PDF CMYK export

[Poussart]

Am using Publisher 1.10.6 on Mac. This has been nagging me :  When exporting for highest PDF CMYK print quality, InDesign has the “convert to destination - preserve numbers” option: linked images that are already in CMYK are not coverted (again). Affinity Publisher does NOT provide this option. What is the preferred procedure? a) link images that are RGB and rely on the pdf export (with the desired overall profile) to do all the conversion or b) link images that have been converted to CMYK within Affinity photo (with the the Document / Convert format / ICC profile function), using the desired profile and rely on the pdf export with the same desired overall profile) not to touch them. I have been completing a book with over 200 photos and have used a combination of a and b. Is tis OK? Thank you for your advice!

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Poussart]

Thank you so much! I have searched in vain for clarity in Affinity documentation on this. This is so useful!. If I may, could you explain what you mean by "the late-bound conversion option in Affinity apps". Does this has anything to do with the "Convert image colour spaces" toggle which is on the "More" Panel of the Export. I assume that this "Convert image colour spaces" should be clicked on so that the RGB images are converted to CMYK and this is my current setting. But with CMYK set for the overall colour space, is'nt this an uncessary repetirion?

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Poussart]

Thank you SO MUCH again. This is a key consideration for proper colour management in (press ready) PDF export. Affinty should have a Youtube tutorial of this. Glad I was not afraid to ask and that you quickly came to the resccue :-))

[guilin01]

@lacerto, you have numerous posts on this topic that seem like they answer this question perfect, but for some reason, your posts are all showing up as "obsolete." Is there a new approach to this problem that you would recommend? We're a printer and although most of our customers use InDesign, getting clean exported CMYK press-ready files without the ICC embedded is proving to be a challenge with Publisher. Thanks!

[lacerto]

9 hours ago, guilin01 said:

Is there a new approach to this problem that you would recommend? We're a printer and although most of our customers use InDesign, getting clean exported CMYK press-ready files without the ICC embedded is proving to be a challenge with Publisher.

"Obsolete" notes are just notes on the posts themselves being non-useable as their content is deleted (my attachment quota got full and when I deleted my uploads, I deleted the message content, as well, as they would make no sense in many cases without attachments).

But many of my posts would have been obsolete also in the sense that they would no longer be valid because the software has changed.

And this unfortunately also applies production of ICC-less press PDFs, which has become worse, but I cannot say exactly since when. I can tell that latest v1 versions were better in producing the kinds of DeviceCMYK content as e.g. InDesign, and that printing press regularly expects. But I cannot tell whether it worked up to some point similarly in v2 apps.

Recently Serif published 2.5.6 version that would fail to produce ICC-less PDFs in most cases. Now there is version 2.5.7 that has this single fix applied and no longer fails. But there are other kinds of issues that have been there at least from version 2.4.2 (which I just installed to check this). I mean situations where e.g. PDFs placed for passthrough might be in DeviceCMYK mode, but they are often encapsulated in e.g. transparency groups, and they are typically assigned (by exporting code, not by the user) with an ICC-based blending color space, and this makes the PDFs ambivalent, causing color values where e.g. K100 objects appear as rich black objects, etc.

Here are examples of productions with native CMYK objects, placed RGB image, and two PDFs, the other in PDF-X/4 (U.S. Web Coated v2) and the other in DeviceCMYK color space, exported using "PDF (Press ready)" forcing conversion of image color spaces, but with ICC unchecked. As can be seen Publisher v1 produces similar PDF as InDesign. The Affinity productions are from identical publications (v1 .apub just opened in v2).

standardproduction_apub_v01.pdf (created with Publisher v1.10.6)

standardproduction_apub_v02.pdf (created with Publisher v2.5.7)

standardproduction_id.pdf (created with InDesign CC2025)

It should be noted that all the v1 production issues are still existing in latest v2 apps (in addition to v2 versions introducing new ones), so the notorious Affinity PDF version compatibility rules are still a thing to adhere unless (inadvertent) rasterizations and color conversions are acceptable, so basically it is still true that it may require a highly skilled craftsman to create a truly press-ready high-quality PDF with Affinity app trio. And unfortunately one is not likely to find an Affinity expert in printing presses...so the best aid is probably available on this forum.