Issues and Feature Requests

[PrepressDork]

Hi Affinity,

As my nickname implies, I work in Prepress and have some concerns/issues/feature requests:

1. Regarding outer shadows (and perhaps the transparency feature in general):

I draw a box and fill it with a spot color.  I place an image and size it to fit well inside the box. I then apply a (0,0,0,100) outer shadow to the image. I set its blending mode to Multiply. Export a PDF/X-4. When viewing the PDF in Acrobat, the black drop shadow is RGB (Pitstop confirms this). In addition, Pitstop shows the drop shadow to have a "Compatible" blending mode (instead of the instructed Multiply blending mode).  Using Pitstop to changing the blending mode to Multiply and converting it to a grayscale image gives me better results but this should not be necessary. I have color management set correctly (or at least I believe I do) but even so, the drop shadow should not be getting converted to RGB. What am I doing wrong?

2. Settings sliders stay on the screen once set (even after dismissing the dialog box that it was in).

3. Is there a "Package" feature that collects the document, fonts, and graphics?

4. Is there a "Check for Update" feature?

5. I see no page guides for bleed but see that it's in the works, thank you :)

Thank you,
pd

Mac OS X 10.13.4

[MikeW]

#1 Works for me. Make sure if you are using the swatches that the 100% k of the drop shadow really is...it will not be by default. The panel is lying to you. If it is showing 100% K when viewing using the CMYK sliders, budge the black down and then back up. It should now really be 100% K. I've made my own swatches to avoid them being HSV or whatever.

#2 is a known issue. Doesn't affect me, affects many.

#3 There is no package feature.

#4 Affinity applications always check at startup. There is no separate function.

#5 Yep, perhaps int he next beta.

[PrepressDork]

Hi MikeW,

Thank you for the reply. I have done what you said and am still getting the same results. The drop shadow is still getting converted to RGB.

Any other suggestions?

pd

[MikeW]

I'll upload my sample document...

If this works, can you upload a sample document so I can see it?

Thanks, Mike

prepressdork.zip

[PrepressDork]

I get correct results with your file but not mine. Don't understand it. I even created a new document swatch called "My Black" and it is still getting converted to RGB. I'm sure it's just something obvious that I am missing.

I've attached my test file.

Thank you for your help,
pd

Tester.zip

[MikeW]

OK. Try this.

Remove your drop shadow and move the image off of the rectangle (though this isn't really necessary). With the image selected, right-click and choose Rasterize. Now reset the drop shadow and if you moved it off the rectangle, move it back on. Export, check. The good news is that the shadow (and image) will be in the CMYK color space. The bad news is that the black shadow will be a CMYK blend.

A difference between my test file and yours. My drop shadow will remain 100% K because it wasn't applied to the image but on the rectangle which did not have an image behind it and so black remained black as it was not blending into the Pantone, which for the area a shadow is sitting on blends into the document color space. So the black will be a CMYK mix.

The shadow should remain 100% K. But Affinity applications, even using the PDF/X-4 profile, do not maintain live transparency.

[R C-R]

15 hours ago, MikeW said:

#2 is a known issue. Doesn't affect me, affects many.

It seems to be a Mac only bug. It should be fixed in the next beta, which they say they will try to release sometime this week.

[Fixx]

19 hours ago, PrepressDork said:

I'm sure it's just something obvious that I am missing.

Are you sure document colour space is CMYK, not RGB? (Default is CMYK/8 so it should be ok..)

[MikeW]

2 minutes ago, Fixx said:

Are you sure document colour space is CMYK, not RGB? (Default is CMYK/8 so it should be ok..)

The document is fine. The main issue is no live transparency. Without it, the shadow will always be a cmyk or rgb mix.

[PrepressDork]

Hi MikeW,

So I took your file and added a box of the green/blue spot color behind it. With PDFX-4 selected (I understand that live transparency cannot be maintained), the black only drop shadow after flattening/rasterizing becomes a CMYK mixture even with the "Overprint Black" setting enabled.

So, how do I get the drop shadow to remain black without mixing with the spot color behind resulting in a CMYK mixture (black should overprint)?

Thanks,
pd

[MikeW]

1 minute ago, PrepressDork said:

Hi MikeW,

So I took your file and added a box of the green/blue spot color behind it. With PDFX-4 selected (I understand that live transparency cannot be maintained), the black only drop shadow after flattening/rasterizing becomes a CMYK mixture even with the "Overprint Black" setting enabled.

So, how do I get the drop shadow to remain black without mixing with the spot color behind resulting in a CMYK mixture (black should overprint)?

Thanks,
pd

I didn't really understand what you were trying to achieve when I read the first post and supplied the sample file. So I apologize for sending us all down a rabbit hole to nowhere.

It cannot be done. Transparency is always being flattened when it shouldn't be with certain PDF types.

If this is a requirement, you'll have to use another application until such time as Serif makes it possible. This need may well be incorporated into one of the last items on AD's feature list that involves transparency and is suppose to arrive before the 2.x version. If I am correct about that item, then this would be enabled across all the applications.

I wish I had better news!

Mike

[PrepressDork]

Big ouch. Definitely not good news which does not bode well (at least for now) as I must support whatever my customers use.

I am most grateful for all your time and help with this!
pd