Correct color management workflow Publisher->PDF (I'm getting different on screen colors)

[fpell]

Hello,

I'm no professional graphic designer and I lack extensive printing experience, so I'm having a hard time understanding the correct way I should proceed.

I'm preparing some files to be printed with pixartprinting.it (a online printing service). They want the files to be CMYK with Coated Fogra39 profile, and I set up the document to be like that. I've also set Affinity display color profile from CMYK at Fogra39, but I can't get the PDF to match the colors that I see in Affinity Publisher.

I open them both side-by-side on the same screen, and the PDF has darker colours (checked with the Powertoys color picker). I noticed that Foxit reader and Adobe Reader handle colors differently, with Adobe being closer to Affinity but still off.

Last year I also got the prints to be significantly darker than what I had on display, but that wasn't a big surprise.

What I'd like to know is how to get a PDF that looks like the .afpub, at least on screen 😩

 

any suggestion really appreciated, thanks

[walt.farrell]

13 hours ago, fpell said:

I've also set Affinity display color profile from CMYK at Fogra39

I'm not sure what you mean by that. You don't set a display color profile in the application; you only set document profiles, except when printing or performing soft-proof adjustments. Can you show exactly what you set?

[fpell]

7 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I'm not sure what you mean by that. You don't set a display color profile in the application; you only set document profiles, except when printing or performing soft-proof adjustments. Can you show exactly what you set?

I mean this setting, but I might have misunderstood what it actually does

Edited November 22, 2024 by fpell

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, fpell said:

I mean this setting, but I might have misunderstood what it actually does

That sets the default color profile used with new documents in each of those color formats. It does not affect documents that have been created with or changed to a different color profile.

Also, in general it is not recommended to set any of these document formats to any of the display profiles since those are intended for displays (screens), not documents.

[fpell]

40 minutes ago, R C-R said:

That sets the default color profile used with new documents in each of those color formats. It does not affect documents that have been created with or changed to a different color profile.

Also, in general it is not recommended to set any of these document formats to any of the display profiles since those are intended for displays (screens), not documents.

Understood, thank you.

 

BTW I've been playing around with export settings and I found a combo that gives me colors that are slightly brighter than in Affinity. I still can't wrap my head around this but I'm gonna go for this one

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, fpell said:

BTW I've been playing around with export settings and I found a combo that gives me colors that are slightly brighter than in Affinity. I still can't wrap my head around this but I'm gonna go for this one

How are you viewing the exported file? Some apps ignore an embedded color profile.

[fpell]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

How are you viewing the exported file? Some apps ignore an embedded color profile.

yeah I noticed that, I'm using both Foxit reader and Adobe reader, the latter seems to give closer colors (and being the "original" I would hope it's the one behaving like it should)