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Colors are way off in Affinity Designer...


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Two more things real quick.

Now that I reinstalled Designer when I open the PNG directly (instead of placing it) I see a red truck now.  No longer orange like it used to look.  That's annoying.

The ONLY way I seem to be able to view my colors on the screen correctly is when I use the Canon PRO-100 printer driver as my document color profile.  If I do that then I see the colors properly on screen, they render properly on the print preview and they come out of the printer pretty damn close.  Why is it a bad thing to use the printer driver as my color profile if it seems to work?

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3 hours ago, wigglepixel said:

When I open your PNG I see no meta data neither. When opening your file with 'open' in Affinity Designer you should see Designer popping up a message on the right (stays a short time on screen) with the message it assigned the sRGB color profile to it. That's Designer probably only showing when there is no profile in the file and it assumes the profile should be sRGB so adds that profile to the file. That's in this case probably the right guess, 'cause you made it in AnimateCC and my guess it it only works with sRGB or no space at all (but can't see that here, 'cause I don't have it anymore).

This is correct.  I see the message saying that sRGB is being used since there is no color information included in the PNG.  But now that I reinstalled Affinity Designer I see a red truck when I open the PNG directly... it isn't orange anymore like it was before the fresh install.  Now when I change this document's color profile from sRGB to Canon PRO-100's printer profile (which used to cause the PNG to appear the correct color) I get a momentary flash of the correct orange color, then it appears red again.  Fawk.

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Since that all seems to be fruitless so far and more or less guessing, I think it would may be a better idea if you possibly can upload the Affinity Designer example file (the .adesign file) with that truck inside here. - So we can reopen it in Designer to inspect and see the document and profile settings and it's on screen behavior etc.

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@DarrenDriven:  Are you using multiple monitors?

I think I have seen mention of a bug when multiple monitors with different ICC profiles are used with Affinity.

If I'm remembering correctly, and you're using multiple monitors, it might be worth unplugging one to see if that helps. 

Or, perhaps you could set both to the same generic sRGB profile in Windows Display Settings.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Since that all seems to be fruitless so far and more or less guessing, I think it would may be a better idea if you possibly can upload the Affinity Designer example file (the .adesign file) with that truck inside here. - So we can reopen it in Designer to inspect and see the document and profile settings and it's on screen behavior etc.

Here is a quick file that I threw together and imported the orange and blue trucks... I threw the original color screen cap on this image just for reference.

dsImage1.thumb.jpg.dfd1f621b76a479cecb82d7de9aa7582.jpg

 

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

@DarrenDriven:  Are you using multiple monitors?

I think I have seen mention of a bug when multiple monitors with different ICC profiles are used with Affinity.

If I'm remembering correctly, and you're using multiple monitors, it might be worth unplugging one to see if that helps. 

Or, perhaps you could set both to the same generic sRGB profile in Windows Display Settings.

Hmmm... well I unplugged the 2nd monitor and it didn't change any of the color rendering, so maybe that's not it. I even rebooted without the second monitor disconnected and it didn't affect it. 

Edited by DarrenDriven
Added more information.
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8 hours ago, GabrielM said:

As expected on Windows, standard sRGB monitor colour profile.

Try changing them to sRGB for the meantime and see how it looks: See MEB's reply...

Followed the instructions in that post and found how to view and change the color profile for my monitors... guess what?  Somehow my Canon PRO-100 printer profile was setup as my color profile for my monitor!  I fixed that and BOOM!  My truck imports orange now! 

8 hours ago, PedroOfOz said:

...Have bookmarked this topic, however not fully read as yet. I'm looking at buying the Pro 10s instead of the 100s (as it uses pigment inks ... archival apparently!).

Hhmm, haven't put my money down as yet (so to speak) ...

I picked up three PRO-100s for $100/ea new on CL because of a rebate promo that Canon was running.  They're pretty cool to have around for that price!  I think the added benefit of the PRO-10 would be lost on me.  I only print graphics, not photos, so it's already kind of overkill.

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13 minutes ago, DarrenDriven said:

I picked up three PRO-100s for $100/ea new on CL because of a rebate promo that Canon was running

[emoji for jaw drop] Down here in Oz the 100s is $675 and the 10s $90 more. The Oz $ is currently about US .71 cents. Those prices btw are less than Canon's RRP on their website (Canon have the 10s listed at $949)..

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22 hours ago, >|< said:

That's what I said earlier :)

The symptoms indicated that that was the case.

