Where is "Create Palette from Document" getting the colour values from?

[joe_l]

I am wondering how this is calculated. Simple example.

1) Create a CMYK document and two rectangles, one with a spot colour (C0M60Y94K0) and one with gray fill (C0M0Y0K50). Save it, close it.

2) Create a CMYK dokument and place the first document.

3) Now use Create Palette from Document as Document Palette and check the colours of this new palette.

Result: I have now 13 colours, with no spot colour. The darkest orange is quite close to the original (C0M60Y96K1), but the darkest gray is a complete mess (C38M29Y28K14). And it makes no difference, whether the .afpub is linked or embedded. At least I thought embedded would give better results. Placing a PDF of the first document gives 5 colours, with orange not so close and gray also mixed in 4K.

If you Add Pages from File wouldn't you somehow, maybe expect or hope, that the colours would match the ones in the added document? They are not. Now only three colours, with the same values for orange and gray. So does this mean Affinity internally does not know its own colour structure? 🤔

[NotMyFault]

The feature falls behind user expectations.

as far as I know,

• it ignores special flags used (spot, global color, overprint) and used cmyk / rgb color values only
• it may create an arbitrary subset of colors which occur, and adds arbitrary mixes or shades from those colors. No guarantee to get exactly one swatch for every actually used color

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, NotMyFault said:

No guarantee to get exactly one swatch for every actually used color

On the contrary, almost 100% guaranteed not to get exactly one swatch for every actual colour!

[NotMyFault]

It should be renamed „fuzzy color palette generator“

[Alfred]

11 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

It should be renamed „fuzzy color palette generator“

Is that deliberately ambiguous? I can read it as either “generator for fuzzy colour palettes” or “fuzzy generator for colour palettes”! 

[NathanC]

Hi @joe_l,

Not sure why so many colour tints are being created in this scenario, so I've replicated and logged this with the developers. The colour shift/deviation on the created swatches is also logged.

[NotMyFault]

On 4/17/2025 at 12:07 PM, Alfred said:

Is that deliberately ambiguous? I can read it as either “generator for fuzzy colour palettes” or “fuzzy generator for colour palettes”! 

Did you miss 5 of 7 options? Fuzzy can be applied to

• color
• generator
• palette
• color + palette
• color + generator
• palette + generator
• color + palette + generator

i hope we can agree on there is no zero option (fuzzy staying alone, no applied to any of the 3 words)

Edited April 22 by NotMyFault
Edited before Alfred could reply to some nasty grammar and spelling bugs