Placed PDF in Affinity Publisher changes colour when reopened.

[DanielPPeters]

Hi friends

I'm experiencing something very strange. I just recently switched from Adobe to Affinity. As a result most of the pdfs logos I am using were created in Adobe programs such as Illustrator and InDesign. In Affinity Publisher, when I open a document that was created in the past, the placed pdf's colours changes. Please see attached screenshot. The Retrospect logo on the top was placed in this Publisher document about a week ago. When I opened up the document a few days later I noticed a visible colour change in the logo. I then placed the exact same pdf logo below the first one... and sure enough the colours are different. Can someone please let me know what might be happening here?

 

Thanks

[Callum]

Hi Daniel is the colour profile of the placed document the same profile as the one used in the document you are placing it into? If it is please could you provide a copy of the file so I can investigate this further?

Thanks
C

[DanielPPeters]

Hi Callum. My sincerest apologies for not getting back to you earlier. I've attached the logo in pdf format as well as the file I was using when I noticed the problem. I decided to embed the logo for my printer as the "linked" logo was printing darker than an "embedded" logo. As you can see from the attached file, the embedded logo has not changed colour. Embedding the file seems to have fixed the issue. The only problem now is that I have to embed certain files if I want them to print and display correctly. Please let me know if there is a solution where I can get the same print and display fidelity without embedding files, as I would prefer to use linked files instead. 

Thanks

Daniel

 

Retrospect Studios HORIZONTAL.pdf COA - Retrospect Studios (16x12) SE Brothers.afpub

[Hangman]

Hi @DanielPPeters,

The logo in your attached Publisher file is still Linked rather than Embedded but it should make no difference...

Your Publisher file is set using an RGB/8 Adobe RGB (1998) profile and your placed PDF logo is an unprofiled Device CMYK file.

There is however something very odd going on with your file... The two instances of the same logo on the Master Page adopt the same ICC Working Profile as set in the Colour Preference/Settings panel, but the larger version at the top of the page shows an RGB colour space (which is not physically possible) and the smaller version of the logo at the bottom of the page shows a CMYK colour space...

I'm pretty sure this is a known bug though I can't currently locate the bug report but I'll update this post if I find it...

If I select both instances of the logo and select Embed, they both now show as using a CMYK colour space but if I then close and re-open the file and change both back to Linked, one again shows an RGB colour space, the other a CMYK colour space...

If I duplicate your PDF Logo in the Finder and replace the larger version of the logo at the top of the page with the duplicated version, all three versions (including the version of the original I placed) now show using an RGB Colour space despite showing a CMYK profile and on closing and reopening the file the CMYK profile is not being updated to reflect the working profile set in the colour preference/settings.

At the moment I'm unsure whether this is a slightly corrupt file, a bug (possibly a known bug), an issue with Resource Manager failing to update correctly or something else and whether or not it may explain the colour difference you've been experiencing between linked and embedded versions of your file, though to date I've not seen any colour differences regardless of whether the logo's are linked or embedded.

I'm also wondering whether there is (or even can be) a conflict between the Illustrator and PDF content in the logo file?

As an aside, it might be helpful if you clarify the PDF settings used to export the Publisher artwork prior to sending it to your printer and also whether the job was being printed digitally or as a CMYK litho job?

[DanielPPeters]

Hey Hangman, thanks for the response.

That's really weird. The file I sent you should have the Retrospect logos (both of them) embedded. I've attached a screen shot of the Resources Manager. As you can see, the Retrospect logos are embedded, but the Brothers.jpg and the Star Trek Logo WHITE.ai are linked. If the Retrospect logos were linked, wouldn't they be showing up on your end as "Missing" in the status column of your Resource Manager... just like the Brothers.jpg and the Star Trek logo WHITE.ai?

The PDF settings I'm using are the Affinity default PDF (for print) with the only change being the addition of "Include printers marks". Also, my printer uses digital printing, not CMYK separation. I been back and forth with him a dozen times to try and find a print setting that works best with his system and the default PDF (for print), but again, the logos must be embedded or it prints way darker. 

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Hangman]

Hey @DanielPPeters,

13 hours ago, DanielPPeters said:

That's really weird. The file I sent you should have the Retrospect logos (both of them) embedded. I've attached a screen shot of the Resources Manager. As you can see, the Retrospect logos are embedded, but the Brothers.jpg and the Star Trek Logo WHITE.ai are linked. If the Retrospect logos were linked, wouldn't they be showing up on your end as "Missing" in the status column of your Resource Manager... just like the Brothers.jpg and the Star Trek logo WHITE.ai?

On opening your file the Retrospect logos were initially shown as Linked and Missing along with the other logo and jpg file so I had to re-link it but even then it was behaving very strangely in as much as it wasn’t displayed in the pages panel on either the Master or Main page until I double clicked the respective pages.

Could you perhaps re-upload the Publisher file so we can see whether it maintains the pdf as embedded?

Secondly, if you change the status for both instances of the Retrospect logo to Linked then Save, Close and Re-Open the Publisher file and select each individually in Resource Manager, what Colour Space do you see for each?

I'm wondering whether the source Illustrator file or its pdf conversion has an element of file corruption which may be the root cause for these issues. Have you tried opening the exported pdf in Designer since it is fully editable then re-exporting it as a new pdf and using the new file as the linked resource to see whether you still see the same issue when printing linked vs embedded?

The logo itself is a CMYK file so you could create both a CMYK version and also convert it to RGB in Designer, since your main file is an RGB document and then use the RGB version (assuming this is what your print company requests) in your artwork placed either as a Designer file or exported as an RGB PDF using the same embedded profile as your main artwork.

Initially Opening the Publisher File

Note the negative placed dpi on the second instance of the logo in the main Resource Manager window, this is a reoccurrence of an old bug relating to placed PDF files...

 

After Relinking the PDF File