moovme

Does anyone happen know why a PDF document I saved out from CAD has come into AF Publisher with all the vector lines being rasterized? I have placed it in using the PDF Passthrough: Passthrough.

My apologies, yes I am aware that this can be done currently. It’s just a bit of a mess to achieve something that can be so easily overcome with an all-in lens flare tool where all the settings/modifications etc can achieved all in one place, as opposed to running through different settings and blend modes etc. after the fact. Hope that helps to clarify.

I hear you. But that’s kind of my point, I’m looking for a much more user friendly experience to implement a lens flare. For me, brushes don’t do it. But that’s me. They aren’t able to come close to the compactness and speed that an all-in one lens flare tool can offer, along with being able to make personalized modifications and a well sought after preview. Being able to add in pngs etc from the web would be a fantastic addition to the tool as well!

That’s a good question! I think because with a dedicated lens flare tool you can create hundreds of differentiations or modifications to existing flares all in the same tool, without ever having to leave it. Personally, I find the lens brushes very cumbersome and time consuming to select and get right. Especially the fact that you have to actually apply a brush to the canvas before you can see what it is and what it’s characteristics are. Then if it’s not right, you need to back track and start all over again. Does it not make sense to have an all-inclusive tool that can contain and customize all the lens flares in one place, and with canvas preview?.. I’m guessing you’re a fan of the brushes and that’s fine. I guess I’m just wanting a much more streamlined process with more ease of use.

Great reply. I understand where you’re coming from with the Photoshop lens flare tool. I’m curious to know if you’re happy with the segregated lens flare brushes from Affinity that don’t offer any preview on the canvas and make you back track on everything whilst trying to find the most appropriate flare? Which do you prefer, a fully encompassed and unified lens flare tool (with the extremely valuable preview option), or stumbling around with lens flare brushes and their inherent usability flaws? Just looking for some honest feedback. Perhaps I’m the only one who prefers the much more fluid and user friendly experience of a dedicated lens flare tool..

You’re very clearly confusing frustration for aggression. Please don’t. How many years has it been now that Affinity has deliberately not offered/included a basic lens flare tool that other software has as a built in fundamental? Since day 1. It would be nice if you could offer help as opposed to legalistic judgement. Many thanks. Continued requests (in the nicest way possible) are the hope for this absolutely ESSENTIAL feature in their photo-editing software that may one day find its way there... When they are blatantly ignored, that simply raises levels of frustration. After all Affinity asks it’s community to make software requests to improve the usability of the software. Am I seriously the only one who thinks this should be included under basic tools like EVERY other photo editing software out there? There’s a reason they all have it - and don’t use brushes to skirt it. Pretty please Affinity, add in a Lens Flare Tool for us all to enjoy.. Please.

Where is the lens flare tool? I mean seriously? Do you expect us to screw around wasting serious amounts of time with pathetic brushes when all you have to do is include a simple all-in-one lens flare tool for photo work? Whats going on at Affinity?

Does anyone know if AFININTY can extract / create vector information from a raster image liike ADOBE Illustrator can? It's a hugely useful tool but I'm not able to find a way to achieve it in the AFFINITY suite..

Actually the image is solely made up of fills, not lines. I need to extract LINES if possible. Illustrator had a way of creating vector lines from an image so am curious if AFFININTY has figured out a way to do the same thing?..

Sadly like a lot of my requests, they fall on deaf ears and are ignored. I’m happy you have found a suitable work around for your needs I never bothered to upgrade to V2 for the simple fact that Affinity simply doesn’t add in the required features / upgrades to mitigate the user frustration, and hence I use Affinity products less and less as a result. For the money they are good products, but for features that people actually want and need, ADOBE absolutely crushes them.

You have done everything you can to dance around putting in a real lens flare tool, which is what is desperately needed. I know brushes are there, but they are a totally sad and desperately inadequate answer to not adding in a much needed customizable lens flare tool.

