PURE BLACK (CMYK: 0/0/0/100) DOES NOT EXIST

[janek]

Hey, 

it's a few years with this bug, it's ridiculous. 

Even though I have only one plate selected (100K), I still get a rich black in the output. There's no pdf option, swatch variant that could prevent that transformation during export. OMG. 

Why it's not there? What's so hard about that? How am I suppose to overcome the issue?

Thank you,

Janek

[joe_l]

7 minutes ago, janek said:

Why it's not there? What's so hard about that?

Working for years with Affinity and never had this problem. Document is CMYK? The elements are marked with 100K? The correct export setting is used? Would be nice if you could upload a sample Affinity file to check.

[janek]

pure-black-01.afdesignArtboard1.pdf

Hey, I'd love to be proved wrong or dumb.  I've been using Affinity almost 10 years. It looks good in Affinity, but I couldn't find a proper PDF setting to get the output right.

[joe_l]

Your documents Colour Profile is U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2 and you simulate it against Coated Fogra 39.

Simulate it against U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 or use an export setting without embedding the Colour Profile. Or follow thomaso's advice.

 

[thomaso]

31 minutes ago, janek said:

Even though I have only one plate selected (100K)

Where "selected" ?

31 minutes ago, janek said:

There's no pdf option, swatch variant that could prevent that transformation during export.

The colour model (for swatches) + the colour space profiles for document + export influence the resulting colour definitions. For images also the conversion option plays a role. Means, there is not "no" but rather a range of colour options for PDF export.

I can't open V2 files, so I need to ask: Is the document profile identical with the export profile? (Fogra 39) If not, select 'Fogra 39' as document profile + activate "Assign" before pressing "Okay". – Attached a PDF/X-4 with three versions of black.

v1 blacks.pdf

[janek]

Hey @thomaso! Thank you for your time – YOUR FILE WORKS!

However I'm heavily perplexed – should the document Assign/Convert option affect the behavior? The simulation was the same in the doc and pdf settings, just that general, I believed, setting made a difference... Also, why that Assign/Convert is always reverting to Convert after closing the dialog...?

Thank you again

[thomaso]

11 minutes ago, janek said:

should the document Assign/Convert option affect the behavior?

"Assign" is used to maintain colour values but not their visual appearance. – "Convert" works vice versa and maintains colour appearance but may change values.

In Affinity their use is fundamental. Unfortunately. There is no export option like "Preserve Colour Values" which would ensure that colour swatch definitions like 100 K don't get modified to ensure that 100 K remains 100 K even if exported with another profile. This was discussed for years, in particular in the first versions of APub but obviously Serif insist in their understanding and app behaviour.

It is particularly annoying if you place in you layout a document (e.g. Affinity or PDF) that has a different document colour profile than your current document profile: then the colours of the placed file can be changed during export… and e.g. 100 K (or a clients corporate colour) in the placed files may get changed even if the other pages of the layout export 100 K correctly as expected).

11 minutes ago, janek said:

why that Assign/Convert is always reverting to Convert after closing the dialog...?

Good question, too. This was one of may first issues with the early APub Beta years ago and as far I remember there never was an answer. It is even worse / more confusing: the button state when opening the dialog window may imply that "Convert" is the currently active setting even when actually "Assign" is currently working.