Colour intensity change when converting to PDF for print

[Wicked Stepmother]

I edit a parish mag.  I am not a professional but I have used Serif and Affinity for the 20yrs that I have been doing this.  This month when I converted the finished magazine to send to the printers, the main body of the magazine was fine but at the rear of the mag where the adverts are grouped  the colour intensity was deeper than usual and to such an extent that some adverts are unrecognisable. I have not changed anything on these pages since last month. I export using the 'convert for print 300' option.  If choose 'export for digital' it doesn't change the colour.August 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpubAugust 2024.afpub

For instance page 32 - Digger and Mojo - that should be a mid red colour - the Marquee advert above it - a dark scene but you could see the marquees and the lights previously. if you just look at later pages they are all too dark and intense in the colours.

Dark Ads Print copy August 2024.pdf August 2024.afpub

[NathanC]

Hi @Wicked Stepmother,

I've compared the PDF you've attached opened in Acroabat to the .afpub file in Publisher using the 'Digger and Mojo' advert as an example but i'm not observing this colouration/intensity difference, see my screenshot below where I've compared the two side by side. I've also sampled both which both are 0/100/58/50. I even re-exported out using the (for Print) preset and checked this again to be sure. I'm similarly not seeing any differences with the image above this advert.

This  advert appears to be an embedded PDF resource in your .afpub document which uses the CMYK/8 U.S Web coated SWOP profile. This embedded profile is getting preserved on export as expected.

Can you confirm what app you're using to preview the .PDF in and also provide some comparison screenshots?

Thanks

 

[Wicked Stepmother]

Nathan, thank you for your reply, which to be honest, I didn't understand a word of!  I did say I am not a professional.  However, I think it's something to do with my Desk Top Computer.  I later opened the files on my laptop and they were fine - no dark intense colours.  So strange that it was just some of the advert pages though that were affected on the desk top.  The printers had no problem with them either - it's a mystery!!

If you could explain in in basic non-pro language I'd be very interested!!

[NathanC]

Ah, that's good to hear, I think the problem may be related to the program you were using to view the PDF in on your desktop that was causing this so most of what i've said can just be disregarded, as I was just explaining that the comparison was completely fine when I compared it back to Publisher. On the left I had opened the .PDF document you attached to your forum post in Adobe Acrobat and on the right hand side I had the .afpub you attached open in Affinity Publisher 2. As shown the colour is exactly the same, and when I used a colour sampler in Acrobat and Publisher, the C/M/Y/K (0/100/58/50) colour values were also the same.