Printing black objects from Publisher results in non-black output

[tatanka]

26 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Two Questions

1. Do you get the same results when letting your printer use it's own colour management rather than using ColorSync?
2. If you open the PDF 1.7 (press ready) file you've just created and select the black rectangle for each of the three logos, what CMYK values do you see?

1) This is what I used to do in InDesign. Here is what happens with Affinity apps:
Printing the document from Publisher make everything shades of grey, the text included.
Printing the PDF from Preview make everything shades of grey, the text included.

2) If I open the PDF in Designer (I don’t have Adobe Pro any more), and check the values, then the top three are all K=100 as they should be. I’ve attached the PDF I generate.

all_the_logos_4C_FOGRA51.pdf

Edited December 4, 2022 by tatanka
Clarification

[Hangman]

Well, the good news is that we're both seeing identical PDF files, both the one you created and the one I created are showing identical values but there is defintely something very odd going on with regards printing...

I ran a series of tests printing the file as follows:

• Directly from Publisher
• Exported PDF 1.7 opened in Publisher and Printed from Publisher
• Exported PDF 1.7 Printed from Apple Preview
• Exported PDF 1.7 Printed from Acrobat Reader

and got different results, even printing the same file from Apple Preview and Acrobat Reader are giving diferent results...

The results I'm seeing almost appear to be the opposite of yours in as much as printing directly from Publisher is giving me the correct results... These were printied on an HP OfficeJet Pro 8728 which is a Desktop Inkjet printiner...

For clarifcation I also printed the same files (not shown below) in the same way to an Epson SureColour P600 which is a high end nine colour professional printer so I could confirm the blacks were black...

These are the results to the HP Desktop Printer where it's easier to see the variations...

I'm now not really sure what to think, the simple fact that you get different results from two different PDF Readers is odd, so is the issue with the PDF, differing software, different printers?

Note: I was initially sceptical about the PDF directly from Publisher but on the Epson it is a very solid black and identical to both the Designer and EPS files.

[tatanka]

Oh, it looks even worse than I imagined. The good folks at Affinity would have to isolate where the issue occurs. It could even involve issues with Ventura’s printing system (versus older versions of the OS). Perhaps print Postscript print-files of each, and then distill them with Distiller, or separate them with Ghostscript, and then measure tonal values see if there is any system to it.

Good luck!

NB: One additional remark: I would not use inkjet printers to evaluate this issue. You won’t be able to see if objects are truly black and not rasterised on an inkjet. You need a laser/LED printer and a magnifier to study the edges and see if they are at the printers full resolution, and without raster.

Edited December 4, 2022 by tatanka
An NB on inkjet printing

[tatanka]

In a bit of investigation I ran TIFF separations from ghostscript, and they showed me that PDFs generated from Publisher are very different depending whether they have specified colour-space and ICC-profile in the export window or not!

When the Publisher document is setup with CMYK and "PSO Coated v3", and I then export as "PDF (for print)", I get different PDFs depending on whether I have set the export options to "As document" and "Use document profile" (which should be CMYK and "PSO Coated v3"), or whether I set the PDF options to "CMYK" and "PSO Coated v3".

When I then run

gs -sDEVICE=tiffsep -o tiff/output.tif -r300 all_the_logos_4C_FOGRA51.pdf

The results differ, and neither of the two generated PDFs have any K=100.

If I generate a PDF X-1a and set both "CMYK" and "PSO Coated v3" in the export window I get only the "Designer K=100" logo to be correctly K=100 (and only the K plate).
If I generate a PDF X-1a and leave colour-space to "As document" and profile as "Use document profile" in the export window I get only the "Designer K=100" logo to be correctly K=100 (and only the K plate).

Now I don’t know if that is an issue with GS or not, but I don’t have Acrobat Pro, so GS is what is left for me.

[Hangman]

@tatanka try printing the attached pdf from Preview and let me know what you see?

all_the_logos_4C_FOGRA51_OP Off.pdf

[tatanka]

These are the results:

Printed using colour management set to ColorSync and "PSO Coated v3" profile: Printer chokes on job and spits out

ERROR: limitcheck
OFFENDING COMMAND: showpage

STACK:

Printed using colour management set to "In printer", only the PDF GREY=0 and the PDF RGB=0,0,0 printed full black. Please see attached photo.

I also tried generating separations using GS, but GS could not do that.

[Hangman]

On 12/5/2022 at 9:01 AM, tatanka said:

When the Publisher document is setup with CMYK and "PSO Coated v3", and I then export as "PDF (for print)", I get different PDFs depending on whether I have set the export options to "As document" and "Use document profile" (which should be CMYK and "PSO Coated v3"), or whether I set the PDF options to "CMYK" and "PSO Coated v3".

When using both As Document with Use Document Profile and CMYK with PSO Coated v3 I'm seeing the same results, i.e., K=100 is broken down into CMYK 83, 67, 51, 95.

On 12/5/2022 at 9:01 AM, tatanka said:

If I generate a PDF X-1a and set both "CMYK" and "PSO Coated v3" in the export window I get only the "Designer K=100" logo to be correctly K=100 (and only the K plate).
If I generate a PDF X-1a and leave colour-space to "As document" and profile as "Use document profile" in the export window I get only the "Designer K=100" logo to be correctly K=100 (and only the K plate).

Here I'm seeing K=100 honoured with both X1a:2003 and X3:2003 (but not X4 or PDF (for print), PDF (press ready) or any other pdf preset) for the .afdesign, pdf and eps files.

Clearly I would expect the Greyscale and RGB graphics to be appear as CMYK 83, 67, 51, 95 because they are being converted from PSO Coated v3.

all_the_logos_4C_FOGRA51_100_X3_cmyk_pso_coated_v3.pdfall_the_logos_4C_FOGRA51_100_X3_as_doc_use_doc.pdfall_the_logos_4C_FOGRA51_100_X1a_cmyk_pso_coated_v3.pdfall_the_logos_4C_FOGRA51_100_X1a_as_doc_use_doc.pdf

[tatanka]

I note that this is still not functional. It is almost incomprehensible that this bug is still present in an print publishing application, rendering it useless.

Incredible.