Scribus Forums

Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: Ruud on June 07, 2017, 12:46:55 PM

Title: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 07, 2017, 12:46:55 PM
Hallo community,
A new experience for me: first time on a forum  :o and new to Scribus!
I have Scribus 1.4.6 installed with Mint 18 and I am struggling with color management.

My idea is that I'm missing something. In the preferences should not there be an icon between "Preflight controle" and "PDF Export" (see my screenshot)?
Am I correct in assuming I need that to reduce the color-differences between my PDF-sRGB and PDF-CMYK output?

Thanks in advance for your help
Ruud




[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: GarryP on June 07, 2017, 01:28:59 PM
Welcome to the forum Ruud.

Are you sure you're in Preferences and not Document Setup?
In Document Setup, Colour Management can come at the end of the icons instead of the middle (I don't know why).
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 07, 2017, 04:37:15 PM
Hy GarryP,
Yes, Iḿ sure the picture I attached is in Preferences. But I looked in the documentsettings and could not find the icon (the umbrella) there either.

regards
Ruud
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: utnik on June 07, 2017, 07:54:25 PM
hi ruud

could you check the 'about scribus' screen?
the first 'C' of this 'C-C-T-F' stands for 'littlecms'. if it doesn't show, lcms is missing – this could hide the symbol for the color management...

utnik

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 08, 2017, 09:40:11 AM
Thanks for your reaction.
The infoscreen looks the same, although.... mine is without color! Has something gone wrong during instalation?
I have to go now  :( but will check for "littlecms" later

regards
Ruud

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: GarryP on June 08, 2017, 10:22:28 AM
This is outside my particular skill-set now so I'll leave it to the experts to help further but I've just looked at a Mint Cinnamon 17.3 installation I've had in a VM for a while and the Scribus version available via the Software/Package Manager is displayed as 1.4.2 so it might be useful if you explain how you installed 1.4.6.

For instance, if your installation - for whatever reason - contained no ICC profiles then there wouldn't be anything to manage. This is just a guess though and might have nothing to do with the issue.
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 08, 2017, 04:15:23 PM
I re-installed Scribus and used the softwaremanager as I did the first time. Checked for the 'C-C-T-F' mentioned by utnik and it is there. Now I checked in the lower right corner and saw the color-icon grey..... Cloud that be the course of my problem?
Again I have a grey 'about scribus' screen, and again 1.4.6.

Thank you all for input
Ruud

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 08, 2017, 04:44:30 PM
Disapointing! No improvement! no 'umbrella' in the preferences!
ICC profiles are at /usr/share/color/icc; preferences-ICCprofiles grey......

is the someone with a solution?
Ruud

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 08, 2017, 04:45:45 PM
more info /R

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: a.l.e on June 08, 2017, 04:55:39 PM
just a guess: you might not have any icc profiles on your computer...
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 12, 2017, 02:07:20 PM
Thank you all for your input...
This weekend Scribus 1.4.6 was installed on the system of an experienced Linux-user. This was too on a Mint18 64 system. We used the same procedure, installation from the software-manager and he made a check for LittleCMS and the icc's: all present and correct.
But here neither an umbrella for colormanagement!!
Conclusion? Do not expect Scribus to handle your colors correctly en check, check and dubbelcheck the colors you send to your printing partners (They should and probably can check this issue). Probably the best way is to send your work to your printing-partners as PDF-sRGB and ask them to convert!
It is a shame Scrubus can not handle this >:(

Regards
Ruud
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: a.l.e on June 12, 2017, 03:05:11 PM
well, for what i can tell, the advice could also be: never use mint for serious work!
as it seems that mint cannot handle this.

in the last few years, i don't think i've ever heard of anybody who failed to use the color management with Scribus, except when users are not able to correctly install their software.

in your case, if you have not tweaked anything and if you have installed all the packages your package manager is suggesting, i can only think that the package you're getting is not correct.
which would be a fail of the mint package owner.

there is nothing scribus can do, to fix that.
really, if your icc profile and lcms are correctly installed, scribus will find them.
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: GarryP on June 12, 2017, 03:20:09 PM
I've just installed Scribus on an old VM of Mint Cinnamon 17.3 64bit (I know it's not the same version but it's what I had easily to hand).

The Software Manager reports the Scribus version as 1.4.2.dfsg+r18267-1ubuntu2.
The splash screen (in colour) reports Scribus as 1.4.2.
The Title Bar reports Scribus as 1.4.3svn (far too many packages seem to use svn versions).

