The colour and tonal information in a digital document is stored as numbers. When we share these documents between devices, the device has to work out how to display the colour. As not all devices can display the same colour gamut it can lead to colours looking different on each device.
Images without colour profiles (or with unsupported colour profiles) may not look the same across each device.
To ensure that the colour looks the same on each device, we use colour profiles to tell the device how to display or render the colour information.
Images with the correct profile for a calibrated device should closely match.
In Affinity Photo, an opened file's colour profile is honoured by default. You have the option to convert it to the current working colour space. When placing images into an existing document, the image's embedded colour profile will always be converted to the document's current working space.
On export, you can choose to embed the document's or a named colour profile to ensure accurate colour management. Alternatively, the exported file can be unprofiled by not embedding the document or named profile.
Assigning colour profiles
Affinity Photo lets you choose global default colour profiles, assign a colour profile as you create a document, or at any point during your session.
To select default global colour profiles:
From Affinity Photo's Home screen, select Preferences.
Select the Colour tab, then select an RGB, RGB32 (HDR), Greyscale, CMYK, or LAB colour profile from the pop-up menus.
Choose a Rendering intent option and enable Black Point compensation.
To select a new document's colour profile:
As you create a new document, select an option from the Colour Profile pop-up menu.
To convert the colour space of file to be opened to the current working space:
Prior to opening the file, go to Affinity Photo's Home screen and open the app's Preferences.
Select the Colour tab, then check the Convert opened files to working space option.
To change your document's colour profile at any time:
From the Document Menu, select Convert Document.
Select a Profile from the context toolbar.
Tap the tick button to apply.
To embed a colour profile on file export:
From the Document Menu, select Export.
In the Export dialog, choose your file format and settings for export.
(Optional) Select a different ICC Profile from the pop-up menu. Otherwise, the document's colour profile will be embedded.
Enable Embed profile.
About soft proofing
Soft proofing simulates output as you edit and design with respect to the colour profile and the paper medium you intend to print on.
In Affinity Photo, this can be done by applying a Soft Proof adjustment to your project. You can then preview how your output will appear, preventing any nasty surprises at print time.
Because soft proofing is applied as an adjustment you can apply multiple adjustments, and therefore produce soft proofs for multiple output devices.
As an example, if you want to create several different output types, you might want to start with a colour profile on document creation with a wide gamut (e.g., Adobe RGB 1998), and then change the profile to match the output destination. However, colour information may be thrown away if changing to a smaller colour gamut—simply changing back to a profile with a wider gamut will not restore the additional colour information. By applying a soft proof adjustment you prevent this, allowing you to work in a wider gamut until you are ready to change to your chosen output profile.
To select default global colour profiles: