colour import problem

Hi folks,

I'm trying to get to the bottom of this - or at least find a solution to the problems I'm encountering regarding importing .pdf files (graphics) that I'm chopping up into images that I apply to 3D objects to render.

Problem is, that the files are coming from ai (Mac), and that I'm getting significant colour drift in Xara from what I'm seeing in ai, or in the .pdf reader (foxit), for that matter.

The issue lies in 90%grey (which looks waay darker in Xara), and 100%magenta, which is quite different in Xara than in ai (both PC and Mac). The end result being that the renderings that I'm creating are all out of whack, and forcing me to do a lot of extra work to recreate these colours (although I'm quite excited to be using Xara to chop up the graphics to suit the objects - something that,despite my >10yrs in ai, still have difficulty with.

I've already asked over at XU, but am not having much luck.

I'll attach a few images showing what I'm talking about, and maybe someone here could help to enlighten me.

Thanks!
Attachment 79314Attachment 79315Attachment 79316Attachment 79317

Hi edm3,

My two questions would be

1) Are these vector objects or bitmaps that you have imported into Xara?

2) How do they compare when printed out?

When using a number of different programs as well as mac and PC, it wouldn’t surprise me if this kind of thing happens. It may be due to screen colours vs. printing colours. If they are vector I would just click on the shapes in question and quickly give them the Xara 90% black. To save time doing this for each one, one by one, just have a shape with the correct fill on the side, select it, copy (ctrl/c) and then select other objects and paste attributes (ctrl/shift/A).

I would be surprised if they printed out differently, because 90% black should be 90% black, and magenta should be magenta.

Hi James,

Thanks for your input. I actually don't have a colour printer hooked up right now to test the printing, but I agree that this would be a great way to get some verification.

The objects in question are all vector. Problem is, when I would take the client's file (pdf, in a appearance that they were happy with (screen), and then apply the 90% black, it would come out looking much darker (as you can see in the above images). Magenta - this seems to be another story. Try googling magenta, under images, and you'll see what I mean! Anyway, when filling objects with PMS magenta C, or doing C0M100Y0K0, I was getting a very different (screen) appearance from what I'd been given.

Since my final output is going to be all bitmap, I used a pantone-corrected material for the 3D rendering, and then matched the vector element colours to that. For the grey, I had to adjust from a 90% to a 75% to get the resultant colour the client is looking for.

Crazy day, with some interesting learning here. Not sure how much magenta will be a 'calming' colour for me for some time to come.>:)

Thanks again for your input.

Someone here might have an exact reason for this, but I would guess it is something to do with screen configurations and cross platform gremlins. I’ve attached a screenshot of the CMYK 90% black in CorelDraw, next to your screenshot, and it looks like something in between the other two.

Please remember that all PDF files will be CMYK unless below version 4 where you have the option to convert to RGB or CMYK so that is why you have a colour shift. On the grey part Xara as you have notice gives you a rich black and this also messes up the grey value. On the screen shot I have import a file that I made in Illy and saved as PDF and the imported it into Xara D Pro6 and it is the top one and the lower one is it as it should look. You can see the difference in the greys and Blacks and that is why I have picked this file. I also should mention that any really dark reds will suffer in any import and export. The only way around these colour shifts is to turn on "Simulate Print Colours" in the Window menu and then down to Show Printer Colours, if you are going to re-export the drawing as a PDF all of this is because Xara can only work using RGB as there is no Lab or CMYK.

Hi Albacore,
Thanks for your input on this. I have been using Minimiro's CMYK Pallettes since about 1hour after installing Xara!
I'm just testing this - exporting a cmyk tiff with 'simulate print colours' turned on, then re-importing. Will post results when I get a chance here..

uh - scratch that. It got pushed to the backburner, and now I'm a bit too sick of dealing with this colour stuff to do tests right now.

CMYK pallete working just for vectors edm3
You dont have the chance to export CMYK tif and reimport it back correctly.... becose Xara still just not support CMYK bitmaps inside