Argh!  I didn't have instructions dumbed-down enough for me to figure them out until @GabrielM posted the link that specifically walked me through the procedure.  Thank you for your help, too!

22 hours ago, PedroOfOz said:

[emoji for jaw drop] Down here in Oz the 100s is $675 and the 10s $90 more. The Oz $ is currently about US .71 cents. Those prices btw are less than Canon's RRP on their website (Canon have the 10s listed at $949)..

Apparently here in the States you could buy a new Canon camera and basically get a free PRO-100 along with it.  Lots of people were asking $200-250 for their unopened printers on Craigslist and I bought every single one that I could talk down to $100!

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On 11/16/2018 at 8:19 PM, >|< said:

 

I strongly disagree that Darren should be working in CMYK documents. His printer is designed with the expectation that RGB documents (typically digital photographs) will be printed and it is an 8-colour printer, not simply CMYK. Note that device profiles for his printer and paper combinations are RGB profiles, not CMYK profiles. He can soft proof his RGB document with the appropriate printer and paper profile to get an approximation of how it will look when printed.

Darren tells us that, until a week ago, he was getting printed output that was a very good match for the on-screen images. Changing his workflow to working in CMYK documents is not the solution to restoring his system to the way it was. 

 

You're absolutely right. My work is always in RGB as I am specialized in interactives and code-based animations online and having a background in live television broadcast graphics which is also RGB. I did some promotional things for press and clothes for my company in CMYK, but like said before don't know much about printer profiles. I even only own a simple bw printer :)

I tried to help this guy out and figured he could use all the help there is, eventhough I don't know much about printers. I wrongly assumed printers are all having a cmyk color profile, because they all print in cmyk, but that was a wrong assumption. That said, I didn't really advise to convert everything to CMYK documents. I advised to convert the documents to a standard sRGB working profile so the printer could convert it to cmyk itself and at least don't use the printers device profile in the document. And if that doesn't work try to work in CMYK to see if that fixes the problem. So more like a debug-kind-of-way as what I would try in this case, not as a definite solution, 'cause it was obviously a strange situation. But again, I don't know much about printers and I fully agree with you that the CMYK road is not the way to go here and is actually pretty wrong. You're right in corrected that, thanks! :)

After your post I did a quick Google search on printers and to my big surprise it even seems like most printers even have a RGB color profile and convert it to "CMYK" theirselves. To me that is like asking people to talk German to you, eventhough you only understand Russian... and translate everything with a translator that's always with you... But also great and understandable and makes sense 'cause computers are all about rgb. Good to know now!

 

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On 11/16/2018 at 10:51 PM, DarrenDriven said:

Why is it a bad thing to use the printer driver as my color profile if it seems to work?

Because your printer profile is device dependent. Your printer color profile only works right for that exact printer model, so every other device will not have the right colors. Device profiles are there to be used by the system, not as a working profile. If you like to know more, it's explained in the blog (part 1, part 2). It's all in there.

Great it's solved now! Do you've got a clue on why these profiles were swapped all of a sudden, while working before?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Will take note of those suggestions. I've also had the same issues. Were you able to fix it when you changed the settings? Not sure if it's a printer issue. The color of the truck accessories I've edited isn't the same as the colors that were been printed on paper.

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16 hours ago, S3rifz said:

Will take note of those suggestions. I've also had the same issues. Were you able to fix it when you changed the settings? Not sure if it's a printer issue. The color of the truck accessories I've edited isn't the same as the colors that were been printed on paper.

Things are still off a little... darker than they should be.  They are close, but not really correct.  I just haven't had time to troubleshoot anymore.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Well I'm back.  I can't believe that this is still an issue. 

Colors are still printing wrong.  I'm using the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color profile for the document in Affinity Designer and I've tried almost every color profile on my computer for the printer profile but nothing works right.  I am so exhausted and confused.  I know there should be a logical step-by-step process to make this work but for all the time I've spent researching I just end up even more confuse than when I began.  Some color profiles get the red right, but then the blue is wrong.  Or the gray is blue.  Or the orange is brown.  Nothing I've tried so far gets all the colors to print the way they appear on my monitor. 

Is anyone out there available for a consult via email or chat or something?  I need someone with knowledge to help me through this... I am at a total loss.  Things are so damn close, but just wrong enough that I can't be happy with the output.

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Oh yeah, one last note.  When any of my pieces go to the print shop where they use professional printing equipment to run my posters, the coloring always looks spot-on with what my screen shows.  This backs up my impression that something software/driver-related is screwing things up between my computer and my printer.

