total ink coverage

[BertD]

Hi,

 

I recently have used Designer and Publisher quite extensively for print work and yesterday I ran into an issue I didn't manage to solve with any of my 3 Affinity apps.

I had to deliver an ad to The Sunday Times Ireland via qmuli.com and had used Designer to create the ad. My main issue, total effective ink coverage over 240% error.

Is there a way to check and/or correct this?  Or how does anybody else go about this?

Another issue, PDF version. Needed PDF-X1a-2001, nothing else would be accepted. Even just exporting as a JPG which was an accepted format didn't go well.

In the end I used Scribus to output the file. Imported the JPG which was rejected, set the colour/PDF specs in the file preferences and the ad was accepted.

 

 

 

Bert

 

 

 

 

 

[stokerg]

Hi BertD,

Affinity Photo has a Info panel which can display the ink coverage, as shown on this thread but we don't have a way to limit that to a value or set it to a certain amount.  I know the Dev team plan on adding more Pro Printing features in the future.

Also, we don't have any plans to add the ability to export as PDF-X1a-2001 which was confirmed one this thread by one of the Dev team

[MickRose]

Acrobat pro can check for total ink coverage. I'm pretty sure Affinity Designer/Publisher can't do that. But if you set the document colour profile to one of the newspaper ones that might work. Or set it when you export the PDF.

[Fixx]

Pixel graphics usually are handled in RGB>CMYK conversion using correct colour profile. Vector graphics should be set in CMYK and there you choose yourself correct ink percentages.

[BertD]

On 5/9/2019 at 10:31 AM, MickRose said:

Acrobat pro can check for total ink coverage. I'm pretty sure Affinity Designer/Publisher can't do that. But if you set the document colour profile to one of the newspaper ones that might work. Or set it when you export the PDF.

I ended up using the SNAP2007 profile for this one which worked ok.

But yes, some more pro printing output features in the future will be welcomed. Other printwork had been going well, even with the beta version  of Publisher.

[MikeW]

5 minutes ago, BertD said:

I ended up using the SNAP2007 profile for this one which worked ok.

But yes, some more pro printing output features in the future will be welcomed. Other printwork had been going well, even with the beta version  of Publisher.

Using the output profile is simply how it is done.

One can design with ink density in mind as regards vector objects. It gets a bit tricky, though, if there is transparency on vector objects. But with continuous-tone images, either they need converted to the color space required using the same profile that will be used for the PDF, or one can just use that same profile at the time of output.

Most newspapers require one of several newspaper output intents (SNAP is one of many). It's always best to check the newspaper in question for what they use whether that means a phone call/email or on their web site (often half hidden in their print files submission section).

As a note. Unless something has changed/added in newer versions of Acrobat, it cannot report the ink density as a whole. pdfToolbox can. But in general, using the output intent conversion via the desired profile is always the best method.

[Tim Hupkes]

I do realise it’s not easy, but I would so appreciate an indication as to when total ink coverage will be adjustable in Affinity. Maybe a time frame can be given..? It’s the one thing that keeps towing me back to Photoshop, even though I love Affinity Photo (and Designer).