Exporting PDF from Affinity Publisher results in different black values when checking in Affinity Designer

[flobin]

So I have a booklet that I made in Affinity Publisher which includes several black elements. I made them CMYK 25/25/25/100 black in Publisher, then exported it as a PDF file. I used Affinity Designer to check if everything is exported correctly (just to double-check). I used the same color profile for both files. However when I use the color picker on the PDF in Affinity Designer, I get a different value for the black, namely 56/57/56/77.

Is this just a PDF importing issue or is the black really not correct somehow?

[NathanC]

Hi @flobin,

In your PDF export settings screenshot it appears that that your embedded PDF profile is set to 'ISO Coated V2 300%', does this match your original .afpub file's colour profile found under Document Setup > Colour? If it doesn't, this will be the result of the mismatched colour values on the PDF due to a profile conversion taking place on export.

Instead, prior to PDF export I would instead under the Document Setup > Colour settings change your colour profile to your desired format, press 'Assign' and then press 'OK', using the 'Assign' will update to the new profile but retains the colour values. However, 'Convert' converts the colour values from the old profile to the new one to try and accurately re-produce the same colour from the original profile, and as a result the values are adjusted.

[flobin]

1 minute ago, NathanC said:

Hi @flobin,

In your PDF export settings screenshot it appears that that your embedded PDF profile is set to 'ISO Coated V2 300%', does this match your original .afpub file's colour profile found under Document Setup > Colour? If it doesn't, this will be the result of the mismatched colour values on the PDF due to a profile conversion taking place on export.

Instead, prior to PDF export I would instead under the Document Setup > Colour settings change your colour profile to your desired format, press 'Assign' and then press 'OK', using the 'Assign' will update to the new profile but retains the colour values. However, 'Convert' converts the colour values from the old profile to the new one to try and accurately re-produce the same colour from the original profile, and as a result the values are adjusted.

Hi @NathanC, thank you for your reply. The color profile in Document Setup > Color is the same as in the export settings, ISO Coated V2 300%. However I just replaced 'convert' to 'assign' and exported the file again and now the color seems to be correct. Thank you so much!