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3 minutes ago, DarrenDriven said:

Oh yeah, one last note.  When any of my pieces go to the print shop where they use professional printing equipment to run my posters, the coloring always looks spot-on with what my screen shows.  This backs up my impression that something software/driver-related is screwing things up between my computer and my printer.

Well, at least that's something positive :)

Frankly, this thread has gone in so many wrong directions that I'm  no longer sure exactly what you're doing.

Can you recap for us:

  • Your document's color space and profile?
  • The options you're specifying when you print? (e.g., screenshot of the print dialog)
  • Whether you're soft-proofing to see how it looks before you print, and if so what profile you're specifying there.
  • Whether you've remembered to turn off or delete the soft-proofing layer before you try to print.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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I design vector art in Adobe Illustrate using a color picker from photos (for accuracy) to paint in the correct colors.  The art is exported as high-res PNG and imported into Affinity Designer where it appears to be the same color as my original design.  (Originally the colors would look wrong at this point because the color profile for my monitor had gotten changed)  I am confident that up to this point everything is working correctly because when I send the artwork from Designer to my print shop the resulting posters are printed correctly. 

When I print from Affinity Designer to my Canon Pro-100 the resulting prints have colors that do not quite match the screen.  Much of the coloring looks good, but blues and greens are off... and some colors that have very low saturation on the screen print with higher saturation on paper.

Windows Device Monitor Color Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Document Color Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Printer Profile: Canon PRO-100 <SG> 1/2 Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss
I use the "Preview before printing" setting on the Canon-PRO print dialog to soft proof -- no layers to turn on or off or delete.

Image4.jpg.f09f6769f33baf8d579c91af07678c1b.jpg

Image1.jpg.1ccae06797b25802b0dbac2df9670667.jpg

Image2.jpg.127ccd7c3203e30ce05b10658886b957.jpg

 

 

 

 

scion_release_small.thumb.jpg.a578c5038f1406539b6b5a6810c5c3b4.jpg

Low-resolution export of my source material.  Coloring looks accurate here.

Image3.jpg.ec07b1a3ad6cb0d2677228e3d9273fd9.jpg

Closeup of one of the stranger-outputting cars.  Coloring looks accurate here.

 

Now are four different versions printed with four different printer profiles.  I didn't mark down which profiles I used late last night because I was too frustrated.  One of them is printed with the appropriate Canon Pro-100 profile, one is with the same sRGB profile used for my document/monitor, and two randomly-chosen printer profiles as experiments.

Img_6918.thumb.jpg.523a61779e734d5161af5d51938cde99.jpg

Img_6919.thumb.jpg.10909572656f17c5f4a415ca0810a96a.jpg

Img_6920.thumb.jpg.0fd61e20322820ff3c456f8c3cbe9df1.jpg

Img_6921.thumb.jpg.08cb7fa59c1f5a89780f364b247d8c57.jpg

Img_6922.thumb.jpg.328e32be697e7c295d4f9274f034df6b.jpg

Img_6923.thumb.jpg.3eb19ee3ff7e9a0e5c5183d98b857c28.jpg

Img_6924.thumb.jpg.5870f1eb2af23785480f6149e354a5bc.jpg

 

 

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Soft Proofing is an important step to make sure that your images will look right when they're sent to your printer. It lets you see how they should look when printed, and to add adjustment layers (above the soft proof layer) to do final adjustments to help ensure the print will look like what you see on the screen. You get it looking right, then you turn off the soft-proofing layer before printing so the printer's color profile isn't applied twice.

Thanks for those screenshots. I think you only missed showing the Designer Print dialog. You showed a Canon print dialog, but not the color settings you told Designer to use when printing.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Hmmm... the Canon software provides a print preview and I've been using that.  It matches what I see in the Affinity Designer workspace... but then it prints differently.  So maybe I shouldn't be using it.  I will do more research on the soft proofing aspects of Affinity Designer.

And oops, here is the Affinity print dialog:

Image5.jpg.7921319e1020dee6dad8b7489fbd05a2.jpg

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Thanks for the Affinity Print dialog.

Does what you see with the soft-proof active (and gamut-check off) match what you're seeing when you actually print it? I see at least one out-of-gamut area, but it's hard to be sure if there are more from a simple screenshot?

One other thought. You might look at the more detailed Canon settings (e.g., not on the Quick Setup page you showed us) and make sure that you've told the printer  not to do color management, too. You've told Designer to do it, and if the printer also does it things will be messed up.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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