If you don't give your customers what they want, you're going to lose their business. Especially when you just ignore their requests without the common decency of an answer. That's called cowardice.

Yes thankyou for the links. What Affinity Photo really needs is a fully customizable lens flare tool like Photoshop has. Wonderfully powerful, and extremely easy to use and customize. Brushes are a work-around at best, as they only offer one fixed solution per brush, and customizing them is not at all a fun task to undertake. Perhaps you could tell my WHY you refuse to add in a Lens Flare tool please??..

Just curious if the endless cries for a lens flare tool have actually been heard and acted upon. I've been waiting soooooooooooooo long for this essential feature, but all we get are worthless makeshift brushes. Is this done or least in the scope, or am I going to have to go back to using ADOBE, who actually listen to their customers???.. V2 is dead to me if it doesn't.

Yes, I am aware of the base resolution issue of the layout sheet onto which the images are placed. I had hoped that 300dpi was way more than enough for a tiny little page layout like the one I am using when I first set up the document. I feel like the issue is actually a combination of overcompensation via the default vector line enhancement render settings of the PDF viewers, AND also perhaps a scaling issue occuring as I reduce the image down to fit the page layout. Either way, there are very definite things that can, and should be done about this incorrect and highly undesirable effect.

I have Foxit PDF Editor (2019) and it does not have an option in the preferences to turn off the vector line enhancement. I even called Foxit support to discuss this, and even the latest version of their paid software does not have this feature. I can appreciate a reason for doing this for ancient displays, but quite honeslty who uses an ancient display these days?? I can deal with the viewers having this function, but there is NO logic is this day and age to use it as the default viewing setting. That's just ridiculous from my pont of view. Maybe I'm alone in that thought. I keep going back to the same point; if Publisher shows the vector graphics correctly when the file is being made, that is the indiciation of how the finished product is going to look. Period. So why don't the viewers acknowledge this? Let's get this thing updated already!!!!

Yes, I have already considered the possibilty of a scaling issue. That is one of the things I would like to see added in to PDF export options menu, if anyone from Affinity ever takes the time to look at this!...

I understand that. The contradiction to that comes in because the file reads perfectly correct at 100% in the original Publisher file (on a screen with pixels), so why can it not be viewed in exactly the same way when exported and viewed inside a PDF viewer??? Logic dictates if it reads correctly at 100% in the original file, then the real issue is with the PDF viewers (I'm assuming), and NOT the page size of the file itself. Does everyone understand what I'm actually asking for here?.. additional options to the PDF export menu inside Publisher to compensate for this incredibly annoying line enhancment feauture of the viewers (except ADOBE).

Let's work backwards a bit here. Why does it read correctly at 100% inside Publisher?... The original file I mean, prior to export.

I made a custom page size to fit the presentation style I required (286.5 x 121.4mm, not quite A5), and it reads incorrectly at 100%. If scaled up 200% or more then things get a little clearer, but they should be reading correctly at 100% to begin with. I seem to be having a very difficult time gettng my message across here. It appears that all PDF viewers (with very minor exceptions) default to using a vector line enhancement feature, making vector lines appear MUCH heavier and darker than they actually are. ADOBE ACROBAT is the only viewer I'm aware of that allows the user to turn off this utterly worthless feature. So again, all I am asking for is for Affinity to add in some specific vector line options into the PDF export menu to help compensate for this industry-wide mess that exists with all these junk PDF viewers that screw up the correct viewing experience of vector-based PDF files. Am I asking too much???? I know very well it's not a problem with Affinity Publisher itself.

Perhaps I am looking at this wrong way, but I thought the whole point of PDF files is to preserve the original file format placed into the document to be published. I.e. raster images appear as pixel based images, and vector files retain their vector characteristics. Therefore when viewed in PDF format these characterisitcs don't change, and that is the whole point. If you open my sample. afpub file I posted in Publisher you will see exactly how the image SHOULD look. When exported and viewed in one of the plethora of PDF viewers out there, the image is auto-corrected by the default (and INCORRECT) vector line enhancement feature that they all have. Vector graphics don't have pixels, and therefore can adopt any lineweight you choose. Does that make sense??...