The Colour Management icon (umbrella) shows in Preferences and can be activated however the RGB, RGB Solid Colours and Monitor profile names are displayed as gibberish (seemingly random characters including outlined rectangles.) That doesn't seem to be related to the original issue but is a bit worrying all the same.

I then downloaded a fresh copy of Mint Cinnamon 18.1 64-bit (no updates, just installed straight from the University of Kent's mirror today) and installed it in a brand new VM.

The Software Manager reports the Scribus version as 1.4.6+dfsg-2ubuntu0.1.
The splash screen reports Scribus as 1.4.6 (but is greyscale).
The Title Bar reports Scribus as 1.4.6.

The Colour Management icon is not available in Preferences.
Build ID from the help screen shows as C-C-T-F-C1.14.6-64bit.
ICC Profiles text field in Preferences/General is greyed-out and the Change button for the profiles cannot be clicked.

That suggests to me that - as a.l.e said above - Scribus is not packaged correctly for Mint 18.1 (or 17.3 either for that matter).
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: GarryP on June 12, 2017, 04:03:05 PM
Just for the heck of it I've just downloaded and installed Ubuntu 17.04 64-bit into a fresh VM too (I can't see anyone saying that Ubuntu is a "weird" choice for someone to install).

The Software Manager reports Scribus as version 1.4.6+dfsg-4.
The Splash Screen shows as version 1.4.6 (but, again, greyscale).
Title Bar shows version as 1.4.6.

In Preferences the Colour Management icon is available and, once CM has been activated, there are many profiles available, all with proper names.

Everything looks fine and dandy there (except the weird greyscale splash screen, like looking at Scribus from the 1940's).

Is it worth someone keeping a list of Linux flavours, which Scribus versions are installed by their Software/Package managers, and whether Scribus works "out of the box"?

So far - in this thread - we have:
* Mint 17.3 - Scribus 1.4.3svn - Unstable Scribus version and possible issues with RGB profiles
* Mint 18.1 - Scribus 1.4.6 - Does not include ICC profiles for colour management (probably)
* Ubuntu 17.04 - Scribus 1.4.6 - All looks fine

I think a better conclusion would be: "Don't trust your software/package manager to have the latest stable version of Scribus and, even if it does, don't trust it to be packaged properly".
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: a.l.e on June 12, 2017, 05:36:01 PM
as complement to what garry has been writing:

- if you're using os x or windows (or any other OS that relies on downloads), only trust the download links from the scribus download page (http://www.scribus.net/downloads/)

- if you're using an OS that relies on a package manager, scribus might or not be at fault when something does not work correctly. but the packager could also be at fault.

- at the time of writing, if you're using debian or ubuntu (even the PPA from https://launchpad.net/~scribus/+archive/ubuntu/ppa), you can be pretty sure that the packaging has been done correctly (the scribus bug tracker is "full" of tickets and patches by the marvelous packager).

Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 13, 2017, 11:17:34 AM
Hello to all,
I'm happy my 'conclusion' lead to some helpful suggestions  ;D
The experienced 'linux-user' I mentioned had a look for me and took the route of the ppa to try it out. It appears it needs some fiddling to make it work (something with different branches and editions of Scribus and Ubuntu etc) but it looks like the way to go and he is going to help me solving the situation. Thanks again for your input.
Regards
Ruud
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: a.l.e on June 13, 2017, 11:39:28 AM
the PPA only needs some fiddling because you're not using the latest ubuntu.

PPA are created for ubuntu.

if they need fiddling on the latest ubuntu, please write a ticket in https://bugs.launchpad.net/~scribus and it's very likely that the issue will be timely fixed.
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: GarryP on June 13, 2017, 01:41:42 PM
I think this situation is quite worrying.

Mint is one of the most popular Linux distros and - if all Mint users have the same issues as mentioned above - there could be thousands (millions?) of people out there who cannot use a properly working version of Scribus. Or, to put it another way, there could be a very large number of users who have tried Scribus and, simply because it doesn't work properly on that distro, think that Scribus is worse than it actually is.

