CMYK/8 - No CMYK Profiles showing up

[barbichn]

This applies to Affinity Designer 2.0, after I upgraded to this version, now all of my CMYK profiles are not showing up when I go to print and want to select a CMYK print profile such as Agfa: Swop Standard.

I go into document setup and assign the color profile

Then when I go to print, there are NO CMYK profiles to select from:

pl

I am on windows 10 x64, before upgrade no problems, go back into v1 and they are all there.  However, I need it to be a certain color and whatnot and v2 is doing a better job of allowing me to get to the certain purple she wants for her birthday git to her mom. 

Any tips and tricks, workarounds, suggestions, and/or advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Barbi

[CarrotNL]

I can confirm this. Same problem here.

[barbichn]

Well, I hope more people chime in on this so they can fix it, stat, I can't tell you much of paper and ink I have wasted since upgrading to V2.

Thank you for your response CarrotNL

Warm Regards,

Barbi

[Dan C]

Hi @barbichn,

Thanks for your report and our sincerest apologies for the delayed response here. We are exceptionally busy following the release of V2 and we thank you for your continued patience and understanding here.

I have since replied to your email regarding this, however I can confirm I've been able to replicate this issue here and I have logged it with our development team to be resolved ASAP.

I hope this helps!

[barbichn]

I know you are out of the office for a bit, however any idea on when this issue will be resolved?

Thank you and hope you and your family had a nice holiday, 

Barbi

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delay here - many thanks for your continued patience!

I have spoken with our development team, who have confirmed the following:

Quote

Windows 'print path' is in RGB only and does not support CMYK profiles, hence these options have been removed in V2.

However, I do appreciate that when previously selecting these profiles, you were able to print to the 'correct' colours, which you can no longer replicate with an RGB profile - therefore I have requested further information from our team as to the suggested workaround following this change - and I'll be sure to update you here with any information I'm provided

[joe_l]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

However, I do appreciate that when previously selecting these profiles, you were able to print to the 'correct' colours, which you can no longer replicate with an RGB profile

Yes, please leave your customers the choice which profile to pick (even if its "wrong"). 🙏

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

Windows 'print path' is in RGB only and does not support CMYK profiles, hence these options have been removed in V2.

FWIW, also in macOS (Affinity v.1) I experience this unexpected RGB profiles when printing a CMYK document (…on a printer with cmyk inks).

Just in case, this thread seems to be related, tagged as AFB-7034:

[Dan C]

I've been informed that converting/assigning the document to the CMYK profile within the app (before printing) and then in the Print dialog selecting Colour Handling - Performed by device/printer should provide the same results as V1 with the app performing colour handling, though I'm not currently able to directly confirm this internally - so please do let me know if this helps.
 

Thanks @thomaso, I can confirm that 'AFB-7034' is the same issue as I logged here for RGB profiles not appearing in this list and was closed as a duplicate - if you are unexpectedly seeing RGB profiles in this list then I'd recommend reporting it in a new thread, so it's not missed by our team and can be investigated separately

[barbichn]

I have a hard time chewing on this because Coral Draw and other applications have this ability.

Is it because the is truly an app not a program? 

As it was discussed that there would be an option to download as an program since we lose so many options with it be an app.

I use CMYK all the time and now have to go back and forth to v1 to v2 as I do sublimation and knowing what prints what colors as they are quite a bit different than regular printing has caused me a lot of money in the sense of ruined substrates in V2, at this point I am just using v1 until the CMYK issue can be resolved, which I fully believe it can because, Adobe, Corel, On1, Paint2023, and several others do give that option.

Thank you,

Barbi

[barbichn]

Also, you can print CMYK in windows, people even do it in word, again, thinking since this was released as an app and others have voiced concerns about other items not being available such as a path other than where the app put is, is the thing that is blocking it to work properly.

FROM WINDOWS----

Supporting CMYK Color Space - Windows drivers | Microsoft Learn

Quote

Regardless of whether color management is being handled by the application, system, driver, or device, a printer graphics DLL must indicate whether it supports the CMYK color space. This is done by setting the GCAPS_CMYKCOLOR flag in the DEVINFO structure. If this flag is set and CMYK profiles are in use, then GDI sends CMYK color data, instead of RGB data, to the printer graphics DLL for bitmaps, brushes, and pens. GDI also sets the following flags:

• The BR_CMYKCOLOR flag in the flColorType member of the BRUSHOBJ structure.

• The XO_FROM_CMYK flag in the flXlate member of the XLATEOBJ structure.

Note that if the driver supports CMYK color space, it must also support halftoning. Thus if the driver sets the GCAPS_CMYKCOLOR flag in DEVINFO, it must also set GCAPS_HALFTONE.

 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, barbichn said:

Is it because the is truly an app not a program? 

No, because V1 worked the same way.

 

[barbichn]

walt.farrell, this is confusing me because when you go to do cmyk, there are no color profiles either in the setup of document or printing when in V2 unilike v1, where you could set your color profile in the document and then print cmyk.

