100% black graphic (CMYK 0,0,0,100) appears as CMYK 68,67,65,74 when placed in Publisher document

[Ken Hjulstrom]

Hi,

I created a TIFF image in Designer that contained CMYK text that was 100% black, placed it into a Publisher document, and was surprised when the exported PDF still displayed the supposedly 100% black content when I viewed it in Acrobat with the black channel disabled.  While researching this, I created a CMYK rectangle in Designer, exported it as a TIFF, and opened the TIFF file in Photo, and verified with the Color Picker Tool that the black fill was actually CMYK 0,0,0,100.  I then opened a new Publisher document and placed the rectangle TIFF file into it, and when I checked the color of the rectangle with the Color Picker Tool, it shows as CMYK 68,67,65,74, and not CMYK 0,0,0,0 as I expected..  Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong here?  Screenshots of Photo and Publisher, as well as the Designer-generated TIFF file are attached.

Thanks,

Ken

CMYK_BlackRectangle.tiff

[walt.farrell]

What are the color format and color profile of the TIFF document and the Publisher document you Placed it into?

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, Ken Hjulstrom said:

 I then opened a new Publisher document and placed the rectangle TIFF file into it, and when I checked the color of the rectangle with the Color Picker Tool, it shows as CMYK 68,67,65,74, and not CMYK 0,0,0,0 as I expected.

Here the document colour space + profile matters. For instance, if you place a colourful RGB image in a grayscale ("Gray/8") .afpub layout you would expect its colours to appear as gray halftones of black. Accordingly the 100 K black gets converted when the image's and the layout document's colour profiles differ.

Also on export of vector objects that have a certain colour swatch assigned Affinity is known to lack an option to "preserve colour values" if the export profile differs from the document profile. In that case a workaround would be to change the document profile before export and activate the button "Assign" before closing the dialog.

So, for your pixel image (TIF) you would either set the document profile to the one of the image or recolour the TIF content as wanted with 100 K.

[Ken Hjulstrom]

40 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Here the document colour space + profile matters. For instance, if you place a colourful RGB image in a grayscale ("Gray/8") .afpub layout you would expect its colours to appear as gray halftones of black. Accordingly the 100 K black gets converted when the image's and the layout document's colour profiles differ.

Also on export of vector objects that have a certain colour swatch assigned Affinity is known to lack an option to "preserve colour values" if the export profile differs from the document profile. In that case a workaround would be to change the document profile before export and activate the button "Assign" before closing the dialog.

So, for your pixel image (TIF) you would either set the document profile to the one of the image or recolour the TIF content as wanted with 100 K.

Hi thomaso,

Thanks for the info.  I've attached the following files:

• SpotlightOnly_31Aug23_v1.tiff:  This is closer to the actual graphic that I'm placing, so recoloring the text portion in Publisher would be a bit difficult to accomplish, if it could be done at all.  If I were actually placing a rectangle, I agree that just setting its fill color in Publisher would be the way to go.
• DesignerExportInfo.png:  This is a screenshot of the export settings that I used in Designer.  I wasn't able to get the 100 K in the exported file until I specified the "CMYK 8-bit" pixel format option. In the "ICC profile" options, there is one that's named "Generic CMYK Profile", but I didn't try that, since I figured that I had verified that the exported file's black color was in fact 100 K, then the export wasn't the source of my problem.  But I could very well be wrong about this.
• PublisherDocumentColorInfo:  This is from Publisher's "Document Setup" dialog.  The color parameters here have been specified by the print shop, so I really don't want to change these.

Your thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks again,

Ken

 

[thomaso]

33 minutes ago, Ken Hjulstrom said:

Publisher's "Document Setup" dialog.  The color parameters here have been specified by the print shop, so I really don't want to change these.

So it appears you would need to create/save/export the TIF in this wanted "FOGRA39…" document & export colour profile, not with "U.S. Web coated…".

<->

Or …

33 minutes ago, Ken Hjulstrom said:

This is closer to the actual graphic that I'm placing, so recoloring the text portion in Publisher would be a bit difficult to accomplish, if it could be done at all.  If I were actually placing a rectangle, I agree that just setting its fill color in Publisher would be the way to go.

… how about converting (> internet > vectorizer) or re-creating (> Affinity) the graphic as vector to achieve the wanted flexibility?