Printer profiles missing in new affinity apps

[Bmongo]

15 minutes ago, Pauls said:

Could you share a quick screenshot of that - they are a lot of otions with this printer

Is This what you mean? not sure

[Pauls]

perfect - as I understand our workflow is rgb based so I would guess converting your document to the relevant CMYK profile then prining that using a printer profile (or sRGB) should give close to the previous results.

[PixelEngineer]

On 1/9/2023 at 10:17 AM, Bmongo said:

I'm using the PS driver. The colour management in the driver is set to US Web Coated Swop V2. Normally when i print form affinity V1 I have the option in printer profile  dropdown menu to choose the us web coated but not in V2.

Hello, I have been looking at this lately and I believe you are good to go. 

I'll give you and example. I can have an Epson EcoTank printer where I have paper profiles that show up in the RGB color space Printer Profile: drop down area. The thing is I do not have to select it from there because the printer driver handles all of those routines. Selecting the paper option in the printer settings is the same thing. That is where the real power is (in the printer settings). The printer's driver options of course are accessed through the Properties button in the print dialog. And there, within the printer settings I would select the paper and print. If you are working in sRGB space for example you can leave it like this:

Printer Profile: sRGB IE1966-2.1 with paper's profile selected through the in the printer's settings via the "Properties" button in the Print dialog.
I know that your printer can do amazing things in simulating offset printing routines.

In "Printer profile:" you would usually put an ICC profile that has a description of the printers model number  that you are using for example
Printer Profile:ET-4760. If you do not have a Printer Profile you can just leave it at Printer Profile:sRGB IE2966-2.1(my color working space) in this example.

Here is a snapshot of an OKI user/operator's settings from one of the Adobe apps. Notice that Printer Profile: is set to Adobe RGB (1998). Be careful with this because Adobe RGB is different from sRGB type and will produce different colors. You have to know what your working color space is. As an alternative I believe that you can export that PDF and use the PCL printer driver  that is if you are working in Windows while printing your exported PDF from Adobe Acrobat to run your simulated offset press routine. 

 I believe that the Printer Profile: feature was not being use properly in V1 and was not meant to be used that way. That profile is a different color space from what your printer data is receiving via that print path, and if used incorrectly could have been causing incorrect color output as resulted in some of my print tests in Affinity V1 using my inkjet printer and printing directly to PDF would at times result  in "color errors" where my paper printout looked different from what I was seeing in my monitor.

I believe that everything can be done in Affinity V2.0.3 once you understand these concepts. 

Printing directly to the printer is different form associating an CMYK profile to a PDF that is going to be sent to a RIP. Those are two different workflows. 

What you are doing in the OKI printer is a simulated SWOP CMYK offset press where the printer does its own "recipe"  for printing in CMYK.
 

 

 

[Bmongo]

19 hours ago, Pauls said:

perfect - as I understand our workflow is rgb based so I would guess converting your document to the relevant CMYK profile then prining that using a printer profile (or sRGB) should give close to the previous results.

Thank you for your help I really appreciate it.

[Bmongo]

53 minutes ago, PixelEngineer said:

Hello, I have been looking at this lately and I believe you are good to go. 

I'll give you and example. I can have an Epson EcoTank printer where I have paper profiles that show up in the RGB color space Printer Profile: drop down area. The thing is I do not have select it from there because the printer driver handles all of those routines. That is where the real power is. The printer driver's options of course are accessed through the Properties button in the print dialog. And there within the printer settings I would select the paper and print. If you are working in sRGB space for example you can leave it like this for example.

Printer Profile: sRGB IE1966-2.1 with paper's profile selected through the in printers dialog box. I know that that printer can do amazing things in simulating offset printing routines.

Here is a snapshot of an OKI operator's settings from one of the Adobe apps. Notice that Printer Profile: is set to Adobe RGB (1998). Be careful with this because Adobe RGB is different from sRGB type and will produce different colors. You have to know what your working color space is. As an alternative I believe that you can export that PDF and use the PCL printer driver if your in Windows printing your exported PDF from Adobe Acrobat to run your simulated offset press routine.

