Colors in affinity designer

[expressoaddict]

I did ask this before, and found myself somewhat trashed for not getting CMYK/RGB conversion.

I left the forum (and finished my work in inkscape because I had to get it done) but would like to ask once again, hopefully this time someone can help me with a solution.

 

The short question is: When working in CMYK space, assigning 100%K to an object, why is it not printed as 100%K?

 

To reproduce: 

Start a new document. For settings, I choose PRINT and color format CMYK/8.

For color space I'm quite sure I've been through them all, from US WebCoated SWOP vs (which I think was the default) ending with Generic CMYK.

Add an object, set color to 100% K.

Print.

 

Whatever I choose, a 100%K object will be printed as rasterized (on a black and white laser printer) or grey in a PDF etc etc.

 

What do I need to do to make Affinity treat 100%K in CYMK mode as something to print with 100%K black?

[MikeW]

How are you choosing 100% black?

 

If you first export to PDF and print the PDF, does that then print non-screened black?

 

What is the print device? Your connected printer, or a print service? Or?

[expressoaddict]

Thank you Mike for your response/followup — and sorry for not answering sooner.

 

I guess I'm starting to understand what's going on, and I will use this post to elaborate, but let me start with saying I think Affinity Designer has a fundamental flaw in its CMYK color handling, probably due to the fact that Affinity has its roots in bitmap graphics and thus implicitly in the RGB color model.

 

First, to answer the questions above: 

I am choosing 100% black (known as K in the CMYK world) by choosing CMYK for color model and 100% black from the CMYK slider window.

After that, whether I print directly or export to PDF (and thus also if exporting to PDF, then printing said PDF) the black surface will appear not solid black but rasterized (probably at about 85%K)

This is not correct behavior. 

 

I attach two photos below — a 100%K square as printed to the same printers directly from Affinity Designer and directly from Adobe Illustrator. 

As can be seen, when printed from Affinity a 100%K comes out as a rasterized grey. The same from Illustrator becomes solid black.

 

The problem, I believe, is this:

 

Sure: Everybody knows 100%K isn't perfectly, deeply pitch black. BLACK ink/toner lacks the depth to create a rich, full-bodied black. This introduces problems when interpreting an RGB photo for printing with the CMYK model, since RGB(0,0,0) means perfectly black and 100%K optically really doesn't. To compensate, RGB(0,0,0) is normally printed by complementing the 100%K with some extra C, M and Y to thicken it.

As a result of this, going in the other direction — i.e. converting a CMYK artwork to RGB — 100%K is often rendered only as a dark grey, since it would take 100%K + some extra CMY to make it fully RGB(0,0,0) pitch black.

 

This is all fine and dandy. BUT. For some reason, Affinity Designer seems to be INTERPRETING a CMYK artwork when printing to a CMYK printer — and this should not be done.

 

CMYK values should just be passed on as-is to a CMYK printer, meaning 100%K should be printed with 100% coverage from the BLACK cartridge/toner/ink. As can be seen on the print from Illustrator, that is also exactly what happens there.

However, Affinity seems to be thinking "hey, 100%K isn't really black, so let's interpret it as 85% black" which is like paying tax twice: When printing just 85% coverage with the black cartridge, which you may argue already isn't optically black in itself, the blackness is reduced even further — in direct conflict with rules, logic and most importantly: the values I have chosen.

 

So, in summary, it seems as if Affinity applies some kind of "interpretation" for CMYK values even when printing to a CMYK printer, which is incorrect behavior for a vector graphics program.

 

Photos below. Please also note that this becomes even more visible when printing to a black-and-white laser printer — I apologize for the quality issues (stripes) due to low toner levels, but even so the square (and supposedly solid black text) come out as grey and rasterized. Whereas again, from Illustrator they don't.

[MikeW]

When you choose the cmyk model and 100%k, move the K slider down a bit and then back to 100%. See if you then get the desired result.

[R C-R]

Hi expressoaddict. I don't know if this will help but hopefully it may get you closer to a solution. From another post I believe you are using a Mac, & here are printing to an unspecified local printer connected to it. All that follows is based on those assumptions.

 

According to this Illustrator User Guide page, Illustrator has two basic options for printing color management, one of which lets the app handle that & the other lets the printer do it. For both options, the topic (not particularly helpfully) includes basically the same boilerplate that the Mac help topics about printing do, "Every printer driver has different color management options. If it’s not clear how to set color management options, consult your printer documentation."

 

The Mac Affinity Designer help topic "Print" is even less informative about this. It just says, "The Print dialog will honor the project's current page setup. Therefore, it is important to check your page setup settings before proceeding to print." There is no mention about how or if the app manages color during printing other than this. From other discussions, I think (but I could be wrong) that this just means Affinity just passes the print job to the OS, so all the printing options are handled in the Mac's Printer pop-up menu.

 

To set the Mac's color management options (in either app) you must click the "Show Details" button. This gives you access to a number of popup options, one of which is usually named "Color Matching" (but may vary depending on the printer driver) In Affinity:

Here, I have chosen an ancient Canon inkjet printer & an old default preset. As you can see this uses "ColorSync" color matching (supplied by the OS) & an 'automatic' color profile, one of several supplied by the Canon print driver. The "Profile" popup menu allows access to any color profile installed on the Mac, including via the "Other profiles..." menu choice ones that would be totally inappropriate for printing (like display profiles).

 

To bypass this & let the printer instead of the OS do all the color matching, for this printer I would choose the "Canon Color Matching" option instead.

 

But here is where it gets tricky & that boilerplate becomes important. The Canon printer driver has another set of color management options, named "Color Options" which can be set if the "Canon Color Matching" option is used:

 

Like the Illustrator & Mac help boilerplate mention, your printer driver probably has different color management options, so I can't say what they would be or how they affect printing. For that, you will have to consult the the printer documentation (which in my experience often is not very helpful), but the point of this overly long post is there may be half a dozen or more obscure printer settings that can affect color management, & you may have to use the "Show Details" button & go through them all to see how they are set.

[mac_heibu]

Don’t know what you are doing, but all works as expected! I think, your document profile and your output profile are different, and thus you provoke a CMYK to CMYK conversion.

Try this:

• Create a new document: CMYK/8, profile ISO Coated V2 300 (that is my standard profile, you may use yours).

• Place a simple rectangle and a text box.

• Define a colour C=0, M=0, Y=0, K=100) and assign it to the rectangle and the text.

• Export this to PDF, using compatibility = "PDF X/3:2003" (= transparency flattening & others), Profile = "ISO Coated V2 300" (or the one, you used while creating the document).

• Open this PDF in Acrobat (if you have) and inspect the "output preview". The chosen output profile should be already automatically set (and it has to be set correctly!).

• What does it show? The correct CMYK values!

[mintcar]

What happens in this video happens to me too:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6VFBiDyHKk

 

I'll try the process mac_heibu outlined above to see if it works, but I just can't understand why the process in the video doesn't produce a pure black fill in the pdf!

 

I think we need a separations preview function in Affinity Designer. Until we have that, serious print production will not be practical. 

[mac_heibu]

The document profile in the video is "US Web Coated (SWOP) v2" and the Acrobat Pro Simulation profile is set to "Coated FOGRA 39" Change the simulation profile in Acrobat pro to your document profile (, if you are sure, you really want to use US Web coated).

Didn’t you talk about "serious print production"?  :)  :)  :)