Okay, so I'm going to post a thread now about using Clip Studio Paint, about color settings, ICC color profiles, outputting to CMYK, getting 100% K in your blacks, etc. Technical shit. If you're struggling with this, read the thread. I'll reply to myself here, and it'll take a little time... 1/many
So, first off, from what I've tested and seen, as compared to outputting CMYK from Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint shifts colors a touch, even when using the same ICC profile. All software I tested also does this, many of them worse. For me, the best color output is from Photoshop, unfortunately.
I've now tested output from Clip Studio Paint, Affinity Photo, Krita, and PixelMator Pro. Krita was the worst and absolutely destroyed the color. I'm not saying I mastered any of these. I just converted to the same ICC profile and saved out as a tiff, and compared.
Now, from what I've seen, there's a potential workflow here without Adobe. Probably you want Photoshop early on to test and compare, then ditch it once you've nailed down your settings. I'd say you can do your painting in Clip Studio Paint, and do final CMYK output from Affinity Photo.