Yes, I already know that Acrobat has a preference to turn of the 'enhanced lines' feature. But as described in my intial post, Acrobat is the ONLY reader (that I know of) that can do this. The point is that ALL other readers don't let you do this, and display the image incorrectly as a result. This is the problem. Are you using a different PDF viewer? Which one? It doesn't really matter actually because the bulk of people who open a PDF just do so via their choice of web browser and don't have a specific PDF viewer to use. All of these web browsers display the vector lines incorrectly. That is why I am suggesting a feature upgrade in the PDF export menu to compensate for this seemingly industry-wide adoption of enhanced vector line viewers, which is TOTALLY INCORRECT from the intent of the author. Are you able to see the problem?..

Sure. Here is a copy of the APub file for you, and the export from APub. Note the finished document size is 286.5mm x 121.4mm. Sample.afpub Sample.pdf

I believe I may have previously posted this in the wrong section, my apologies: I am having a huge amount of difficulty getting a decent READABLE export from Publisher with my architectural vector files. They ALWAYS come out too dark and dominating in the image. All I want is the export to look exactly as it does on the layout sheet insde Publisher. It never does. It would be wonderful if there was an export option that simply gave you EXACTLY what you see in the layout area of Publisher. After all, the images you drop in should be accurately represented when exported, RIGHT??? (This has nothing to do with Passthrough and Interpret by the way). Other PDF exporters give you much more detailed options for exporting linework. Publisher currently doesn't and it is a major headache and let-down for getting out decent presentation files. Other software allows for things like Hairline / Medium / Normal export of vector linework. Would it be too much to ask for this? Or at least an option to export the same quality of image provided as when placed into the layout window when composing the pages please??? All purchased PDF viewers (except ADOBE) and all web browser PDF viewers for some reason default to 'enhancing' vector lineweights making the viweing experience totally incorrect. Is there a way to somehow correct this desperately annoying feauture or at least cmpensate for it by addng in some additional options for vector lineweight displays in the PDF export options menu? Not sure if it's a scaling issue of the original PDFs either.. See below examples of what the file should look like when placed in Publisher, and the exported file when viewed in ALL viewers except ADOBE, where there is an option to turn off this pathetic line enhancement feature.

I have just had an interesting conversation with a technician from Foxit Phantion PDF. There is a definite issue occuring here, in that all viewers (except Adobe) for some reason default to changing the original nature of the exported vector graphics to deliberately 'enhance' vector graphic lineweights, and not display them correctly as the author intended when the file is exported. The tech guy tried to open the PDF export from Publisher within both Chrome and Microsoft Edge as a test and both had exactly the same very dark and unwanted vector line 'enhancement' occurring in the viewers. Even the latest version of the Foxit PDF software does the same thing.. As do all the web browsers. Although I can appreciate this MAY be a factor done for reasons of physical printing, we are in a digital age now where many people are not wanting to print, and actually rely and defer to the orignal digital format for accurate viewing purposes. I have attached a screenshot of what the file looks like from my paid version of Foxit Phantom PDF Creator. It reads terrible, but the same thing is happening through all the default PDF viewers built into the web browsers as well... Again, except Adobe, which as you know gives you the option to turn off (in my case) this desperately unwanted and unnatural vector line enhancement. If zoomed in beyond the designated print size of 286.5mm x 121.4mm the effect is lessened, but still incorrect. The point is that the file should read correctly no matter what viewer is used. PDF is an industry standard, yet the viewers aren't. This is why I am wondering if it is a scaling issue of vector graphics that could be addressed with some additional PDF vector line options in the PDF export menu - hence my original post. HELP!!