APub: Export pdf grey

[GeirSol]

Hi! When exporting pdf in Publisher
with the color-space of grey, my images are still in colors on the exported pdf.

Is this normal behavior? How do I export in black and white?

[Andreas CH]

Um das zu erreichen, musst du den Farbraum auf grau stellen und das das entsprechende ICC-Profil verwenden.

Im Beispiel ISOnewspaper

 

To achieve this, you need to set the color space to grey and use the appropriate ICC profile.

In the example ISOnewspaper

 

Gruss

Andreas

[GeirSol]

16 minutes ago, Andreas CH said:

Um das zu erreichen, musst du den Farbraum auf grau stellen und das das entsprechende ICC-Profil verwenden.

Im Beispiel ISOnewspaper

 

To achieve this, you need to set the color space to grey and use the appropriate ICC profile.

In the example ISOnewspaper

 

Gruss

Andreas

Thanks!
When choosing pdf/X-4
I don't see gray and that ISO-profile as an option.
Do I need to install anything?

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[GeirSol]

On 10/13/2023 at 1:51 PM, lacerto said:

Do you mean that you have placed RGB images in a Publisher document that is in Gray/8 color mode (you will see the color images as grayscales in the Affinity UI), and the printer has requested you to use PDF/X-4 export preset?

Note that if you export such document using PDF/X-4 preset, using "As document" as the color space, the document color space will not be gray (contrary to what the option implies), so you need to explicitly choose "Gray" from the color space drop-down list. If you need a specific profile, you might need to download and install one (e.g. ISO Newspaper is a CMYK profile so it would not show in this context, but there is ISO Newspaper grayscale version available is newsprint is your goal).Note that the only grayscale profile included within Affinity apps (D50) is basically a display grayscale profile and would not show in the list in context of PDF/X-4 print method, either (it only lists press-specific profiles).

I would additionally choose "Convert color spaces" to force the images to convert to grayscale color space, since otherwise they stay ICC-based RGB (which will show and print as process black images in PDF as PDF/X-4 includes the grayscale color intent) -- which may be confusing.

Installing from
https://www.nada.no/english/supporte/download/colormanagenewsp.php

That worked. Thanks a lot!

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[GeirSol]

2 hours ago, lacerto said:

Note that the referred profile is intended for newsprint so its dot gain for black ink is relatively high (probably something like 25 or 30%).

Custom dot gains can be created manually in many color calibration apps, and e.g. in Photoshop, but if you do not have PS Dot Gain profiles, you can get a grayscale profile for coated paper (with more regular 15-20% dot gain) at

https://www.colormanagement.org/en/isoprofile.html#ISOcoated_v2_grey1c_bas

However, if you are going to use the profiles in context of PDF/X-4 (converting directly RGB images to grayscale) the profiles will be embedded even when forcing image space conversion so you would typically not get different tonal output using different dot gains (even if the internal values are different) -- since the embedded profiles would be used to recalculate tonal values if there is a profile conflict. To cause effective tonal conversion, you should either target to correct final media (with no need for print-time adjustments) or would need to use the profiles when converting from color (or grayscale) in e.g. Photo and then place processed images in Publisher (in which case the gray values would simply be passed through). 

Thanks! Looking at the exported files, the resolution seems ok.
I don't understand everything about color and print, but if it holdes up on close inspection in pdf/x-4 then I guess it's fine.