test.pdf

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing these for me!

I can see that when comparing the two PDF files provided in Acrobat, the same values are used for the colour fills, and the CMYK profile is used in both files:

However as you can see, PDF/X-1a uses 'Output Intent' for the Coated SWOP profile, whereas the '1.7' PDF embeds this directly as the Colour Space - this is expected behaviour when using PDF/X-1a.

Can you please confirm for me, in your comparison screenshot of both gradients side-by-side, is this taken within Affinity, or from a different PDF viewer/editor? I ask as I have opened both of your PDF files in Publisher here and cannot see any discernible difference:

Can you please open Affinity Publisher > Preferences > Colour and provide a screenshot of your settings here for me?

Can you also please confirm for me, what colour profile do you have applied to your monitor, through macOS System Preferences > Display?

Many thanks once again

[TristanN]

Now that is very curious. This is what I see:

So I'm getting the exported files darker than what Affinity shows when I design it. All I'm doing here is placing the pdf's down in affinity and taking a screenshot. The pdfs look exactly like this when I open the with preview.

The plot thickens now because I put your image down on top of that file and the colour you are seeing is the correct one that I was seeing when editing the file.

I don't quite understand because if preview was having an issue it should look fine in affinity and if I was exporting wrong then you should be seeing what I'm seeing. It appears as though my computer is just deciding to dislike these pdf's.

I'm so confused.

To answer your question, I'm using my MacBook display (2020 M1) and the colour profile is set to the default "Colour LCD" option. I tried flicking through a few others and opening the pdf but it didn't make a difference. It feels like there's a rendering issue on my side or something.

I can't right now but this evening I can go update my computer to make sure I'm on the latest version. I see I'm on macOS 12.4 and 12.6 is out. Maybe?

[TristanN]

I forgot the affinity preferences screenshot. Here are my colour settings:

[Dan C]

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response here!

On 9/29/2022 at 1:17 PM, TristanN said:

So I'm getting the exported files darker than what Affinity shows when I design it. All I'm doing here is placing the pdf's down in affinity and taking a screenshot.

When placing these PDFs into an Affinity document, what Colour Profile is in use for the Affinity document please?

On 9/29/2022 at 1:17 PM, TristanN said:

To answer your question, I'm using my MacBook display (2020 M1) and the colour profile is set to the default "Colour LCD" option.

Thanks for confirming that for me - please change this to the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile from the list, then restart Affinity. 

Now, when placing/opening these PDFs in Affinity, do you see the expected results as I do?

[TristanN]

So after all of that hunting down the problem, I gave up and reset all affinity preferences. Hey presto, we're back in action. I don't know what happened and quite frankly I don't care to figure it out. I'm just glad it's sorted. 

To answer your question anyway, the document was in CMKY/8, and changing my colour profiles changed all colours evenly. 

I have to assume there was some rendering issue or obscure setting that I touched in a haze when I got the program.

Thanks for all the help!!