 I believe that the Printer Profile: feature was not being use properly in V1 and was not meant to be used that way. That a paper profile is different color space from what your printer data is receiving via that print path if used incorrectly could have been causing incorrect color output as resulted in some of my print tests on an inkjet and printing directly to PDF resulted in color errors that did not appear as on screen. I believe that everything can be done in Affinity V2.0.3 once you understand these concepts. 

Printing directly to the printer is different form associating an CMYK profile to a PDF that is going to be sent to a RIP. Those are two differnt workflows. 

What you are doing in the OKI printer is a simulated SWOP CMYK offset press where the printer does its own "recipe"  for printing in CMYK.
 

 

 

Thanks a million for that. I will try this from now on. Thanks again for your help I really appreciate it.

[CarrotNL]

I am not using a OKI printer. Our printer is a Riso hc5500 with a is700c RIP.

We got it second hand, and It's very old and we never got good color management for it. I can hardly found any information about it on the internet.

I tried all sorts of color profile combinations (nowing absolutely nothing about that sort of stuff), and finaly went with Japan Color 2001 Uncoated, where the color management is handled on the printer.

[CarrotNL]

The previous post was directed at this question. I missed the Quote button at the bottom

On 1/9/2023 at 12:24 PM, Pauls said:

@CarrotNL @Bmongo which OKI printer are you using ?

[Pauls]

in which case the settings in the RIP will be important and probably very similar to the OKI printers

[CarrotNL]

@Pauls If I set my settings this way, and set the affinity color settings in the printer dialog to be managed by the printer the colors come out all wrong when using the CMYK profiles. RGB comes out a lot better, but some colors are still completely off.

Strangest thing is, when I export to a PDF and print from Adobe Acrobat Reader the colors are a lot better (printing RGB). I cant find the correct settings in Affinity to get the colors right.

I have the same problem when printing from other graphics software like Coreldraw and Photoshop. So what is Acrobat Reader doing well that the graphics software isn't? I cant see the color settings in Acrobat Reader, so I cant compare. If I could get the same RGB output from Affinity software all would be fine.

This are my color settings at the moment (Don't look at the page image in the print dialog. Its black and white. I know.):

 

 

edit -- corrected the middle screenshot as it was wrong.

 

 

[Pauls]

I dont know this printer very well but I would set it up as printer manages colour in Affinity.
I would expect it to be able to replicate an sRGB document very well by default. Do you have the correct paper type selected in the printer driver?

[CarrotNL]

42 minutes ago, Pauls said:

I dont know this printer very well but I would set it up as printer manages colour in Affinity.
I would expect it to be able to replicate an sRGB document very well by default. Do you have the correct paper type selected in the printer driver?

Oh, sorry.. the screenshot is wrong.  I do actually set up Affinity as that the printer manages colors. I just set it up wrong now for the screenshots.
I corrected this in post above.

When printing from Acrobat Reader the colors are reasonably good. When printing from Affinity with the same settings (as far is I can see) the colors are far more bright and saturated then the Acrobat Reader prints.

The prints are on the same paper, so paper type cant be the problem.

Edited January 16, 2023 by CarrotNL
added information

[Pauls]

adobe have an entirely different printing system available I think. Is acrobat configured to let the printer manage the colours ?

[PixelEngineer]

On 1/16/2023 at 6:45 AM, CarrotNL said:

When printing from Acrobat Reader the colors are reasonably good. When printing from Affinity with the same settings (as far is I can see) the colors are far more bright and saturated then the Acrobat Reader prints.

When printing from Affinity I would try turning color management handling off in the printer's options. Then set Affinity print dialog to Color Handling: Performed by App. Print a test page from within Affinity to see if the colors look close to what is showing on your monitor. It is possible that when you are printing from the PDF application that the color management settings in the printer is turned off. I think that this will reduce the oversaturated and brightening of colors.  I suppose you can try this out on a test page. I don't have access to this type of printer to try it out.