Colour swatches (CMYK)

[Themediaworks]

I have oney just migrated from inDesign and I am faced with a situation that I cant work out!

How do I create a (CMYK) swatch like I can in inDesign?

[Hangman]

Hi @Themediaworks and welcome to the forums...

If the colour sliders are set to CMYK in the colour palette then selecting Add current fill to palette will add the colour as a CMYK swatch. It would be a nice addition if the swatch included a CMYK/RGB icon as per InDesign but it currently doesn't...

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[thomaso]

Also note that – different to InDesign – you can't change the colour mode once a swatch was created. Although you may switch between various sliders with a swatch selected, its initial mode sticks with the swatch even if you edit the swatch in a different mode. This affects global swatches, too.

And, the Affinity swatches do not auto-update their swatch names if their colour definition got edited. So it may get confusing if you are used to this auto feature and modify swatch colours.

Furthermore the swatch appearance within the Palette of the Swatches Panel may differ from its colour appearance in the document or Colours panel, especially in CMYK documents or palettes:

It seems by default (when opening the app) Affinity prefers an RGB look even for CMYK swatches:

To fix this temporarily you can toggle the palettes in the swatches panel:

All this makes the use of the Lock icon/button relevant in Affinity. If activated it ensures that you create new colours & swatches in the mode that is currently locked.
But, on the other hand, it displays the definition for any swatch in the currently locked mode. So, to get a swatch colour definition displayed in the Colours Panel with its initial mode (= make the slider menu auto-switch) you need to have this mode menu in the Colours panel unlocked before selecting the swatch.