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Could you help me with my export please?


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...

 

They are using some PDF output CMYK color profile. You really need to ask them which it is and I would be surprised if any place outside the USA is using US SWOP.

 

But you still ought to recolor the background to achieve the color you desire. That is reasonably easy in AI as you can select an object and opt to Select Same for the fill color.

Thanks for the step-by-step, Mike, I really appreciate your help with this.

 

I did ask them last week which colour profile they use and the answer from their tech dept was... CMYK  :o 

 

I sent them a screen shot to show what I meant, but still they just said CMYK.

 

As for that US SWOP profile - that's the default apparently - or else it somehow became the default on my installation and remained so after resetting. I have no idea what it is. I followed your settings when I exported as PDF and used Color format CMYK/8, Color profile FOGRA29, Export compatibility PDF/X-4.

 

And what I got back has those stitching artifacts, a wrongly positioned layer (they scaled it up when it was already s/s) and interference that trimmed part of the text...

 

So I am naturally doing my utmost to make things foolproof - even for a printer  :unsure: 

 

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One cannot fix dumb.

 

To be more specific with them, you could try asking what CMYK profile they are using. And there is often a disconnect between the salespeople and the people actually doing the printing, so you could try asking whomever you are speaking with to actually ask the art department. Might piss them off for pointing out ignorance especially if it was one of the art department people.

 

As regards AI, it may well be that the default installation is US SWOP, but it is a smaller gamut than FOGRA 39 and the ink density is lower. As I am in the US, that is a default for most applications even if it is not appropriate for here--it is simply a safer default because of the ink limit.

 

Without getting the requisite information from them or whoever is printing whatever job, one cannot advise otherwise. If they are using one of the FOGRA output profiles, there will be a color change as there will be a conversion from one CMYK profile to the other. But hey, who knows? Maybe they are also using US SWOP...

 

PDF/X-4. You also need to ask what flavor of PDF they want. It may not be PDF/X-4 but instead /X-1a or /X-3. Or simply a PDF compatibility higher than 4.

 

Mike

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Well... I've just had a long conversation with the printer and they confirmed they don't specify a PDF preset or colour profile and PDF/X and FOGRA29 don't mean anything to them.

 

It's only come to light because I need to convert the artwork from AD to a format they can work with.

 

As long as they receive the file in .ai format, they open it in AI and send it to their system.

 

So the key to getting this right is going to be for me to create a faithful .ai file they can work from rather than give them something they are going to convert to .ai themselves.

 

I've just run some tests with different presets and colour profiles and this is clearly where the discrepancy originates.

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See? One cannot fix dumb.

 

They do use color profiles. There press/printer is--or was when set up--set to use a particular color profile. One cannot avoid the use of a color profile unless one uses PostScript which is not color managed but even here, the end print devices are.

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ROUND THREE!

 

Boy, is this taking a lot of work just to get the artwork in a state the printer can use!

 

OK, I think I've managed to get the background set up - by exporting it as a PDF and then opening it in Photoshop if I add an orange background this hides the artefact stitch lines. So far so good.

 

Where I run into problems next is with the erase layers I used to offset the letter shadowing.

 

I've attached a detail to show what I'm aiming for - the first file 'S' is the end result I want; the second 'Sb' shows the blue layer which in AD I set as an erase layer.

 

How can I export this or rework the art so it renders correctly?

 

I've tried PDF and EPS and I get white fill in any group containing the erase layers - as shown in the third image. (The text for the logo - CHU... - exports perfectly, but that was supplied to me and unfortunately I have no idea how the effect was achieved.)

post-27840-0-97625500-1488882813_thumb.jpg

post-27840-0-25241900-1488882847_thumb.jpg

post-27840-0-39149700-1488883123_thumb.png

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Hmm, are those S available as editable text fonts or curves? - If it's just editable text, coloring the middle blue one into the background color gives you that effect. If these are curves you would have to fill the middle one with the background color instead of blue or perform some substraction for that blue one.

  • post-49706-0-76335900-1488892145_thumb.jpg

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Whether it's curves or editable text, I don't understand why the OP is trying to use 'Erase' (or any other blend mode) on the blue layer. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me that simply subtracting the blue layer from the black one will give the desired separation between the white text and the black shadow, and this will allow the orange background to show through correctly even if it isn't a solid colour.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
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Thanks for the replies, guys. I guess my description omitted a few details.

 

I am using the blue layer as an erase layer solely to subtract from the black layer.

 

I am working with curves but I can recreate if needed as text before I convert to curves.

 

This brief video will hopefully make things clear.  :)

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ap5wfof3glwc087/2017-03-07_13-38-03%20%282%29.mp4?dl=0 

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I'm open to advice on how best to do this. I have four words and need to create this effect for each.

 

I can start again, export in whatever form works best, basically do whatever I need to do in AD.

 

So I'm really just asking how would you do this? Because I created it in AD the way I knew it would work, without the realisation it would be a pain in elbow to produce print-ready artwork.

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Select the black and blue layers in the 'shadow' group, Option/Alt-click the 'Subtract' icon on the Geometry toolbar and then reset the fill colour to black. This will give you a compound object whose components can be returned at any time (via the 'Release' option on the context menu) to their original form as editable text. More importantly, it will remain as vector: if you use the 'Erase' blend mode, the result is a bitmap/raster object.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Thank you for that, Alfred. I'd never used the geometric toolbar before, so that was quite a discovery.

 

As far as I can work out, you can only subtract individual elements and not groups, but at least I can now rebuild the words and hopefully export them without a hitch.

I won't get the flags out just yet, but the day is drawing near  :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's the latest update on the saga.

 

I used the subtract and combine tricks to rework the text - thank you for highlighting this feature for me, I'd never used it before.

 

I then decided to export all four layers separately as both .eps and .svg and supply them to the printer, along with a psb version that I created with everything in a single file.

 

And still the printer's proof wasn't right. They said they couldn't import the .psb file. So my guess is they were simply trying to bring everything into their system and not actually doing any pre-work.

 

So I bit the bullet and paid for one month's AI to rebuild the file in myself using the very same files I'd sent to the printer.

 

But I've never used AI before and couldn't work out how to do the equivalent of AD's erase blend.

 

In the end, I outsourced the job and sent my AI file along with my layered files. Then I sent the resulting reworked .ai file to the printer and the proof was spot-on.

 

So... what I've learned from this is:

 

  • designing for the web is infinitely simpler than designing for print
  • AD is much more my kind of tool than AI (which is way too sophisticated for my needs)
  • some printers are less than helpful

Thanks once again for all the guidance and input along the way. It's been a long and bumpy road and I'd never have reached the end without the help I got here.

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