Why do my colour images in my book keep turning to greyscale??

[Mark Potts]

Hi all, I am currently composing a book in Serif Publisher. The majority of images are greyscale but I do have colour images spread throughout the book. Twice now I have opened it up to continue editing and all the colour images have turned to greyscale ones. What I am doing wrong?? Thanks for reading - Mark.

[walt.farrell]

Can you provide screenshots of the problem, with the full application window visible and also the Layers panel, with the affected layer visible there?

[Mark Potts]

Hi Walt. This is a strange one as I've opened my book again and half of the images that were greyscale have now turned back to colour!!! Here is a screenshot of the image (bottom right corner) which should be colour. Many thanks, Mark.

[thomaso]

7 minutes ago, Mark Potts said:

This is a strange one as I've opened my book again and half of the images that were greyscale have now turned back to colour!

Indeed strange. It might require to upload an .afpub + an affected image embedded. … Or another screenshot …

Quote

with the full application window

… including the Context Toolbar, and, please, with the Colours panel and its lock-icon deactivated, while an affected image is selected with Move Tool in the layout window.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks, and yes it's strange. As @thomaso noted, you did not provide the screenshot I asked for, and I agree the Color panel would also be useful.

[Mark Potts]

Please forgive me for not supplying the correct screenshot. New to Serif Affinity, so not sure that this is what you're asking for. Mark

[walt.farrell]

34 minutes ago, Mark Potts said:

so not sure that this is what you're asking for.

Almost, I think. @thomaso asked for the Color panel, with the lock unlocked, but you have the Swatches panel. The Color panel is next to it.

[thomaso]

It appears to be an RGB document (because there is no "K Only" button in the Context Toolbar).

Although the requested Colours Panel is hidden behind the Swatches Panel the visible colour well for fill might indicate that you have black fill colour assigned to the currently selected image.

If this is the case I assume you did it inadvertently … and possibly to other images, too, and possibly had redone the fill accidentally for the meanwhile coloured images.

[Mark Potts]

Sorry again folks, is this a correct screen shot of the problem? This photo changes from colour to greyscale. Mark

[lepr]

15 hours ago, thomaso said:

It appears to be an RGB document (because there is no "K Only" button in the Context Toolbar).

The document may well be RGB, but we cannot deduce that from the absence of the "K Only" button in the screenshot.

A Pixel object is selected and the "K Only" button will never exist when a Pixel object is selected, regardless of document colour mode. (The button will only exist when a single Image object is selected and the document colour mode is CMYK.)

[thomaso]

@lepr, thank you for pointing me to my overseen screenhot info "pixel". So neither K-Only nor an incidentally assigned fill colour can be the reason.

@Mark Potts, I don't see a hint in your screenshot that might cause the change. (I assume the nested adjustment is not used to reduce saturation?) I wonder if there is a rendering issue for any reason.

• How do the images appear if you create a new document with a different than your current document's colour space (but not grayscale) + copy/paste 1 of your colour images + 1 with missing colour into the new document?

• Or how do they occur if you place affected pictures as image layers by linking or embedding their corresponding image files from your computer?

• Or can you upload an .afpub with a page that contains 1 colour + 1 missing-colour pixel layer?

[GarryP]

Unless I’m mistaken, the greyscale in the OP’s last screenshot comes from the Black & White Adjustment being applied to the image.
Simply ‘open’ the image layer in the Layer Panel (press the little round arrow icon) and delete the Adjustment layer.

And the greyscale in the OP’s first screenshot comes from, as thomaso said above, the layer having been given an almost black fill. Edit: This isn’t correct in this case because of the difference between Image layer and Pixel layers, as mentioned below.
To remove that just select the fill colour well in the Colour Panel and press the ‘no entry’ icon to the left of it.

See attached video where I apply and remove both types of greyscale.

Edited August 7, 2023 by GarryP
Added note.

[lepr]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

And the greyscale in the OP’s first screenshot comes from, as thomaso said above, the layer having been given an almost black fill.
To remove that just select the fill colour well in the Colour Panel and press the ‘no entry’ icon to the left of it.

That layer/object is a Pixel, not an Image. It could have been an Image that was given a dark grey fill and then rasterised to a Pixel. Anyway, it's a Pixel now and clearing the fill well will have no effect on it.

[GarryP]

Oops, yeah, I missed that detail.
Thanks for pointing it out.
I’ve amended my earlier post.