Easy way to transform CMYK barcode to 100k for printing?

[Elennah]

Ok, time for another newbie question. I'm designing book cover and created ISBN code with this handy tool (https://the-burtons.xyz/barcode-generator/). I placed it to cmyk document and sent it to printer. But they wanted the bar code 100k instead of combination of cmyk colors. Is there an easy way to check colors in Affinity Designer and how would I transform the colors as needed? Any tips?

[Fixx]

The EPS barcode is proper 100K document but AD for some unclear reason converts it to CMYK composite. You can select bars and numbers and readjust them to 100K.

[v_kyr]

If the generated barcode is in EPS format, check in the EPS file the code (via a text editor etc.) if a profile is assigned there or not. Since if possibly no profile is assigned in the downloaded EPS file, AD will as default then -when importing that EPS file- assign a "greyscale profile" to it instead.

[Fixx]

Is there any way to avoid this profile assigning to destructively change colour values?

[v_kyr]

AFAIK actually no, not from inside settings of AD. If an EPS doesn't have (comes along with) any embedded profile reference, then AD will assign as default a "greyscale profile" to it. - This has to be changed in the AD parser code for EPS importing, or be controlled via a settable flag/option for EPS imports. Meaning that when an EPS has no associated profile that then no default greyscale profile is added by AD then.

In it's actual state you would have to edit the EPS file manually and assign some other sRGB profile etc. into it before importing.

[walt.farrell]

I wonder if you could open it as a separate document and then Assign the appropriate profile, then copy/paste it into the target document?

[v_kyr]

• Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) File Format, Version 3.x

Quote

...
PostScript provides rich support for defining colorspaces and using CIE-defined colorspaces, including operations for switching between colorspaces as the image is drawn. For color maintenance, ICC has provided guidance for embedding ICC profiles in EPS files. See section B.2 in Appendix B of the ICC 1:2010 (Profile 4.3.0.0) or ICC.1:2001-04 specifications. Two alternative mechanisms are described: firstly, to embed an ICC Profile into a PICT or TIFF preview; secondly, to bracket the profile between %%BeginICCProfile and %%EndICCProfile comments, with each line of profile data beginning with a single percent sign followed by a space.
...

Embedded profiles are placed immediately after the comment section using the well-defined Adobe ICC profile re-
lated DSC comments:

Syntax:

%%BeginICCProfile: (<id>) <n> Hex Lines
% <hex-line>
% ...
%%EndICCProfile
  
Example:
  
%%BeginICCProfile: (ICC-Profiles:Scanner:CCIR-EBU-RGB) 9524 Hex Lines
% 0004a6806170706c0200000073636e72524742204c61622007cb000b00100013
...
% e0e1e2e3e4e5e6e7e8e9eaebecedeeeff0f1f2f3f4f5f6f7f8f9fafbfcfdfeff
%%EndICCProfile
  
Please refer to the Adobe EPSF ICC documentation for further information on embedding ICC profiles in EPSF.

 

[MikeW]

The simple fact is that AD mishandles the grayscale (and actual 100%k) like in an EPS when not specifically defined in an EPS file. Everything else I have reads an EPS file like the OP's (I generated one from that web site and loaded some of my own) just fine. This has always been the case in AD.

 

[Elennah]

Thank you all for your replies. I managed to create one 100k barcode, hurray! One thing still baffles me; when I open the eps file to AD it looks like somewhere in the process it loses all alphabets and numbers.. Is it a bug or just a feature? It won't take long to add the text and numbers there, but I guess it would be nice if everything worked like a charm
 

[v_kyr]

Expand the layer -> (Layer) and look if the text is (alphabets and numbers are) probably there as curves etc. down in the sublayer hierarchie. If they are there, then look if those layers are enabled, are not white colored, or positioned outside the canvas x/y-coordinates. - EPS imports often need a slightly layer rework and repositioning inside AD, since things are sometimes shifted during imports.

[Elennah]

Hmm, sadly no. Nothing hidden in the layers panel, just bars.

[v_kyr]

18 minutes ago, Elennah said:

Hmm, sadly no. Nothing hidden in the layers panel, just bars.

Did you maybe changed or altered any of the initial Online Barcode Generator options here?

As default it looks like this for me:

1. Barcode: ISBN
2. Contents: 978-952-315-364-6
3. Options: includetext guardwhitespace

[Elennah]

Oh yes, I did alter the height (includetext  height=0.5). But if I open the file with Illustrator it works, everything is there..but Illustrator says that I don't have the fonts used in the document so that might be the reason.