andrewjones

Thank you Dan C
It's what I suspected. I'll go read the specs for a Windows install then.
Andrew

Well yes, I agree with all that.
An image created in pure black and white - scraperboard, for example, probably needs to be scanned at 2400 dpi at least, on a scanner in bitmap mode, so no greys are picked up at all. It can be converted back to greyscale if necessary, but it isn't really necessary if the publishing software can use the image correctly. It needs photo software to scan and retouch and publishing software to publish it.
I do this a lot. I don't want greys when I scan an ink drawing. I want edges to be as fine and clean as possible, so a high resolution is required. I have to use photoshop, because PS can handle bitmaps and dpi in excess of 400. It was a bit of a shock when I discovered that Affinity pretty much decided that 1 bit and anything above 400dpi was not in their world view. I didn't think to consider that it wouldn't be.
I'm not sure where the idea that 1 bit belongs in an illustration program comes from. But if the software can handle 1 bit and edit it, great. I don't care about the semantics. Just give me the tools.
I also use duotones and tritones a lot, either with true greyscales or with bitmaps, or a combination of the two. Sure you can make a sort of simulation in RGB, but it doesn't really do the job creatively, visually or mechanically. It's a little difficult to export to a couple of spot colour screens out of an RGB file. Or even greyscale separated plates.
It would be lovely if Affinity dropped the idea that there is no need to work above 400 dpi and that greyscale manipulation is old hat, but I'm not holding my breath.
Just sayin'

I hear what you say, but really I'm not interested in which part of Affinity the function should appear in, just so long as it appears somewhere. That would make me happy, as it is something I assumed would be in there when I purchased the software. Working in mono is a very useful tool and one I would have thought would be useful to photo people as well. I'm not savvy enough to know if a simulation would be good enough to do the job.
Arguing about whether "Photo" is restricted to photo work is not really important - after all, if my memory serves me correctly, early advertising aimed Photo at digital painting as well. Because I'm old school I tend to regard the photo end as being anything that deals with pixels, but if it were to end up in Designer, that wouldn't phase me at all. Let me know when it arrives.
Comments aren't aimed at starting some kind of discussion about which slot the function fits into, but are aimed at trying to persuade the devs that it is an important function used by all sorts of creatives and designers, and that if they were to implement it, I am absolutely convinced their software would have a far wider appeal. Particularly to those like me who are stuck with PS at the moment - because it's hard to find any alternative.
I read that Photoline supports bitmaps on layers. I can't imagine why, but I need to get it to find out.
That's all!

Totally agree with this comment by nik78.
Bitmaps are incredibly useful in illustration techniques - and used by illustrators and designers all over the world if you recognise what you're looking at.
My personal method to make textures to build into illustrations is to find a useful lump of image texture - say a contrasty bit of rock or wood. Convert to greyscale. Convert to bitmap with threshold adjusted as necessary. Assign colour to bitmap. Dump back into master rgb illustration and carry on. Colour not quite working? Go back to bitmap and adjust colour. Didn't get the bitmap resolution right? Go back to greyscale and adjust from there.
The same with duotones. Make a greyscale image. Go to duotone mode. Assign colours. Convert file back to rgb and dump back in the master rgb illustration. Totally controllable.
In Photoshop this is very fast and simple to do.
You can also dump the bitmaps into Illustrator as flat areas and assign colours on the fly.
I have to say that I was really surprised when I bought the Affinity suite to find that none of this is built in.
Vector trace is really no use for this technique at all.

I would also like to add my name to the petition for bitmap and duotone capability. I can't see any reason not to have it and the sheer volume of print that uses both, makes Affinity effectively unusable in many situations in the print world.
Adding the capability would open Affinity up for a huge number of designers and illustrators who currently have little other option than to carry on with PS. Including me.

I would also like to add my name to the petition for bitmap and duotone capability. I can't see any reason not to have it and the sheer volume of print that uses both, makes Affinity effectively unusable in many situations in the print world.
Adding the capability would open Affinity up for a huge number of designers and illustrators who currently have little other option than to carry on with PS. Including me.

I would also like to add my name to the petition for bitmap and duotone capability. I can't see any reason not to have it and the sheer volume of print that uses both, makes Affinity effectively unusable in many situations in the print world.
Adding the capability would open Affinity up for a huge number of designers and illustrators who currently have little other option than to carry on with PS. Including me.

