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Adjustment Layer :: Split Toning – not working


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The adjustment layer "Split Toning" seems to have no function.
(Whereas for instance an applied "Selective Color" adjustment or Fill Color + Color Overlay FX do appear successfully)

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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what are your settings in split toning?

Primary: Windows 10 Pro 1903 / Intel Core i7-8750H @ 2.20 GHz / 32 GB RAM/ GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q
Secondary: os x mojave / imac 2017
A.Publisher 1.7.2.471
September 2019

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Split toning does have an effect, but it is fairly subtle and only really shows up when you have a lot of colors in what it is being applied to.

Try cranking both saturation controls, setting the hues to two different ones that are similar to things on the page, and sweeping the balance left and right slowly while watching the image.

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Is 100% saturation not enough;) ?

1851941227_adjustmentsplittoning.thumb.jpg.f6217de18932e6b9766681e52d17e3f2.jpg

 

Compare this successful setting in "Selective Color": the Blacks have 75% cyan besides this 35 % yellow for the Neutrals:

2047797804_adjustmentselectivecolor.thumb.jpg.d66cfed13f234ab56fb08162cd83f035.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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@thomaso

your layer says graustufen/greyscale. Is the original picture set to greyscale 8-bit? I think that is the problem.

Primary: Windows 10 Pro 1903 / Intel Core i7-8750H @ 2.20 GHz / 32 GB RAM/ GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q
Secondary: os x mojave / imac 2017
A.Publisher 1.7.2.471
September 2019

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Your "B&W" image is CMYK with no information in the CMY channels only the Black channel. If I convert the image to greyscale 8 or 16 bit it colourizes with the split toning.

splittoning v 2.afpub

 

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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Oh, guess I made a mistake, but since you tested everything, maybe @thomaso has one of those cases?

Primary: Windows 10 Pro 1903 / Intel Core i7-8750H @ 2.20 GHz / 32 GB RAM/ GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q
Secondary: os x mojave / imac 2017
A.Publisher 1.7.2.471
September 2019

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On 6/1/2019 at 9:31 PM, A_B_C said:

The effect is zero only when I set the image to K-only, ...

@A_B_C, indeed, I had the button "K-only" activated for this grayscale image for no reason. Deactivating it does show the split tone adjustment. Thank You!

On 6/1/2019 at 9:31 PM, A_B_C said:

... but that is to be expected. Hmm.

Not to me. For what reason should "Split Toning" not work with active "K-only"?

Split Toning is a feature especially for grayscale (= K only) images: To colorize their lights + shadows subtle for kind of bit more spatial impression.
Therefore you don't see much if applied on a colorful image, as @fde101 has pointed out.

Also, why should Split Toning not work – whereas "Selective Color" does with active "K-only"?
The "K-only" button only does select the colors of an image used for further actions, for instance how this image will appear when a fill color is applied to the frame. "K-only" is not meant to totally prevent to show colors at all for its layer.

For CMYK images "K-only" deactivates all channels except the Black one.
For RGB images "K-only" sets the saturation of all channels to 0.
For Grayscale images "K-only" should have no effect at all.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Actually, there should not be a need for the "K-only" button at all.

Unfortunately, this button was invented to  solve  suppress the bug that exported grayscale images in PDF as RGB or CMYK, instead of just K. – Therefore, this button is still needed, unfortunately, too. Not really a good compromise.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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15 minutes ago, thomaso said:

the bug that exported grayscale images in PDF as RGB or CMYK, instead of just K.

That is not necessarily a bug - it could be correct and desirable behavior in some situations.

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@ fde101, which situations do you have in mind? I can imagine that one would like a grayscale image to be printed in 4c. But then I would rather call it "correct" in terms of "professional" to save the image in RBG (or CMYK) rather than in grayscale. Or to use the available AfPub adjustments and effects to achieve more color on export. – In this way, this mentioned behavior is definitely a bug for me, even if it is not necessarily perceived as such by those who do not know what to do.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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There is more than one shade of black.  Depending on how a color space is defined the actual color of "K" may not match between them.

Even if you start with a "K Only" image, if your input color space (source document) does not match the output color space (output format of the document), then something that is say 0% 0% 0% 80% might become 0% 2% 1% 78% (made up percentages) in the output color space in order to match the actual color as precisely as possible.

By making these adjustments, a program would be trying to make sure that the requested color is actually matched on the output device.

