Printing .afphoto has drastically different color saturation and hue vs. printing .png

[johnegibson2]

The lighter-looking photo is printed using the .afphoto. The darker one is printed from the exported PNG, using exactly the same printer settings on my Canon Pro-300. I'm using 2.04, and this is consistent across other papers as well. Any tips? Could I be doing something wrong?

[Hangman]

@johnegibson2 do both your .afphoto and png file use the same colour profile and is the colour profile you are using embeded in your png file?

[thomaso]

12 hours ago, johnegibson2 said:

printed from the exported PNG, using exactly the same printer settings on my Canon Pro-300.

In addition to Hangmann's hint: Did you also print the PNG from APhoto – or from another app with possibly different printer driver options?

[johnegibson2]

Both documents are sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (although the .afphoto says Linear afterwards, not sure if that makes a difference). @thomaso I should have made this more clear, but my exact process was:

1. open the .afphoto

2. export to PNG

3. open the PNG in Affinity and print with identical settings

Other relevant details, perhaps:

Color Handling: Performed by App

Printer Profile: Built-in Canon profile that matches the paper I'm printing on (Pro Luster)

Rendering Intent: Perceptual

These were all the same for both prints.

Thanks!

[Hangman]

@johnegibson2, just wondering if this is down to a difference in bit-depth, sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (Linear) suggests your Photo doc may be in 32-bit, what bit-depth did you export your png as?

[johnegibson2]

Aha, there is a difference there. The PNG is RGBA/16, the .afphoto is RGBA/32 (HDR). Do you think that could be causing the issue here?

[Hangman]

Just now, johnegibson2 said:

Aha, there is a difference there. The PNG is RGBA/16, the .afphoto is RGBA/32 (HDR). Do you think that could be causing the issue here?

Not entirely sure but it is quite possible... the only real way to know for sure would be by testing like for like, i.e., with both the .afphoto and png files either using RGBA/16 or both using RGB/32...

[laurent32]

16≠32=>i bet there is a difference… and how does the printer handles the diff. ?

[johnegibson2]

I converted the afphoto to 16-bit RGB. This is much closer to what I'd expect, thanks all. Now the question is: where is the communication breaking down? Is this an issue with the printer interpreting 32 bit depth images, or Affinity? I don't know enough about print protocols to answer that

 

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, johnegibson2 said:

Now the question is: where is the communication breaking down? Is this an issue with the printer interpreting 32 bit depth images, or Affinity?

I don't think it's a communication breakdown, I very much doubt that many, if any, print drivers support 32-bit but I could equally be wrong...

[nickbatz]

Preview uses the built in macOS printer driver, which *can* use ICC profiles that map the colors to your paper/printer combo but... well, I don't use that driver and I now forget where the hoops are that you need to jump through. The built-in printing in AF is not intended for actual use, at least that's been my impression.

Canon's outstanding Pro Print & Layout works with your Pro-300 (I'm 99% sure anyway?). It doesn't use the built-in farkakte macOS driver, it uses its own. You won't look back once you start using it. Just export a TIFF file and drag it in.

I'd also suggest finding the right Pro-300 iCC profiles for the paper you're using. The Pro-300 is a top shelf printer, and there's no reason not to use it optimally.

Also, PNG is a lower-res screen format. You may not be able to tell the difference in all cases, but in general I export to TIFF and always use 300 DPI resolution.

[nickbatz]

The subtext is that you have to learn and practice a little to get the most out of a higher-end photo printer, but it's well worth it and not terribly difficult or complicated.

It also takes a little practice to get a feel for how what you see on your screen translates to what comes out of the printer. There are printing dorks who insist you have to run out and buy fancy calibration equipment, but I disagree (mainly because the difference between a lighted screen image and paper dwarfs any benefits of calibration).

[johnegibson2]

@nickbatz Thanks for your response. Good to know re: AF print dialog drivers, though I am using Windows and not OSX.

I do have the ICC profiles for my papers. I am actually using Canon Pro Lustre paper for this print. My workflow doesn't normally involve printing from PNGs, it was just something I tried that happened to work.

I think the problem here is that for 32-bit depth images from e.g. HDR merges, no (reasonable) print driver would accept such a format, but Affinity Photo does not issue a warning or convert to 16-bit before sending to the printer. I would consider this not particularly user-friendly. Maybe this is a feature that could be implemented, or at least a warning could be raised with an "Are you sure?"-style dialog.

[nickbatz]

In the meantime it's pretty easy to save exporting presets.

I don't have AF open right now, but I don't think you'll have any trouble finding it.

But I'm glad to see that you're ahead of me with all of this!