Affinity Designer shows imported PDF in Black-and-White, no colors

[Guntis]

Hi, 

I created a logo in Affinity Designer 2.2.0, exported it as PDF. Imported PDF back into the Affinity Designer. App shows imported PDF only in Black-and-White, no colors. All color fills are black. In the Layers palette I see all colors correctly, but in the main window only Black-and-White. Couldn't find in the View menu any option to enable colors. A bug? 

Also, text was placed on the path (circle), but after importing PDF back into the AD, all letters are separated, no text on the path. Is it PDF-related restriction or what? 

[MikeW]

I suspect the curve adjustments visually at the bottom of the layers menu account for this blackness.

PDFs have no concept of text on a path--nor of paragraphs/paragraph styles, character styles, etc. Just objects at x,y coordinates.

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, Guntis said:

Imported PDF back into the Affinity Designer.

"Import" is an imprecise term.

"Open" or "Place" would be better. From your screenshot, I presume you used Open.

When you Open a PDF in an Affinity application, you get a dialog like this one:

What Color Space did you choose? Does choosing a different one help?

 

4 minutes ago, MikeW said:

I suspect the curve adjustments visually at the bottom of the layers menu account for this blackness.

As it's at the bottom of the Layers panel, how would it affect the items above it?

[MikeW]

9 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

...

As it's at the bottom of the Layers panel, how would it affect the items above it?

Looks like they are nested in the objects affected.

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

I suspect the curve adjustments visually at the bottom of the layers menu account for this blackness.

Curve adjustments? I see no Curve adjustments, as in any Curves adjustment layer if that's what you're referring to only a Curves layer created by merging layers that make up the globe which won't have any impact on the layers above as @walt.farrell says which are also clearly shown as colour layers in the layers panel.

[Hangman]

Hi @Guntis and welcome to the forums,

If @walt.farrell's suggestion makes no difference, are you able to upload both your source Designer file and the PDF you exported from it so we can take a look to try and figure out what might be going on?

[Guntis]

Original color space is sRGB. However, I have to Open PDF as CMYK, only then I do get colors. Opening as RGB results in B/W "colors". Thank you @walt.farrell for the workaround tip!

LELBP Logo ar tekstu apkārt EN.afdesign LELBP Logo ar tekstu apkārt EN (Affinity).pdf

Edited September 27, 2023 by Guntis

[Hangman]

Very odd, opening your pdf using 'Estimate' opens it as an RGB image (for me), opening and selecting RGB does the same, opening using Greyscale creates a true greyscale file, certainly not as per your earlier screengrabs and opening as a CMYK file works as expected so I'm really unsure why you are seeing what you are seeing when opening the pdf but glad @walt.farrell had a resolution for you...

[Guntis]

Now when I open PDF as CMYK, it opens correctly, when I open as RGB or as Estimate, it opens black-and-white. A mystery…

I even tried to reset all presets in the app Preferences, no difference.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Guntis

[Dan C]

Welcome to the Affinity Forums @Guntis & I'm sorry to see you're having trouble!

Thanks for providing a copy of your file and screen recording - I'm not seeing the same issue here currently, though I do note the PDF document opens using a Colour Profile I have not seen before ("sRGB2014")

Can you please navigate to Affinity Designer 2 > Settings > Colour and provide a screenshot of your settings here for me?

What Colour Profile are you using for your monitor, set within macOS settings please?

Many thanks in advance

[Guntis]

Hi @Dan C

Here are screenshots of both Affinity Designer Preferences > Color, and System Preferences > Display > Color. I use custom display color profile generated by the Calibrite (x-rite) Colorchecker Display Plus.

 

[Hangman]

15 hours ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for providing a copy of your file and screen recording - I'm not seeing the same issue here currently, though I do note the PDF document opens using a Colour Profile I have not seen before ("sRGB2014")

Hi @Dan C,

The sRGB v4 ICC preference profile is simply a v4 replacement for commonly used v2 sRGB profiles. According to the ICC website, "it gives better results in workflows that implement the ICC v4 specification. It is intended to be used in combination with other ICC v4 profiles."

I have it installed on my system.

[Dan C]

22 hours ago, Guntis said:

Here are screenshots of both Affinity Designer Preferences > Color, and System Preferences > Display > Color. I use custom display color profile generated by the Calibrite (x-rite) Colorchecker Display Plus.

Thanks for providing these for me - there's no obvious incorrect setting within Designer so I'm a little unsure why this is occurring for you currently.

Our of interest, if you select the Colour LCD profile in macOS Settings, the relaunch the Affinity app and try importing the PDF file once again, does this then display as expected please?