Tayda UV Printing Roland Swatches for Affinity

[Danbieranowski]

Hey all, just thought I'd share these.

Here are the RDG_White and RDG_Gloss swatches for Affinity so you can use them for Tayda UV Printing.

You'll need to import them from the Swatches section of Designer (you can find this under View>Studio). Click the menu button (four little lines) on the top right of the Swatches section and select Import Palette, then either Application (this will apply the swatches to Affinity Designer) or System (this will make the swatches available via any application on the computer). Then you can access them by clicking the swatch dropdown and selecting Roland Color System Library (spots).

Here's a more detailed link on how to import swatches if you need: https://support.retrosupply.co/article/100-how-to-import-an-affinity-swatch-palette#:~:text=Open Affinity Designer or Affinity,and toggle to Import Palette.

 

[benny_profane]

Is there an issue here in that they don't import as spot colors? Do they need to be converted to spot colors for each design?

 

[Danbieranowski]

Is there an issue here in that they don't import as spot colors? Do they need to be converted to spot colors for each design?

They are listed as spots for me no matter what design I'm working in. I am by no means an Affinity pro, so I might be missing something?

I access them through this dropdown in the "swatches" section:


Then I click this in the list of color options:


And then I just apply the color to whatever the object is that I want to color that way.

 

[benny_profane]

Ah, okay. It worked when imported as an application palette but not as a system palette. Thanks for your help!

 

[Danbieranowski]

Ah, okay. It worked when imported as an application palette but not as a system palette. Thanks for your help!

Excellent! Good note for this thread.

 

[fig]

Excellent! Good note for this thread.

Yes, and thank you for the Roland swatch Dan.

 

[dmnCrawler]

Have you been able to use the Affinity Designer export function to export properly labelled layers for Tayda UV Printing. I have been experimenting and have not been able to get that to work properly. I would like to document in the tutorial I created. I know that many of us do not want to pay subscriptions to Adobe in order to create graphics.

 

[Danbieranowski]

Have you been able to use the Affinity Designer export function to export properly labelled layers for Tayda UV Printing. I have been experimenting and have not been able to get that to work properly. I would like to document in the tutorial I created. I know that many of us do not want to pay subscriptions to Adobe in order to create graphics.

Yes I have. What I've found is that you can't have ANY OTHER LAYERS than the ones that Tayda requests.

For example, let's say you have a base layer called "COLOR", and within that layer you have nested another layer called "DRILL TEMPLATE". When you export the PDF, if you drag the PDF back into Affinity there will be two base layers now, one called "COLOR" and one called "DRILL TEMPLATE". It will not leave the layers nested like you had them originally.

What you have to do is use GROUPS instead of layers. The only layers you can have are the ones that Tayda requests (COLOR, WHITE, GLOSS). If you have any other layer created, you'll have to pull everything out of that layer and delete the now-empty layer, and then put everything under one of the 3 Tayda layers.

To use my prior example, you would have a base layer called "COLOR". Within that layer you'll now have a GROUP called "DRILL TEMPLATE". Now, when you export the PDF, if you drag it back into Affinity it will have the appropriate layers for Tayda.

I've been intending on making a video of this or a tutorial or something similar to yours (which was a MASSIVE help). I just have to find the time.

 

[dmnCrawler]

Yes I have. What I've found is that you can't have ANY OTHER LAYERS than the ones that Tayda requests.

For example, let's say you have a base layer called "COLOR", and within that layer you have nested another layer called "DRILL TEMPLATE". When you export the PDF, if you drag the PDF back into Affinity there will be two base layers now, one called "COLOR" and one called "DRILL TEMPLATE". It will not leave the layers nested like you had them originally.

What you have to do is use GROUPS instead of layers. The only layers you can have are the ones that Tayda requests (COLOR, WHITE, GLOSS). If you have any other layer created, you'll have to pull everything out of that layer and delete the now-empty layer, and then put everything under one of the 3 Tayda layers.

To use my prior example, you would have a base layer called "COLOR". Within that layer you'll now have a GROUP called "DRILL TEMPLATE". Now, when you export the PDF, if you drag it back into Affinity it will have the appropriate layers for Tayda.

I've been intending on making a video of this or a tutorial or something similar to yours (which was a MASSIVE help). I just have to find the time.

I iwll give this a try. I was noticing a lot of extra layers when I would reopen the PDF in Illustrator.

 

[Danbieranowski]

I iwll give this a try. I was noticing a lot of extra layers when I would reopen the PDF in Illustrator.

Yeah, that’s Affinity’s weird thing where it takes every nested layer and makes it a base layer on the exported PDF.
Here’s a simple test.
1) Create a layer called COLOR.
2) Throw two circles or squares or anything inside the COLOR layer and group those two items.
3) Export a PDF. It should only have one layer in the PDF when you re-import.
4) Add a layer called TEST within your COLOR layer and drop the group you created into the TEST layer.
5) Export a PDF. It should now have TWO base layers. One called COLOR and one called TEST.

For whatever reason Affinity takes any layers you have in your document, no matter where they are, and moves them to base layers on an exported PDF. So you can’t have ANY other layers than COLOR, WHITE, and GLOSS.

 

[rhaas]

Ah, okay. It worked when imported as an application palette but not as a system palette. Thanks for your help!

I noted this in another thread but thought it would be helpful to emphasize this for others who run into similar issues with Affinity Designer. I couldn't get my Roland swatch colors to survive the PDF export process when they were imported as a system palette, but re-importing as an application palette did the trick.