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the "Create Palette from Document" with CMYK gives the wrong color values


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I think this bug is well known on other affinity apps since at least one year and I'm surprised that not even it was not fixed in my paid version of Designer (v1.6x) - it also does not work better on this beta of Publisher (which has a 1.7 base) as I think they all share some codebase

So, in print it is ABSOLUTELY important to have consistent CMYK-values across all sorts of documents that are for the same client/project.

When I try to recreate a file already existing in Indesign, I import a PrintPDF to get the important parts in the right size and color. After that I clean it up to make it "native Affinity" in my hopes to get rid of Adobe sometime in the near future. I make sure all CorporateDesign colors are exactly the right ones and are GLOBAL. Here comes the handy "Create Palette from Document" feature which gives me a List of colors which at first look very promising...

Problems:

  1. the colors are not linked/applied to their respective source, so you would have to select EVERY f...ing element with that color and apply it.
  2. the colors are not quite the same, like convreted to lab and then back to CMYK which changes 0/15/100/0 to 0/20/100/2! 
  3. this should be the base-level from which to work off, when the file is opened/converted.

 

Coming from Photo (mostly RGB, where colors are very subjective), going to Designer (where you could say it's an illustration, like a photo), and now Publisher (where it's mandatory to have consistent color VALUES because it's mostly CMYK) I could see that this is an issue that Affinity maybe did not recognize early enough.

 

Bildschirmfoto 2018-09-05 um 17.52.18.png

Bildschirmfoto 2018-09-05 um 17.51.53.png

  • Main machine: iMac 2019 (21,5-inch 4k, 6core), 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme + 2TB ssd, running on Mac OS 13;
  • Display setup: 28" 5k Display (primary) + 21,5" iMac4k-Display for studio panels (secondary);
  • Keyboard layout: german apple extended keyboard (aluminium);

 

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Which color profile has your image, which color profile has the Publisher document?

I assume, Publisher does, what he is able to do: Taking colour values from the screen, respecting the monitor(!) profile and display the CMYK values regarding the document profile.

If you use „Create Palette from Image“, choose a CMYK document, which is correctly profiles, the colours will be correct.

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no no no, I'm not trying to get CMYK-values of an RGB-Image! ;)

 

This is a yellow rectangle is all vector and CMYK. It had the color values 0/15/100/0 which is a clean "bee-yellow" I would say. Was exported in ID to PDFX3 with output color profile ISOcoatedv2, BUT with the option selected "keep color values".

But thats irrelevant, because the imported rectangle in Publisher even has the right color! (as seen in the screenshot with the pink arrow)

Yet when I select create Pallete from DOCUMENT it obviously tries to read color values like it was an RGB- or LAB-image and ignoring the information already there! 

 

I think this feature was designed for RGB-Pixels not for 4c-Vectors and was created for Photo (where it was OK) ported to Designer (sometimes ok, but mostly wrong) and now to Publisher (absolutely wrong). 

  • Main machine: iMac 2019 (21,5-inch 4k, 6core), 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme + 2TB ssd, running on Mac OS 13;
  • Display setup: 28" 5k Display (primary) + 21,5" iMac4k-Display for studio panels (secondary);
  • Keyboard layout: german apple extended keyboard (aluminium);

 

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Did you read exactly? I think, this feature takes its values from the screen – and this is RGB (no matter, if your image is CMYK or not) and has a monitor profile. All screen color pickers work this way. If you are on Apple, try to pick the colours of a CMYK image and you have the same effect.

If you use „Create Palette from Document, the image itself is scanned and not the screen representation.

But: This is only a strong assumption. We’d need somebody of the team to clarify. Hello, @MEB! :)

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11 minutes ago, mac_heibu said:

If you use „Create Palette from Document, the image itself is scanned and not the screen representation.

I don't think, I was missing something from your post? I AM talking about create palette from DOCUMENT, of course.

19 hours ago, woefi said:

Here comes the handy "Create Palette from Document" feature which gives me a List of colors which at first look very promising...

This is not Photoshop, oriented mostly on visual impression of a photo. This is a Desktop Publishing Software which should respect CMYK color swatches, defined in Corporate Design Guidelines of clients. Color Profiles come afterwards, as output intent, when exporting.

Well, FWIW, I begin to think you are right about this entire feature being only a simple screen grabber tool... but wrongly named.

@MEBjust kidding! Affinity Apps look damn good, and I'm impressed about the stability already in this state

. But we need to get basic functionality right, as we are here in the first beta of their DTP-Software, this is the right time to be picky!

  • Main machine: iMac 2019 (21,5-inch 4k, 6core), 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme + 2TB ssd, running on Mac OS 13;
  • Display setup: 28" 5k Display (primary) + 21,5" iMac4k-Display for studio panels (secondary);
  • Keyboard layout: german apple extended keyboard (aluminium);

 

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No answer possible from my side. We need input from the developing team.

But I really assume, the colours are taken from the screen rendering and not from the elements themselves..

Edit: In my above posting I confused „Create palette from document“ and „Create palette from image“. Sorry for this!

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You are right, I hope someone from the team gives some information, what Affinity itself thinks this feature SHOULD do.

But I hope I'm not wrong about comparing it to InDesign's and Illustrator's "Add Unnamed Colors" - an essential tool for cleaning up documents (after the creative chaos) and making sure you get the right colors in the print shop. An error would cost me at least an inconvenient excuse to my annoyed client, or, most likely, up to several hundred euros to reprint (and excuse).

  • Main machine: iMac 2019 (21,5-inch 4k, 6core), 64GB RAM, 1TB nvme + 2TB ssd, running on Mac OS 13;
  • Display setup: 28" 5k Display (primary) + 21,5" iMac4k-Display for studio panels (secondary);
  • Keyboard layout: german apple extended keyboard (aluminium);

 

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Hi Woefi

This does seem to be falling victim of some sort of conversion. I can;t say exactly how Affinity does it as I;m not a developer but I do agree that this should be much more accurate than it is. It has been logged for the development team. Hopefully solving it for one will solve it for all our apps

Cheers

Serif Europe Ltd - Check the latest news at www.affinity.serif.com

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  • 1 month later...
On 9/5/2018 at 8:58 AM, woefi said:

the colors are not quite the same, like convreted to lab and then back to CMYK which changes 0/15/100/0 to 0/20/100/2! 

I couldn't recreate your exact workflow but I get similar results which is bad. There is some conversion going on when CMYK doc to CMYK doc shouldn't need any at all. From CMYK to CMYK there must be some averaging of the whole document page by page and then some dithering of the values. 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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