PDF exported from publisher with linked file created in Designer results in unwanted colour changes

[FromTheDeep]

Hi there, 

Not sure if this is a bug or something going haywire on my end, but I was working on a document in Affinity Publisher, with my logo placed as a linked AD file within the document, and could not manage to export the document to a [Digital PDF – High Quality] and have my logo maintain accurate colour in the resulting PDF (it became highly saturated each time).

I've checked and both the AD logo document and the Publisher document are using the same colour profile (sRGB), and all colour settings as far as I can tell are exactly the same, so I can't see where any strange conversions might be occurring. 

To investigate, I tried just creating a simple red square in AD (I chose the iPad mini document preset), then creating a new AP document (also with iPad mini document preset), I placed the red square from AD into the AP file, tried to export to [Digital PDF - High Quality] and the same over-saturated colour resulted. 

Could it be that my version of Acrobat (which I'm using to view the PDF files) has a strange setting stored somewhere, or is there a bug with the Affinity apps? By the way, the PDF colour displays completely as desired (no increased saturation) in Apple's Preview app. 

If anyone could try to recreate this I'd be really grateful. I've already tried uninstalling Acrobat, wiping all the files from my system, and reinstalling to no avail. I've attached my test PDF, AD and AP files for reference.

Cheers, 

Chris

test-square.afdesign test-square_ap.afpub square_test_export.pdf

[Hangman]

Hi @FromTheDeep,

51 minutes ago, FromTheDeep said:

Could it be that my version of Acrobat (which I'm using to view the PDF files) has a strange setting stored somewhere

Quite possibly, the 'logo' (Square) appears identical across all apps for me... have you tried opening the pdf in Apple Preview? Do you see the same issue there?

The other thought is to embed the colour profile into your exported pdf by ticking the Embed Profiles checkbox in the pdf export window as the pdf currently has no embedded colour profile.

[FromTheDeep]

Hi @Hangman, thanks for the quick reply. 

Looks like I might need to do some heavy troubleshooting of my Adobe Acrobat installation, seeing as you weren't able to recreate this behaviour on your end. 

Thanks so much for your help with this, I'd be glad to make a donation to you online if you offer that   

I did try the Embed Profiles checkbox too, and no luck. And yes, Apple's preview app shows no colour issue as mentioned above. 

Any ideas on how I might be able to reset Adobe Acrobat Reader to a factory default state? There seems to be a lack of support online in this area.

Thanks again, 

Chris

[Hangman]

Hi @FromTheDeep,

No donation is required, more than happy to help...

Do you use Acrobat Pro and or Bridge in conjunction with Acrobat Reader as it's possible one of these may be causing the issue with Acrobat Reader?

[FromTheDeep]

Really appreciate the help @Hangman.  
 

Yes I have in the past, I’ll look into this more tomorrow as it’s getting late here but thanks a lot for pointing me on the right track. I’ll see about taking this topic off the bug listings. 
 

Enjoy the rest of your day and thanks again  

[FromTheDeep]

Hi @Hangman, after looking into this a little further, and doing some further experimentation, I've found there seems to be a problem with Adobe Reader's colour management (or lack thereof). There are lots of reports about this online, with no conclusive response from Adobe unfortunately.

I then experimented with Adobe Acrobat (the paid version of Reader) and embedding colour profiles using Affinity Publisher into the PDF, which raised another question in my mind. This is just purely speculation, but I'm a little unsure whether Affinity Publisher is fully able to embed colour profiles in a way that Adobe Acrobat responds to - as in, Acrobat seems to just render the document with the colour profile set in it's colour preferences rather than the profile embedded in the PDF? At least, this seems to be what's happening on my end. Full disclosure – I can't remember if this used to happen when I was using inDesign. Do you know if this is expected behaviour? 

I was able to get Adobe Acrobat to display correct colours by setting colour management settings within its Preferences to be consistent with my working profiles in the Affinity programs. However, I doubt my clients will have the same colour management settings as mine in their versions of Acrobat, so does this mean my logo will be displaying colours in a completely 'unmanaged' way across different clients' devices. I'm just a bit concerned about this from a branding perspective. 

Thanks again for baring with me  

 

[Hangman]

Hi @FromTheDeep,

Acrobat Reader supports colour management using the ICC profile in the PDF file and converts it to the monitor profile for on-screen display. There are no settings in Acrobat Reader to manage this, it just happens.

Out of interest, which monitor colour profile are you using?

5 hours ago, FromTheDeep said:

This is just purely speculation, but I'm a little unsure whether Affinity Publisher is fully able to embed colour profiles in a way that Adobe Acrobat responds to - as in, Acrobat seems to just render the document with the colour profile set in it's colour preferences rather than the profile embedded in the PDF?

