Colour workflow

[RyS]

I use InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator to produce material for printing. I consider it imperative that what I see on screen and what is printed match accurately. All three Adobe programs can have viewing set to match the colour space. By using this feature and wide gamut monitors calibrated to Adobe RGB I can be confident that CMYK will very closely match between monitor and print. No Affinity programs offer this treatment of colour proofing. In fact looking on Affinity Photo help it is recommended that RGB is used and conversion left to the print shop. This method of working could account for so many printed items having text that is almost impossible to read when it is lost against the background. Affinity Photo offers the ability to be able to add a soft proofing layer that needs to be removed before the file is saved but this is a poor substitute for proper proofing.

Colour proofing does depend upon the use of suitable monitors and the few that are available are mostly fairly expensive, but investing in such monitors is rather pointless if the programs do not offer suitable features to match.

Obviously this matter does not relate solely to Publisher and the developers must be fully occupied trying to meet all demands (and doing pretty well) but please consider it for not to far away. 

 

 

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, RyS said:

Affinity Photo offers the ability to be able to add a soft proofing layer that needs to be removed before the file is saved but this is a poor substitute for proper proofing.

Designer and Publisher have it, too.

I can understand why you might not like that approach for Designer and Publisher, where you might need to add the soft-proof adjustment to many artboards or pages.

But why is it a poor substitute in Photo? Just add the soft-proof adjustment and do all your work on top of it, and with a calibrated monitor you should see exactly what you'll get at the end when you export or print.

[RyS]

14 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Designer and Publisher have it, too.

I can understand why you might not like that approach for Designer and Publisher, where you might need to add the soft-proof adjustment to many artboards or pages.

But why is it a poor substitute in Photo? Just add the soft-proof adjustment and do all your work on top of it, and with a calibrated monitor you should see exactly what you'll get at the end when you export or print.

A usable consistent way of working across all programs is what I am looking for. To have to insert a soft proof adjustment via a layer might just about be acceptable in Photo (you also have to select the correct colour profile) but is not practical in Designer or Publisher where layers are limited to individual artboards or pages. It is a matter that Serif themselves seem to be putting to one side - the only sample they provide for Publisher uses images that are all RGB. This may be because they expect viewing to be on screen although the Document settings show the intent as print.

I find there is much to like in Publisher but colour proofing (and hyperlinks) are essential if I am to switch. Most of the other shortcomings I can live with in the expectation that they will be sorted over a period of time.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, RyS said:

A usable consistent way of working across all programs is what I am looking for. To have to insert a soft proof adjustment via a layer might just about be acceptable in Photo (you also have to select the correct colour profile) but is not practical in Designer or Publisher where layers are limited to individual artboards or pages

I didn't think of this yesterday, but I wonder if one could add a soft-proof layer to a Master Page in Publisher?

[RyS]

55 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I didn't think of this yesterday, but I wonder if one could add a soft-proof layer to a Master Page in Publisher?

Thanks for this. I have just done a quick test and it works. Great.

[Steps]

How do I create a "soft proof layer"?

---

I would like to see a softproof functionality in the Preview function.

So I can see very quick the final result.

Preview now does only hide the guides, margins and other borders. 

A realistic preview would use the printers ICC profile.

[walt.farrell]

36 minutes ago, Steps said:

How do I create a "soft proof layer"?

...

A realistic preview would use the printers ICC profile

It's a kind of adjustment layer, which you would add to the top of your existing layer stack. One setting you specify is the printer/paper ICC profile to use.

If the result is not satisfactory you add new adjustments above the soft proof layer.

Don't forget to hide or remove the soft proof layer before printing.

There are some Affinity tutorials on soft proofing that will explain more.

(Note: I haven't checked their status on Publisher yet; only Photo.)

 

[Steps]

14 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It's a kind of adjustment layer, which you would add to the top of your existing layer stack. One setting you specify is the printer/paper ICC profile to use.