If you have an image that has both colors and grays in it, and this adjustment is only made for the colors in the image and not the grays, then the grays will no longer hold up against the colors in the same way once the colors are transformed.

I believe Publisher is effectively treating a grayscale image as a color image that happens to contain gray values.  In this interpretation the application of color management is correct and the use of non-K "gray" values follows naturally.

Publisher has no way of knowing unless you tell it that you do not want those grays adjusted for the output device, so it tries to make things match by default - which I believe is sensible.

 

Would it be nice to have an option that defined an entire document (or perhaps a section or spread) as being "K Only" and caused "K Only" behavior by default for ALL images?  Sure... that would be a sensible feature to request...  but without that option the default behavior of color matching seems most appropriate.

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Your thoughts about the need to convert colors between profiles are generally correct, but they do not match the specific pure K input. Possibly we understand (define) "grayscale" different in this thread: To me it is clearly 1 color / 8 bit only, whereas you seem to have unsaturated RGB / 24 bit in mind.

In previous betas a text with 100 K was exported as 78% 68% 63% 78% within a workflow with only 1 profile for in- and output. That issue got fixed for text – but not for images saved as grayscale file (= K-only, 8 bit). Even 1 bit images are seen as colorful by AfPub. (as you pointed out kind of disappointed recently in a 1-bit line-art thread)

Your example  "then something that is say 0% 0% 0% 80% might become 0% 2% 1% 78%"  may occur for a pixel in a 3c or 4c image, but should never apply to a 1c input where CMY are not playing at all but K only. It reminds me to GCR / UCR conversion, which, of cause, can be a question in situations with more than 1 color – but not for K-only in- & output.

In 4c print pure K is unambiguously defined, as pure C, M and Y are as well. I agree, AfPub seems to ignore such an initial information (1c – 80% K) and instead interprets it as RGB (3c – 87% 87% 87%). Then of course it has to convert the colors again from 3c for 4c export.

 

Like for text yet an image saved as grayscale image (= K-only) should not have to explicitly tell the app by an additional button that its input is K only – especially not if the image contains a grayscale profile. May be one day the button "Assign" next to "Convert" in the document settings will work and make profile handling more precise and less failing. Back to this thread and as long the K-only button exists: It means the adjustment "Split Toning" should work for Grayscale files even with K-only button pressed – especially since it works already for the "selective Color" adjustment.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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2 hours ago, thomaso said:

they do not match the specific pure K input

This is likely because the "pure K" input by its very nature is in a different color space than a document which is using a color space such as sRGB or Adobe RGB, thus calling for a conversion.

 

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

images saved as grayscale file (= K-only, 8 bit)

I am assuming that the Affinity apps are importing these as 0% 0% 0% (K value) rather than only having a "K channel" so to speak.  If the images are in fact saved with only a "K channel" (pure grayscale) then there are a few ways to think about this; for example, if a "tint" is applied to the images, then the current "K only" behavior would flip the results back to gray after applying the tint, which is not likely what would be wanted in most cases where a tint is being applied.

One could argue that a pure gray source should be treated as such up until it is modified in that manner then changed, but it is not clear if the Affinity apps have the internal infrastructure to handle this cleanly right now.  It could be that the internal image pipeline only handles RGB and CMYK formats and that they would need to make a choice between the "K only" behavior and the color managed behavior on a per-image basis?  A future enhancement then might be to track an internal "K only for now" state that would then behave in the manner suggested...

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@fde100, in AfPub obviously does exist already understanding and correct handling of CMYK – and/or its channel K only:

First of all you can assign CMYK as document color space. And you can import and export text as K-only. Also, for instance, you can set a CMYK image to K-only AND assign Split Toning successfully. Furthermore (and again): you can assign successfully a fill color to a grayscale image with active K-only, too. Both this would not work in your theory about how AfPub does work in its backend. ("the current "K only" behavior would flip the results back to gray")

However, your arguments more and more drift away from the initial question, which meanwhile is:

Why does a "Split Toning" not appear - whereas "Selective Color" does work for a grayscale 8 bit image with active K-only? – Or shorter: there is a bug in Split Toning.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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  • Staff

Hi all,

Sorry for the delayed reply. 

Split toning works on the already existing channel data. If those channels are empty, it will not have any effect. This is expected. I moved this to feature requests. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

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