Affinity Photo and Blurry/Grainy Cover Amazon Paperback

[fiavolat]

Hi everyone, I created a cover with affinity photo, uploaded it and it went online, but on amazon it looks grainy and blurry.
I've read that it's something related to rgb vs cmyk color profiles but I'm going crazy and I can't figure it out because looking at the pdf everything seems perfect, but the problems arise when the book is online i.e. 10-15h later.
Is there anyone who can help me find the key to the problem?

Thanks

PS: I have attached a screenshot showing the difference between the pdf and the inside look on amazon

[firstdefence]

The Amazon version looks heavily compressed, what is your workflow? are you using KDP?

[fiavolat]

39 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

The Amazon version looks heavily compressed, what is your workflow? are you using KDP?

Yes, I upload them to kdp. The kindle version is perfect. While that pp looks like this.

I am also attaching the document and pdf export settings

Edited December 21, 2022 by fiavolat
resize pics

[firstdefence]

Just a small forum tip, while adding images to a post you can double click them and resize them for the post, I generally use a width of 400 -500px and after posting, when a viewer clicks on an image it will display full size.

Anyway back to the issue, I found this post which is an interesting read re KDP and PDF settings:

 

[fiavolat]

Thank you for the tip, I immediately changed the size of the attached photos.
I've already read that post but there it talks about differences in color rendering (black). Here, however, it seems that the cover is compressed and in low resolution

[natecombsmedia]

I've had all sorts of go arounds with Amazon via Affinity files. That article linked to above was my question, partially related to how Publisher vs Designer (more issues for me) seems to get along with Amazon and their newer 3rd party printing companies. Those are more suited to cover design than Photo, and I find Publisher is most ideal for Photo-based covers (it also has a Photo persona for similar controls).

Way fewer issues arise with colors that are not very dark (or red skin due to the human tone map), but I have a few questions to help out.

1. Your post says the Kindle version is fine, as is expected (they like thumbnails around 1600x2560 pixels), but I'm not sure if you meant on a Kindle it is fine, but on Amazon's site, the Thumbnail is bad. All of the ones I design for come out great digitally at the size mentioned above. Those must be in an RGB color space to upload.
2. Inside look on Amazon is usually bad. Don't trust it. They might even lower the quality on purpose to keep theft down, help with bandwidth, etc. I've noticed that it, along with the thumbnails on a book's page, take a few seconds to buffer. As long as your actual thumbnails, eBook, and print are fine, you kind of have to go with what they give you for preview-related content. I just looked at several random inside looks, even from top books, and yes, they are garbage in quality on the initial look inside load.
3. They require your print file (assuming you have one as well based on photo and export settings) to be CMYK color space if you do have hard copies. PDF x-1a:2003 is definitely the way to go for print files. I used to use press-ready before the post above. That will ensure it flattens everything in your document properly and leaves no weird issues with layers sticking out.
4. That should be all you need, but is there a reason you used pixels for the PDF instead of millimeters or inches? Amazon KDP has templates it will create for you based on your page count to get exact dimensions for everything.

The things I've had the hardest time with in some of their most recent changes are:

• Printing the right book (a lot of authors like to go live vs proofs to get reviews in early and have proofs count as sales, then market after everything feels good). However, Amazon will randomly put pages from other books, have parts upside down, etc.
• Printing the cover in the right spot. I understand the margins of error, but sometimes, the cover is just wayyy off (meaning 1/8 inch | 3mm or more).
• Matching print and digital colors. Affinity is supposed to be able to convert color profiles to keep the look the same rather than assigning new ones, but I find them to be drastically different whether I start with RGB or CMYK and convert to the other. Most modern printers can convert sRGB profiles to the CMYK specs they need to print, and I had to do this on a dark purple book. Amazon's create your own cover option is a pain, but it requires your print cover to be a JPEG in RGB instead, and then they will convert it to CMYK and retain a close color match.