Affinity Publisher will embed the Document Profile (rather than the Working Profiles set in the Colour Setting/Preferences set in the Document Setup window when Embed Profiles is selected in the Advanced PDF Export Settings which can be confirmed when viewing the embedded profile data in the exported PDF file using a suitable PDF viewer or simply looking at the metadata for the file.

7 hours ago, FromTheDeep said:

I was able to get Adobe Acrobat to display correct colours by setting colour management settings within its Preferences to be consistent with my working profiles in the Affinity programs. However, I doubt my clients will have the same colour management settings as mine in their versions of Acrobat, so does this mean my logo will be displaying colours in a completely 'unmanaged' way across different clients' devices. I'm just a bit concerned about this from a branding perspective.

I suspect this is something unique to your set-up, if your clients are viewing the PDF you send them using Acrobat Reader they, in theory, shouldn't have any issues...

 

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Hangman]

Hi @lacerto,

Just a side note, which may no longer be applicable in Acrobat DC 2023 or your screen recording but I believe there was a reported colour management bug in Acrobat DC Reader on Windows machines using wide gamut monitors resulting in images displaying over-saturated colours which they didn't in earlier versions of Acrobat Reader.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[FromTheDeep]

Hi @Hangman and @lacerto, thank you both so much for the considerable amount of time and effort you've put in to help me out here. @lacerto your video is fantastic thank you, I can see how Adobe Acrobat has an extra level of colour management that allows for the colour to be produced as desired. 

While I've been a graphic designer for quite a few years now, my knowledge of colour management is limited. To be honest, I'm half-understanding your responses, but still a bit unsure about a couple of things. If you or anyone else has the time, here are some questions I'd love to clarify:

 

Question 1

This question is to do with Affinity's ability to create PDF files with consistent viewing experiences. This is important for me as I'd like to distribute resources to clients and have my brand colour palette maintain a fairly consistent appearance on their devices/apps. (P.S. I understand that complete consistency isn't realistic as there is a wide range of different devices and technologies in use in today's day and age).

Is it possible to have Affinity Publisher (and Affinity Designer for that matter) export a digital PDF with an embedded sRGB profile, and feel confident that it will display in the most common PDF reader/viewing apps with colour fairly congruous with the colours I'm seeing in my working Affinity Publisher file, given that I'm working in an sRGB colour profile also, assuming that these PDF reader/viewing apps have colour settings left at their defaults? 

If I'm understanding correctly, would it be safe to say that someone viewing the PDF in Google Chrome, or in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC with colour management left at default settings (the default RGB profile for Acrobat Pro DC is sRGB, right?), would see colours consistent with my working Publisher file (set at sRGB also). 

And in addition, if someone had adjusted their preferences in Acrobat Pro, and selected Adobe RGB as their RGB colour space, their colours wouldn't be consistent with my working Publisher file, even though I'd embedded the sRGB colour profile on export?

So far it doesn't seem as though embedding the colour profile makes any difference to the outcome in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. My version of Acrobat Pro takes notice of whichever colour space is selected in its colour management settings, and if this is anything but sRGB, colours are displayed incorrectly.

And it looks as though Reader is a lost cause, so I won't worry about colour consistency within that app.

 

Question 2

If the answer to Question 1 is yes, are there any specific steps I need to take on my end (other than to embed the colour profile on export to PDF) to ensure the most consistent experience for clients viewing the PDF on their devices? 

 

Question 3

There seems to be a lot of different version of Adobe Acrobat/Reader floating around, and it can be difficult to know which one to go with. I recently swapped to reader believing it had enough features for me, but finding out about this bug, I think I'll need to try something else. Do you recommend Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, or is there another app you think is better? 

 

For context, I'm coming from many years using Adobe's apps, where I didn't seem to run into these hurdles as much with PDF exports, somehow. I'm loving the Affinity alternatives, but seem to be getting a bit hung up when it comes to PDF exports - I feel as though something is a bit different in the export process regarding handling of colour, where colours seem to be more hit and miss whether they resemble the working file, but not exactly sure what. 

Thanks again for any help - I hope this is a helpful discussion for others too! 

 

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Hangman]

16 hours ago, lacerto said:

EDIT2: I just tested behavior of Reader with an embedded ICC and it treats it just the same as a file without an embedded ICC, and I'm not sure if this can be right. It could be an issue of having both Reader and Pro installed on the same computer (even if I have Pro 2020 and not a DC/CC-based version, and installation of Reader definitely does not have effect on color management of Acrobat Pro).

This is a comment from Dov Isaacs who was a Principal Scientist at Adobe, Inc. with responsibility for end-to-end PDF publishing workflow and product interoperability issues.

Quote

You should not try to have parallel installations of Reader and Acrobat or multiple versions of the same or different releases on a single system. It is a recipe for “issues.”

     - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

 

16 hours ago, lacerto said:

There might also be some recent change in behavior of Reader, so it may be possible that recent free (mere "Reader") versions are deliberately made non-color managed... 

That I'm unsure about but I think you may need to go in the other direction and perhaps look at earlier, pre-DC versions of Reader.

Again, a comment from Dov Issacs in response to a question asked about colour management in Acrobat Reader... I appreciate overprint is not the issue in this particular case and there are no colour management controls in Reader like there are in Pro, but I think that is on purpose, i.e., Reader is effectively a dumbed-down version of Pro...

Quote

Adobe Acrobat Reader indeed supports colour management. If the documents look different, it is because the colour preferences and/or viewing mode (such as overprint preview) are set differently.

     - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

But equally, as mentioned earlier, there was a bug reported in earlier versions of Adobe Reader DC affecting Windows machines using wide-gamut monitors resulting in images displaying over-saturated colours.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Hangman]

12 minutes ago, lacerto said:

I noticed these posts, and found them confusing (especially the last one you referred as it mentions color preferences and overprint preview in context of mentioning Adobe Reader),

My take is he's referring to these settings in the Acrobat Reader Preferences but I could equally be wrong...

 

If you read the same thread on the Adobe forums, you hopefully, saw the final post in the thread as well... the interesting comment here is that Acrobat Reader Version 11, displays colours correctly, while Adobe Reader DC displays oversaturated colours with a wide gamut monitor, same make and model.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Hangman]

16 hours ago, FromTheDeep said:

Question 1

This question is to do with Affinity's ability to create PDF files with consistent viewing experiences. This is important for me as I'd like to distribute resources to clients and have my brand colour palette maintain a fairly consistent appearance on their devices/apps. (P.S. I understand that complete consistency isn't realistic as there is a wide range of different devices and technologies in use in today's day and age).

Is it possible to have Affinity Publisher (and Affinity Designer for that matter) export a digital PDF with an embedded sRGB profile, and feel confident that it will display in the most common PDF reader/viewing apps with colour fairly congruous with the colours I'm seeing in my working Affinity Publisher file, given that I'm working in an sRGB colour profile also, assuming that these PDF reader/viewing apps have colour settings left at their defaults? 

You, of course, have to allow for people viewing your files on both uncalibrated and badly calibrated monitors and/or screens so seeing quite different results, which is perhaps a given but in general, yes, this is a cross-section of the same files viewed in different software created in an sRGB Affinity Designer document, exported to pdf, and viewed in Affinity Designer, Acrobat Reader, Foxit PDF Reader, embedded in three browsers, Firefox, Sarafi and Chrome and iPhone on macOS in Safari.

 

Affinity Designer

Acrobat Reader

Foxit PDF Reader

PDF Files Embedded in Firefox

PDF Files Embedded in Safari

PDF Files Embedded in Chrome

 

iPhone

 

16 hours ago, FromTheDeep said:

Question 2

If the answer to Question 1 is yes, are there any specific steps I need to take on my end (other than to embed the colour profile on export to PDF) to ensure the most consistent experience for clients viewing the PDF on their devices? 

Not really...

 

16 hours ago, FromTheDeep said:

Question 3

There seems to be a lot of different version of Adobe Acrobat/Reader floating around, and it can be difficult to know which one to go with. I recently swapped to reader believing it had enough features for me, but finding out about this bug, I think I'll need to try something else. Do you recommend Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, or is there another app you think is better? 

Do you have ultimate control over where users will view the PDF files you send them?

[FromTheDeep]

Thanks guys, in response to your post @Hangman, it is reassuring to see that level of colour consistency across all those different apps. I'm assuming this test would show the same results if the logos PDF was exported from Publisher, as this is the app I seem to have the most trouble with when exporting to PDF (it could just be Reader causing the trouble though).

Interesting to see that Reader seems to be displaying colours correctly for you, this has definitely not been the case for me, although I do have Acrobat Pro installed simultaneously, which may be causing the issue. I'm going to uninstall reader for the time being, given the uncertainty surrounding it's colour reproduction capabilities, and probably invest in Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 as recommended by @lacerto. I'll not worry about achieving correct colours in Reader, as I feel it's not really worth the hassle given all the other ways clients may be viewing my PDFs these days .

@lacerto I don't have ultimate control over how clients view the PDFs - I think I'd rather give them the flexibility to view them in the apps they're comfortable with. 

Many thanks to you both!

[Hangman]

5 hours ago, FromTheDeep said:

I'm assuming this test would show the same results if the logos PDF was exported from Publisher, as this is the app I seem to have the most trouble with when exporting to PDF (it could just be Reader causing the trouble though).

Indeed, identical results exporting from Publisher...

[FromTheDeep]

Thanks for checking  @Hangman!