Totally agree with this comment by nik78.
Bitmaps are incredibly useful in illustration techniques - and used by illustrators and designers all over the world if you recognise what you're looking at.
My personal method to make textures to build into illustrations is to find a useful lump of image texture - say a contrasty bit of rock or wood. Convert to greyscale. Convert to bitmap with threshold adjusted as necessary. Assign colour to bitmap. Dump back into master rgb illustration and carry on. Colour not quite working? Go back to bitmap and adjust colour. Didn't get the bitmap resolution right? Go back to greyscale and adjust from there.
The same with duotones. Make a greyscale image. Go to duotone mode. Assign colours. Convert file back to rgb and dump back in the master rgb illustration. Totally controllable.
In Photoshop this is very fast and simple to do.
You can also dump the bitmaps into Illustrator as flat areas and assign colours on the fly.
I have to say that I was really surprised when I bought the Affinity suite to find that none of this is built in.
Vector trace is really no use for this technique at all.

I have a feeling that Affinity Photo's architecture perhaps complicates the implementation of a true 1bit (and 8bit indexed) mode to such an extent that the devs would have to re-code large swaths of their core code. I don't think they ever anticipated the need for a 1bit mode architecture, and patching the current code base is probably a really bad idea.
And to be fair, it does present a new set of novel problems: how do you deal with transparency? Layers? How will those layers with different bit depths interact?
For example, in Photoshop most of the functionality is simply turned off. No layers, no blending, most filters are greyed out and unavailable. Same in indexed mode.
PhotoLine is completely unique in that it allows the user to actually keep using layers, vector layers,  blend modes, layer masks and effects, but many effects and blend modes have no effect in 1bit mode, and layer masks still allow for grey values, which potentially can lead to issues. So in PhotoLine's case the responsibility lies entirely with the user to avoid making mistakes.
Photoshop and PhotoLine represent in my mind two extremes in how to tackle the implementation of a 1bit mode: either limit the user's freedom when working in 1bit mode, or allow full freedom, but with that freedom comes the user's responsibility to avoid using features that might break the 1bit workflow.
For an experienced user or expert PhotoLine is a revelation when working with 1bit graphics. For a novice a potential minefield, and Photoshop's hand-holding probably a better approach.
And if an 8bit indexed bitmap mode is required in your workflow: even PhotoLine avoids opening that tin can of worms. I would argue it is preferable to switch to a dedicated 8bit (pixel art) image editor, such as Pro Motion NG, because of an entire new set of requirements.
All of which returns us to the need of 1bit support in Affinity products. For many print/textile professionals it is an absolute requirement. If the Affinity devs could integrate 1bit in the export persona, fix the custom 8bit palette option (which has never worked), for heaven's sake implement a proper real-time preview in the export persona, as well as make sure Publisher (and Photo and Designer) deal with 1bit images properly in the PDF export and keep the original higher resolution, then Serif may perhaps at the very least provide a feasible 1bit workflow.

I too think AP should handle pixels, were they 1 or 16 bits deep, and AD should handle vectors. Most 1-bit illustrations start as greyscale or RGB images.
Single document dpi may be limiting feature in layout app and Publisher really should be more flexible and support different resolutions in export. Should not be too hard as it already allows exported image objects to retain native resolution (you do not have to downsample images). Thus normal behaviour should be 300 dpi colour/greyscale and 1200 dpi bitmap (sure you should be able to alter values). Document dpi should only govern elements created within layout (e.g. said shadows). 
Also, I think, plain support for 1-bit is more difficult than supporting multiple dpis. At the moment Publisher converts placed bitmaps to RGB, which produces all kinds of complications.
For the original question: I think devs just don't now how. Coders think the more the merrier and who needs old tired 1-bit when you can have 32 bits? Did anyone ask for 64 bits? Can do! 

PL is my everyday driver. It's great for what it does.
As I mentioned in one of the 1-bit threads, just being able to create 1-bit images in *whichever* Affinity application gets a user part way there. Becuase Affinity Publisher/Designer has a single document dpi/resolution, there would be need to alter how one includes images if also using continuous tone images.
The document dpi would have to be set for 1200 dpi (which is what the 1-bit images should have at minimum). Which means one should place rgb/cmyk images at/near a target effective resolution of 300 for general print. Else a print pdf is going to be severely bloated.
Which is all too much work for this little brain. At least because I have applications wherein there is no document dpi, where image types (as well as drop shadows) can all have different dpi settings. Tis less for this dunce to think about (aside from just being a quicker work-flow).