The expansion of the user base of Scribus could be seriously hampered by this. I realise that the Scribus team probably has very little influence on the distro packages but I can't see this as being a good situation to be in.
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: a.l.e on June 13, 2017, 03:06:42 PM
i think that from our side there is not much we cannot, no.

in the wikipedia article, i read that mint uses the ubuntu repositories. which in the case of scribus means that the  original debian packages are used (because the ubuntu packager is smart enough to first create the packages for debian and then let ubuntu use them! did i already mention that ubuntu and debian have a wonderful scribus maintainer? : - ).

i have to confess that i have only little pity for those who get stuck while using one of the many "small" but hip distributions, that have been created because somebody had a political agenda on some detail.

if somebody has only basics (or no) linux skills, he or she or it or they should stick to one of the big names.
that is: ubuntu, fedora, debian (and opensuse?).
those with good linux skills are free to use whatever they see fit... but must be ready to get the hands dirty if something does not work.
and report it to the right folks.
and refrain from suggesting clueless users from using the same distribution.

now, i can ask our ubuntu maintainer, if he wants to volunteer and look into this,  but i fear that the chances are slim that he will want to take it on him.

but first, we should know if ruud's friend could get it work and how he did it.
sadly, "does not work" and "some fiddling" are not concepts that will help him/us sort this out.
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: GarryP on June 13, 2017, 04:45:41 PM
I liked to use Ubuntu in the past (on my old laptop, as a replacement for [eugh] Vista) but I think it might look a bit "scary" to some users, those coming from Windows for instance. (I rarely use Linux nowadays, mostly for little experiments.)

Things like Mint are advertised - in plenty of "Best Linux for 201x" articles - as being more "beginner friendly" than the big three/four you mentioned and I suppose that's why it's popular. It's advertised as being friendly and popular so it gets more users, and round and round we go.

Mint is perfectly fine if all you want to do is the basic office applications and web browsing, but once you start to need more you can begin to see the cracks emerging, I.e. weird software versions etc. It starts to get more awkward to use than the other distros but there's also less support because it's an offshoot.

Anyway, I hope, as you say, that Ruud gets back to the forum with some kind of fix.

If it's just a case of installing a few extra packages then that could be added as a note to the "Installing Scribus on Linux" pages of the Wiki so people having the same problem can simply be pointed to the instructions.
If it's a lot more difficult than that then it might be worth making a note on those same pages to warn people that they could have problems with Scribus on Mint. Could be better to warn people that there's an issue with Mint rather than having people think it's a Scribus problem. (Easy enough to remove the warning when everything is fixed.)

I have no problem chipping in with some testing work here and there if that will help. Re-installing a VM to get it back to the "basic user" state isn't exactly a huge task.
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Ruud on June 13, 2017, 08:20:29 PM
Here the comments of my helper:

All of the following was done on an up-to-date Linux Mint 18.1 (amd64).

Mint indeed uses the ubuntu packages and takes most of its software from the ubuntu repo's. This is true for scribus, at least:

$ apt-cache showpkg scribus
Package: scribus
Versions:
1.4.6+dfsg-2ubuntu0.1 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial-updates_universe_binary-amd64_Packages)
Description Language:
                 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_universe_binary-amd64_Packages
                  MD5: b9d4fea57ce9587e9ebbeb5ad30011e4
(more of the same)

1.4.6+dfsg-2 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_universe_binary-amd64_Packages)
Description Language:
                 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial_universe_binary-amd64_Packages
                  MD5: b9d4fea57ce9587e9ebbeb5ad30011e4
(more of the same)

Adding the Scribus PPA to the local apt sources has little effect, the PPA itself lists the "scribus" package as "Newer version available", making apt install scribus still take the package from the ubuntu repo's.

Manually downloading the .deb files for both scribus and scribus-data from the PPA does work. The fiddly bit for unexperienced users being that this requires the removal of both packages from the system before the package thingy allows you to install the package, for which it warns that it's an older version than is available in the repo's. After installing this, though, starting scribus and opening the preferences does show the color management settings section. I personally have no idea what I'm supposed to be seeing there, but I gather just having that section was the problem in this thread.

The same thing goes for the scribus-ng package, but I'm guessing the reason for this is the same.

One annoying detail with this solution is that the package manager will keep thinking there's a newer version in the repo's, marking scribus for update everytime the user is prompted to install them. Installing that update will break the color management again.

If the packages from the ubuntu repo's work with ubuntu but not with mint, it would seem some difference in the way ubuntu and mint create / package some other component in the system throws scribus off. I wouldn't know how to debug this, but I can reproduce the symptom and fix on a second mint system (also 18.1 and amd64).

Hope this info brings you guys a step closer to a (hopefully simple) solution for the curious behaviour in mint.



As for now, I'm out of town for a few days, so do not expect a swift reaction on your posts.......

Kind regards
Ruud
Title: Re: Color management
Post by: Nermander on June 13, 2017, 09:38:21 PM
As far as I know all .deb package managers allow you to "freeze" a version of an application.