felixbmurray Posted June 7, 2023 Share Posted June 7, 2023 I need to use the Roland Versaworks Spot Colours for a print project I'm doing, but Affinity Designer is not officially supported (they only provide swatch files for Illustrator and CorelDRAW). However, Spot Colours are supported in Affinity Designer and this leads me to believe I may be able to set up the file correctly. However, since I don't use Adobe software, I can't get into the Illustrator file to extract the spot colours and bring them into Designer (I'm assuming this is all that would be necessary!). Is there a way this can be done? Will the colours transfer over correctly? Could someone with both programs help me out? I've attached the RolandVersaWorks.ai file, and I think I'd need the pallette in .ase format for the import to work. Any help or advice is much appreciated! RolandVersaWorks.ai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted June 8, 2023 Share Posted June 8, 2023 It would be possible to export an .ase file (Adobe Swatch Exchange file) from AI and then import it as a document or application palette in an Affinity app. You can also create spot color swatches from within any Affinity app by choosing "Add Global Color" from the context menu of the Swatches Panel and then specifying the name and rendering color, and selecting the Spot check box in the dialog where you define properties for the swatch. You can then add these swatches in any palette and export them as Affinity palettes to be imported within Affinity documents as document or app palettes. Here is zipped the defined spot colors with CMYK rendering color definitions in an Affinity .afpalette format, which you can use in all Affinity apps (both versions 1 and 2). RolandVersaWorks Spot.zip If you import it as an application palette, it will be available in all documents (disregarding color format). Custom_Spot.mp4 [Note that an application palette cannot include global swatches. You probably do not need to have global swatches in this palette, though; global swatches make it possible to have tints linked with parenting swatch and have all linked swatches changed in one go, keeping their tint values. If you do need them, you can include any swatch as part of a custom palette that you can force to load as "default" to be automatically available whenever you create a document using a specific color mode, e.g. CMYK.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
felixbmurray Posted June 8, 2023 Author Share Posted June 8, 2023 Thanks for your help and the quick response - this is really useful! Just so I understand, will the spot colours as they appear in Affinity be exactly the same as they are in Illustrator? I know that's kind of the purpose of spot colours, but I wanted to check that they won't have changed somehow during the export/import process. The printer won't recognise anything other than those exact spot colours, which it uses as a proxy for primer and gloss layers (etc). Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted June 8, 2023 Share Posted June 8, 2023 27 minutes ago, felixbmurray said: Just so I understand, will the spot colours as they appear in Affinity be exactly the same as they are in Illustrator? I know that's kind of the purpose of spot colours, but I wanted to check that they won't have changed somehow during the export/import process. Yes, they are basically the same, except that the AI file has the spot colors defined as global. But they have the same names and same CMYK rendering values. The printer probably looks for exact spot color names (rather than CMYK definitions), but both are identical. Below is a PDF file saved from AI CS6 that has the spot color versions on the left and their CMYK conversions on the right, and then an Affinity Designer file that was created by opening that PDF file and creating a document palette that has the same spot color swatches created that existed in the AI file, and the swatches made global, so the .afdesign file has exactly the same swatches as the .ai file (I added the registration color swatch, as well, to make an exactly matching document palette in the .afdesign file). RolandVersaWorks.pdf RolandVersaWorks.afdesign felixbmurray 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
felixbmurray Posted June 8, 2023 Author Share Posted June 8, 2023 Fantastic. Thanks for all the help! lacerto 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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