I hear what you say, but really I'm not interested in which part of Affinity the function should appear in, just so long as it appears somewhere. That would make me happy, as it is something I assumed would be in there when I purchased the software. Working in mono is a very useful tool and one I would have thought would be useful to photo people as well. I'm not savvy enough to know if a simulation would be good enough to do the job.
Arguing about whether "Photo" is restricted to photo work is not really important - after all, if my memory serves me correctly, early advertising aimed Photo at digital painting as well. Because I'm old school I tend to regard the photo end as being anything that deals with pixels, but if it were to end up in Designer, that wouldn't phase me at all. Let me know when it arrives.
Comments aren't aimed at starting some kind of discussion about which slot the function fits into, but are aimed at trying to persuade the devs that it is an important function used by all sorts of creatives and designers, and that if they were to implement it, I am absolutely convinced their software would have a far wider appeal. Particularly to those like me who are stuck with PS at the moment - because it's hard to find any alternative.
I read that Photoline supports bitmaps on layers. I can't imagine why, but I need to get it to find out.
That's all!

I hear what you say, but really I'm not interested in which part of Affinity the function should appear in, just so long as it appears somewhere. That would make me happy, as it is something I assumed would be in there when I purchased the software. Working in mono is a very useful tool and one I would have thought would be useful to photo people as well. I'm not savvy enough to know if a simulation would be good enough to do the job.
Arguing about whether "Photo" is restricted to photo work is not really important - after all, if my memory serves me correctly, early advertising aimed Photo at digital painting as well. Because I'm old school I tend to regard the photo end as being anything that deals with pixels, but if it were to end up in Designer, that wouldn't phase me at all. Let me know when it arrives.
Comments aren't aimed at starting some kind of discussion about which slot the function fits into, but are aimed at trying to persuade the devs that it is an important function used by all sorts of creatives and designers, and that if they were to implement it, I am absolutely convinced their software would have a far wider appeal. Particularly to those like me who are stuck with PS at the moment - because it's hard to find any alternative.
I read that Photoline supports bitmaps on layers. I can't imagine why, but I need to get it to find out.
That's all!

I hear what you say, but really I'm not interested in which part of Affinity the function should appear in, just so long as it appears somewhere. That would make me happy, as it is something I assumed would be in there when I purchased the software. Working in mono is a very useful tool and one I would have thought would be useful to photo people as well. I'm not savvy enough to know if a simulation would be good enough to do the job.
Arguing about whether "Photo" is restricted to photo work is not really important - after all, if my memory serves me correctly, early advertising aimed Photo at digital painting as well. Because I'm old school I tend to regard the photo end as being anything that deals with pixels, but if it were to end up in Designer, that wouldn't phase me at all. Let me know when it arrives.
Comments aren't aimed at starting some kind of discussion about which slot the function fits into, but are aimed at trying to persuade the devs that it is an important function used by all sorts of creatives and designers, and that if they were to implement it, I am absolutely convinced their software would have a far wider appeal. Particularly to those like me who are stuck with PS at the moment - because it's hard to find any alternative.
I read that Photoline supports bitmaps on layers. I can't imagine why, but I need to get it to find out.
That's all!

Totally agree with this comment by nik78.
Bitmaps are incredibly useful in illustration techniques - and used by illustrators and designers all over the world if you recognise what you're looking at.
My personal method to make textures to build into illustrations is to find a useful lump of image texture - say a contrasty bit of rock or wood. Convert to greyscale. Convert to bitmap with threshold adjusted as necessary. Assign colour to bitmap. Dump back into master rgb illustration and carry on. Colour not quite working? Go back to bitmap and adjust colour. Didn't get the bitmap resolution right? Go back to greyscale and adjust from there.
The same with duotones. Make a greyscale image. Go to duotone mode. Assign colours. Convert file back to rgb and dump back in the master rgb illustration. Totally controllable.
In Photoshop this is very fast and simple to do.
You can also dump the bitmaps into Illustrator as flat areas and assign colours on the fly.
I have to say that I was really surprised when I bought the Affinity suite to find that none of this is built in.
Vector trace is really no use for this technique at all.