Publisher NOT printing CMYK correctly (still)

[stevenh]

Seems this has been around a LONG time, and it makes no sense as to why Affinity has not corrected it. Just re-documenting, and hoping others may have some input that is helpful...

• A CMYK file in AP, even when output to a high end RIP does not maintain CMYK data, and instead all data is (apparently)sent RGB.
• Both InDesign and QuarkXpress output color data correctly from the print dialog box.
• Single color black becomes process. Gray scale and 100K Affinity Designer files shift color as well.
• Exporting to PDF X-1a and printing maintains proper CMYK values.

It's very disheartening that an Adobe subscription is still required just to insure that Affinity will make correct output, and that they count on it as a "Proper" work-flow. Maybe, they should consider making "AffinityPDF" as a 4th spoke in the suite.

Sample below is from AP 2.2.0 
Printed from M2 MacStudio/EFI Fiery RIP G-250 V2.1

[Hangman]

Hi @stevenh,

Just adding to your comments above, there is also an issue when using Placed PDF/X-1a:2003 files in Publisher as well discussed here...

[stevenh]

Good info - thanks for that, Hangman. I'll try your PDF test myself using the 2.2 suite and see if the bug still exists.

[stokerg]

Hi @stevenh,

This is something our Developers are looking into.  As soon as I have an update or more information, I'll post back here.

[stevenh]

Thank You, stokerg. Nice to see that the staff browse these posts, and contribute to the forums.

So many different people, and workflows, with one thing in common... we just want our Affinity tool of choice to to be great. Looking forward to watching the bugs get squashed!

[Dazmondo77]

On 10/4/2023 at 8:35 AM, stokerg said:

This is something our Developers are looking into.  As soon as I have an update or more information, I'll post back here.

Great news - a lot of us really need to print accurate CMYK output to pro devices, I've freelanced at a couple of print providers that still prefer to RIP direct from either Quark or InDesign with total confidence - The first thing I checked when InDesign 2 was hyped up by the press as being a "Quark killer", was how accurate ID2 can output to fiery and harlequin RIPs, if ID2 had have first converted to RGB and then rasterised BEFORE hitting the RIP, only to be converted back to CMYK and RIPed as a 300dpi image (as Affinity currently does), ID2 would have been wiped from our macs and shelved, I'm pretty confident that Quark would still be the industry standard, so really looking forward to re-running the tests I ran years ago on Affinity designer, and hopefully not wasting stupid amounts of paper and toner.

 

    

[Celia at Grafted Works]

I don't know a lot about this, so I apologize for the possibly lame questions. I'm concerned that I'm just now learning about this issue when I've been sending client files to print after exporting from Affinity for a couple of years...

Is CMYK data lost only when directly printing from Affinity? Or do files exported by Affinity to PDF and printed directly through Acrobat (which I think is what you are saying to do) come out alright?

Thanks!

[stevenh]

The issue is when you print directly from Affinity. My suggestion is to export all your Client files as PDF/X-1a:2003 (this is CMYK + Spot Color) unless you have a reason to use a different PDF version ( ie screen use only)

Affinity talks about the different formats for output here: https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Publishing/publishPDFFiles.html?title=Publishing PDF files

[Hangman]

On 10/6/2023 at 9:01 PM, Cealcrest said:

Is CMYK data lost only when directly printing from Affinity? Or do files exported by Affinity to PDF and printed directly through Acrobat (which I think is what you are saying to do) come out alright?

Just to highlight though, re the link in the second post, that there is a bug/issue if using Placed PDF files and exporting from Publisher to PDF/X-1a:2003 which as far as I'm aware has yet to be fixed.

@stevenh, I've not had a chance but just wondering whether you were able to retest this in the latest version of Publisher to see whether Placed PDF/X-1a:2003 file now separate correctly or not?

As you mention, obviously other PDF formats are available, PDF/X-4 might be a better option for example.

[stevenh]

not yet - just got too busy at work... but it is still on my list. This week for sure

[stevenh]

Tried your test. Added my results to the original post:

 

[Hangman]

14 hours ago, stevenh said:

Tried your test. Added my results to the original post:

Thanks for that, I've just replied to your other post... It appears Passthrough is now working correctly with PDF/X-1a:2003 files which is great news though clearly you still have the issue printing CMYK files directly from Publisher but hopefully that will be looked at now as well and resolved.

Many thanks for taking the time to test everything, it's very much appreciated...