 

[PixelEngineer]

Hi 

If your goal is to get the best printing results with the ET-8550 set it to an official printer profile if it came with the installation. This applies to Affinity V1 as well. The Print Profile dropdown is where you may find ICC Profile for your specific printer model. Out of all of the options I would guess that the "ET-8550 L8180 Series Photo Quality Ink Jet" would be closest fit since it seems to describe your hardware.

Why are you using Afga SWOP? 

 

[barbichn]

I have an Et-8550 that has been converted to a sublimation printer. When printing colors are not the same on the screen and for a lot of us, subbers, we like to print in the CMYK mode, as those are the four inks we have in our Eco-Tanks, except for the Et-8500 and Et-8550, which has six, photo black and gray, are the other two.

Again, baffled on why it is there for V1 and supposedly it wont work for windows, when above I show what Microsoft says about CMYK and I have several profiles in my color management to preselect depending on what I am doing...

See screenshots below from V1:

[walt.farrell]

20 hours ago, barbichn said:

walt.farrell, this is confusing me because when you go to do cmyk, there are no color profiles either in the setup of document or printing when in V2 unilike v1, where you could set your color profile in the document and then print cmyk.

 

Sorry; I was not referring to color profiles.

I was perhaps confused, but the comments seemed to be about how the applications work when printing CMYK documents. On Windows (at least), they are always converted to RGB to send to the printer, in V1 and in V2 as far as I know.

[barbichn]

Walt,

I do sublimation and when I get ready to work on certain designs with a type of CMYK profile, I just selected those from A1, and then I would also check my color management to see if they match to be on the safe side. 

Then I go back into A1, and sometimes depending on what I am doing the app will control the printing or sometimes I would have the printer control the settings.

Either way, A2 doesn't allow any of the options I have screen shots of.

[Dan C]

I have raised this once again with our developers, as we're also receiving reports of this via email and I do not personally entirely understand their reason for removal.

I have requested that the options are re-added, such that these match the options available in V1 & I will be sure to update you here

[barbichn]

Status, please, as there are so many programs that allow you to use CMYK profiles for printing, this is especially important for sublimation printing, and I will be very honest, I rather work in your software than other programs, and I really would like to use my 2.0 v instead of 1.xxx.

Thank you...

[barbichn]

On 1/6/2023 at 8:21 AM, Dan C said:

I have raised this once again with our developers, as we're also receiving reports of this via email and I do not personally entirely understand their reason for removal.

I have requested that the options are re-added, such that these match the options available in V1 & I will be sure to update you here

Hi there again, it is the pest of why won't the developers change this to the way it is on V1? CMYK color profiles are very important to us sublimation users. I know you have seen the research I have done and their response to this quite frankly is EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING, why are they being so stubborn? The reasons they gave you in the first place are false and I proved that by contacting Microsoft. Why are they doing this? I mean they are in the process of changing this from an app to a program option, right? If so, then again, we should have the option to select what printing profile we want to use. I mean why even give us the option to select CMYK as a document setup and then not have the option to select the printing profile.... I am so frustrated by this as it really bums me out that basically until they fix this, I really can't use v2. like I want to and there are so many other improvements in V2, and it seems like such a waste for me to miss out on some of the very cool tools and not have the ability to have it print out in the profile my substrate requires in order to provide a high-quality print and an accurate press of the colors. A lot of us who are sublimation artist who have come to rely on Affinity are quite disappointed by this and there is a lot of chatter about this issue. I mean basically in your time zone, it has been exactly a month since you posted this and still no update, and I for one would like to know what the scoop is. If I have to go back and refresh myself to Corel Draw or ick, Photoshop Elements or find something else. The main reason I use this software, it is extremely user friendly...

Kind regards, and hope to know about an update on this soon and when they will change this from an app to a true program like they stated they would do.

Barbi

[Dan C]

Unfortunately I can only offer the information our developers are providing to me internally, this is not my decision as I'm simply part of the technical support team.

I have raised this again with our team, with the information above. I will be sure to respond here with any further updates I am provided.

My apologies I cannot provide more information at this time.

[barbichn]

Thank you for advocating for all of us, that has an issue with this part of the program, as I am sure I am not the only one bugging you about it.

We (especially me) are very grateful for everything you are doing for our issues with this item.

Much gratitude, 

Barbi

[barbichn]

I was watching a tutorial about the long way to make patterns and found that his setup for color is CMYK..I hope this helps you Dan, to advocate for us.

[Pauls]

@barbichnwhy are you not using the ICC profiles supplied by your printer/ink supplier ? You should have some specific ones for the printer/ink/media.

[barbichn]

Good question, because I do a lot of different substrates and designs, and the ICC profiles really are not necessary for that part of what I do, plus the ink I use, is specifically made for my sublimation printer and it is made the in USA and does not require ICC profiles. I wanted the option to print CMYK when I wanted to, sadly, it appears that will not be the case in AD 2.0.