If the result is not satisfactory you add new adjustments above the soft proof layer.

Don't forget to hide or remove the soft proof layer before printing.

There are some Affinity tutorials on soft proofing that will explain more.

(Note: I haven't checked their status on Publisher yet; only Photo.)

Thanks, managed to do that.

I fully agree with @RyS that doing a soft proof this way means a lot of work.

Adding thirty adjustment laysers to all pages is more work than doing a PDF export with the ICC profile for soft proofing.

I hope Serif will integrate it into the preview functionality. This would make sense.

[Michail]

5 hours ago, Steps said:

Thanks, managed to do that.

I fully agree with @RyS that doing a soft proof this way means a lot of work.

Adding thirty adjustment laysers to all pages is more work than doing a PDF export with the ICC profile for soft proofing.

I hope Serif will integrate it into the preview functionality. This would make sense.

What do you mean, a lot of work? And what should Serif do?
One master page is enough for the whole document. And if you don't want to assign the master pages, you can use the standard master page (Master A) for the soft proof. This page is already assigned to all pages

[Steps]

16 minutes ago, Michail said:

What do you mean, a lot of work? And what should Serif do?
One master page is enough for the whole document. And if you don't want to assign the master pages, you can use the standard master page (Master A) for the soft proof. This page is already assigned to all pages

I'm confused...

The master page is the lowest layer of my pages. The softproof layer needs to be on top as I understand as layers above it will not be affected by the adjustment.

[Wosven]

It sounds more like another trick for now, I hope it'll be a view mode later.

[fde101]

1 hour ago, Steps said:

The master page is the lowest layer of my pages

You can have more than one master on a page and can manually move a master to the top, but that isn't necessarily any less work than just creating the adjustment layer on each page...

Hoping this will eventually be easier once "global layers" are eventually implemented.

[Steps]

58 minutes ago, fde101 said:

You can have more than one master on a page and can manually move a master to the top, but that isn't necessarily any less work than just creating the adjustment layer on each page..

Yes, exactly. It's a lot of dull work.

I don't see the soft proof layer as useful. As has been said this is a good solition for Photo where it comes from but not suitable for Publisher.

Here I stay with my strong feeling that the ICC profile for preview mode should be a document property. This makes sense. You have a document thar goes to a specific printer. So the printers profile should be with it.

Master page layer adjustment feels like a workaround and will not get more intiitive with global layers.

This is just one of the things that makes Affinity products so counter-intiutive in places.

Of course regardless of that the adjustment layer should stay because it should have the same adjustments in all Affinity products. Orherwise it would be confusing.

[Michail]

13 hours ago, fde101 said:

You can have more than one master on a page and can manually move a master to the top, but that isn't necessarily any less work than just creating the adjustment layer on each page...

Hoping this will eventually be easier once "global layers" are eventually implemented.

If you use a master page (preferably "Master A") exclusively for softproofing, the handling is very simple. You can switch to this master page at any time and create, change or hide and show the profile.
I don't know if Serif thought so. But it's consistent with the other apps.
The master pages require, depending on the symbol functionality, still another revision. Maybe we wait a bit longer until the master pages work properly.

Apart from that, this thread is a good opportunity for Serif to think about the most efficient softproofing solution

[rpnfan]

Any news on that topic? Frustrating to see that Affinity _could_ be a replacement for the Adobe suite (or other) programs, _if_ colormanagement would be enabled. I just tried to get softproof working on a document level in Publisher, but had no success! 😞

I  took the time and summarized some months ago what is missing colormanagement-wise in Affinity, but Serif does not seem to care to be able to have the chance to get those profesionel users who also need professional colormanagement...

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, rpnfan said:

I just tried to get softproof working on a document level in Publisher, but had no success! 😞

What problem did you have? It should be simpler, but can work. If you want to pursue that further, you might start a new topic in the Questions section and describe what you've done and what happened.