Correcting color display

[Ronflaix]

Hello there, I'm currently having issues properly set Designer up to make it display the proper colors.

I'm trying to make some work while using a predefined color palette but I can't get the colors right on export because the way Designer shows them is pretty much different from all other softwares (Windows' photo preview, Aseprite, your favorite web browser, etc...)

Not only the color are mismatched but also the palettes in the Swatches panel are rendered differently from the other software. I'm bundling a picture where the AAP-Splendor palette is shown in both Aseprite and Designer and I don't get the same color values at all. I noted that even while exporting without bundling the color profile seems to work and the exported picture does still match the palette's colors on another software. The picture gets its colors changed when bundling a color profile and it seems like the colors displayed in Designer seem to match the export settings using my own screen's color profile.

Here's my setup:

- Uncalibrated (I know, sorry) screen under the "Samsung - Natural Color Pro 1.0 ICM" profile
- Windows' color profile set to the same color profile (shown in W10's Display settings and in the video adapter's own panel)
- Affinity Designer's own setting currently set as sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (but it seems that this setting doesn't do a lot)

Do you have any pointers on how to properly manage Designer to properly display the colors as expected? Thanks in advance

Pardon me, I'm not used yet to advanced graphics topics. I'm still dabbling in this topic and I'm pretty much at a loss right now among all the different info I get from online.

Have a nice day.

[stokerg]

Hi Ronflaix,

Have you tried setting the Windows colour Profile to sRGB IEC6199-2.1?  This normally resolves colour issues with the Affinity range which is what we advise most people to do.

Before trying the above, you could also In Designer try going to Edit>Preferences>Colour and settings the RGB Colour Profile to same as your monitor and see that improves things  

 

[Ronflaix]

Thanks, I didn't know I could force Windows to accept other color profiles rather than the screen's default. You put me on the right track and I could understand how to setup properly. If I set Designer to use the screen's color profile, the export would be the same colors than the profile's, not the colors I expected when loading up the palette in another software.

For future reference, here how I did it:

If Windows' Settings apps doesn't have this color profile in the Color Management panel, you can add it by going in Advanced display settings, then in the display adaptor properties link that'll pop a window. Click on the Color Management tab and the Color Management button. You should end up in the Color Management window with a list of color profiles set up for your selected screen. If the sRGB profile isn't in the list, you can tweak the default system settings by going in the Advanced tab, click on Change the system defaults and then click on the Add button. The profile should be on the list. You should be able to backtrack to the device's properties, use the sRGB profile, and have Designer display the proper colors.

Thanks for the help! Hope you have a nice day!

[armal]

I have the same problem.  No matter what ICC profile I select, Affinity displays an image very differently than FastStone, PaintShop Pro, Irfanview, or Microsoft Paint.  All these other programs look the same as each other--it is Affinity that is the odd man out.

[NotMyFault]

Probably a color profile issue on OS level. 
I have used Photo on 3 totally different PCs and Monitors (RGB, AdobeRGB, Display-P3) and always got it to work correctly.

To get a clue what causes the issue, I recommend to create 

•  a RGB/8 test images, 256 or 512 px wide is enough 
• containing 3 simple gradients from
  • black (0% position)
  • Over fully saturated red/green/blue (50%)
  • to white (100%)
• Make a screenshot from Photo displaying the file.
• Paste from clipboard as layer.
• set blend mode to difference.

the result should be pure black. If not, there is an issue with color calibration on OS level. May add an levels adjustment with white level set to 10%

There older reports giving a potential cause: there are several versions of ICC profiles, and some do not work correctly.

i will try to find these old reports.

[walt.farrell]

18 hours ago, armal said:

I have the same problem.  No matter what ICC profile I select, Affinity displays an image very differently than FastStone, PaintShop Pro, Irfanview, or Microsoft Paint.  All these other programs look the same as each other--it is Affinity that is the odd man out.

You might try the steps shown in this FAQ article: