CMYK - RGB PDF conversion in Publisher/Photo/Designer different

[design punch]

Win 10 64, V 2.5.3 (Problem already existed in V 1)

I've been struggling with the following problem for some time, but I can't find a solution.
Maybe someone can solve the puzzle?
Thank you!

Books (for printing) are created in CMYK (profiles here throughout: fogra 39), both the Publisher book files and the individual graphics (Designer) and images (Photo).
When exporting for print (PDF/X), everything works correctly (CMYK).

If I now export the same file for online use (digital .pdf), the colours are sensibly converted to RGB according to the specifications (e.g. PDF 1.7, RGB, sRGB IEC...).

To illustrate the problem, here is an image ‘horse pixel CMYK.afdesign’, which is placed (linked) in a Publisher, Designer and a Photo file (all 3 files are created in the same way - in CMYK, fogra 39).

If you export the 3 files each to a digital .pdf, the white background of the horse image appears (not the background of the file)
- Designer: white (as it should be)
- Photo: grey
- Publisher: grey

The question is, why does Designer produce the correct white, but Photo and Publisher do not? After all, the CMYK values show C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=0 (all of my Pre-adjustments of all 3 programs - colors etc. - are the same)

It is also noticeable (as shown in the jpg here) that in Windows Explorer the preview of the Designer file is displayed differently (with a white background) than Photo and Publisher (grey background)?

(Attached please finde the relevant files - zip - for comparing purposes)

Compare.zip

[walt.farrell]

I see the same as you, on both Windows and macOS.

The difference between PDF (for Print or Press-Ready) and PDF (Digital) seems to be that the Print/Press-Ready presets use the document color space by default and have Convert Image Color Space turned off, while Digital forces sRGB and has Convert Image Color Space turned on.

If you start with Print/Press-Ready and change the color space to sRGB you get the same thing as you see with Digital. So it is something to do with the color space conversion.

In your application Settings (for all 3 applications) what do you have in the Color section? Can you show us screenshots from them?

[design punch]

Hi Walt,

thanks for taking a view into this subject.

Attached the color settings of all 3 APPs.
They are the same, I checked it over and tried in addition with different settings: no visible change at all.
Export to digital will convert colors to sRGB in all 3 APPs (covert to RGB in ON, profile is always "sRGB IEC...")

When exporting to digital - change of "color space" to RGB is enough to have the problem.

- open the Publisher file in Designer and the grey problem appears on digital export
- open the Photo file in Designer and the grey problem appears on digital export
- open the Designer file in Designer and the grey problem is gone.

So it must be some differency how Photo/Publisher handle color conversations - other than Designer ?!
But which one is correct?
CMYK=0000 should be converted in RGB=255.255.255, am I'm right?

I have absolut no idea, why Designer convert white to white, while Publisher/Photo doesn't ?
Up to now, when I need(ed) an online version of a printed book, I had/have to copy the complete "resources set" and convert all "mis-colored" pics/graphs to RGB first.

[walt.farrell]

11 minutes ago, design punch said:

So it must be some differency how Photo/Publisher handle color conversations - other than Designer ?!

Perhaps, but I think there's more (or something different) going on.

For example, if I open your Horse in Publisher.afpub file in Designer, the same problem occurs if I use PDF Digital as an Export, or change PDF for Print to RGB rather than Document format. 

Conversely, if I open your Horse in Designer.afdesign file in Publisher, the problem does not occur.

Are you sure that all of the Color Settings are identical between Publisher and Designer?

[design punch]

Hi Walt,

thanks for your questions. They guided me - after hours of testing - to a surprising solution (if I don't err!)

1. the grey background comes from color conversion CMYK to RGB - in this case, color intent (color settings of the APP) was "absolutely colorimetric"
2. If color intent (color settings of the APP) is "relative colorimetric", white background appears.
(The Designer file I used - other than the Photo and the Publisher file - was created before with "relative colorimetric", but I didn't notice it in the beginning!)
BUT:
3. Once a file is created, the color intent adjustment of the APP (system adjustment) - at that moment - is kept forever in this file (at least it seems so). It does not change anymore, even you change the system adjustments later.

If I'm not mistaken here, it's a bit awkward because it would be impossible to convert/export a (CMYK) book to an online digital pdf book by simply (e.g. temporarily) changing the colour intent to ‘relative’. Either the complete book file has to be created from scratch or all resources have to be converted to RGB for this book version.

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, design punch said:

Once a file is created, the color intent adjustment of the APP (system adjustment) - at that moment - is kept forever in this file (at least it seems so). It does not change anymore, even you change the system adjustments later.

I think that may be true, just as the RGB, CMYK, Grayscale, and Lab color profiles in the app Settings (that are not assigned as the active color profile for a document) are "baked" into a file when it is created. 

I'm still a bit confused, though. Are you saying that the Photo and Publisher files were created using the Absolute Colorimetric setting? That is, that Photo and Publisher were set to Absolute Colorimetric, while Designer was set to Relative Colorimetric?

[design punch]

Quote

I'm still a bit confused, though. Are you saying that the Photo and Publisher files were created using the Absolute Colorimetric setting? That is, that Photo and Publisher were set to Absolute Colorimetric, while Designer was set to Relative Colorimetric?

Yes, exactly. Upto now, my standard adjustment on the APPs was "absolute". Photo and Publisher files were created the last days to demonstrate the problem, the Designer file existed already before - here I deleted some layers only for this future testing. I can't tell you why this single Designer file was set to "relative". I guess, I was searching weeks ago about this problem and incidently set the intent to "relative" (impossible to find out later, what was set at the time of creation). Anyhow I never even dreamed that the pre-adjusted colour intent would play a role in this. I would expect that what is "today" set in the system is relevant to the operation. It was only after all the tests that I realised what was going on here.