Global and spot colors

[NotMyFault]

Hi, I have several questions about global and spot colors, and import/export of PDF:

1. in color / swatch panel, it seems you can create a spot color only by „create new global color“. It is not possible to edit a color later to become a spot color? As this UI does not provide a color picker, you need to start from scratch every time.
2. If you use a global color on any object, and you re-visit this object later, Affinity shows only the color, and no indication is given that it is a global color. (On Desktop, automatically tint is shows as color input, so you are aware)
3. I exported a test document as PDF with „Honor Spot colors“, and opened the PDF test export again in Publisher. There is no indication that global / spot colors have been used. I would expect that Affinity creates a document palette while importing with all global and spot colors allowing you to edit these. I could not find such a function.

[NathanC]

Hi @NotMyFault

On 2/25/2023 at 12:43 PM, NotMyFault said:

in color / swatch panel, it seems you can create a spot color only by „create new global color“. It is not possible to edit a color later to become a spot color? As this UI does not provide a color picker, you need to start from scratch every time.

When you edit an existing swatch colour there is a colour picker, but not when adding a new global colour, the lack of a colour picker on this panel is currently logged internally. On both desktop and iPad there doesn't appear to be a method to amend an existing colour within a swatch to be a spot/global colour without creating a brand new colour based off of the original colour from scratch.

On 2/25/2023 at 12:43 PM, NotMyFault said:

If you use a global color on any object, and you re-visit this object later, Affinity shows only the color, and no indication is given that it is a global color. (On Desktop, automatically tint is shows as color input, so you are aware)

2. I haven't spotted this one, but I believe this should be consistent with desktop and indicate that the currently selected object contains a global colour, so I'll get this logged with the developers.
 

On 2/25/2023 at 12:43 PM, NotMyFault said:

I exported a test document as PDF with „Honor Spot colors“, and opened the PDF test export again in Publisher. There is no indication that global / spot colors have been used. I would expect that Affinity creates a document palette while importing with all global and spot colors allowing you to edit these. I could not find such a function.

3. Importing PDFs does retain the spot/global colour on an object, on desktop this is evident when selecting an object that has been assigned a spot colour because the colour panel reflects this and allows you to edit the Global colour (though as a result of the issue raised in point 2 this isn't possible on iPad).

After importing the PDF on Desktop, it's also possible to add the selected object's fill/stroke colour as a global colour, which will automatically mark it as a spot colour (So long as it was originally), though again the iPad doesn't yet have this functionality based on selection, this is also a feature request logged internally.

[NotMyFault]

On 3/2/2023 at 2:11 PM, NathanC said:

3. Importing PDFs does retain the spot/global colour on an object, on desktop this is evident when selecting an object that has been assigned a spot colour because the colour panel reflects this and allows you to edit the Global colour (though as a result of the issue raised in point 2 this isn't possible on iPad).

After importing the PDF on Desktop, it's also possible to add the selected object's fill/stroke colour as a global colour, which will automatically mark it as a spot colour (So long as it was originally), though again the iPad doesn't yet have this functionality based on selection, this is also a feature request logged internally.

This will still not allow to edit an existing global color for an imported PDF, to change the color values (which is the primary use case of global colors). They become un-editable zombies.