LeftandRight

Thank you, I didn't realise there was a difference between 'Pixel Persona' and 'Pixel View'. Now I do. And I compared various objects and bitmaps using split screen. Useful on the vector parts certainly. But...(see next section) When I compare split screen, pixel, retina, and neither: 1-- On my pixel layer: nothing happens differently in any of the three view modes. It's all the same. 2-- Whereas: vector objects: nicely change in the three modes. So there's something I misunderstand. On a pixel layer, all my scanned bitmaps (and anything I now add to test) are showing the same in the viewing modes. In other words, it seems like the viewing mode (pixel, retina) is only designed to be changing the vector parts. ? Note that I don't have artboards, just an original single page. Would that make a difference here? L&R

My bad wording, which was ambiguous. I realized the OFF part, it was whether you rasterized the green I wasn't sure of. The menu was offscreen for the orange and didn't show 'rasterize', but I assumed it was there. But for the green I couldn't trace whether you did it or not. I'll look at the video again. OOps!. Yes, I see now the green one. The rasterize is also offscreen, but I'll guess it's there. Thanks. 🙂

Which, paradoxically, releases me because it's just too **mn complex for me to even consider, and I can fall back on: if I try turning this button off, does it make my current picture on the screen better or worse? Much simpler. LOL. Thank you for following all this and giving me this opening! Now I can work! 🙂 L&R

You confused me there because, unless I'm seriously confused for decades (which is possible), you used the wrong mathematical sign. Your original recommendation reads That means 'less than or equal to' 2. Which I tried to understand. But you clarify now that you actually meant to say: ≥2 [U+2265 ≥ GREATER-THAN OR EQUAL TO]. So now I understand that part at least. 6 decimal places for the pixels. 🙂 L&R

Thank you, that's very interesting. After watching several times I think I can follow it, and I learned some things. But one major thing was missing for me, as explained as follows: 1. Your final result, with the antialiasing (it looks like) after the rasterization of the orange, with Force Pixel Align = ON, in the final step, is what I've been attempting to avoid. I recognize seeing this in my work and don't want it. 2. However, as far as I understand what you did, you didn't rasterize the green example with FPA = OFF. Correct? 3. So I still don't know if FP On or Off makes a difference in this final step of rasterization. That is, rasterizing might equally create anti-aliasing in FPA = OFF...? I will attempt to reproduce what you did and see if I can discover what happens there. At this point I don't understand the relation of pixel decimal places and 'document grid' to this final question, so any tips there might save me some steps. 🙂 L&R

Thank you, I checked these briefly. I decided not to enter this rabbit hole due to lack of available time. But I gleaned what I could on a quick scan. For my current purposes: I decided I should adjust my pixel decimal place to 6 (after scanning the above links). But then you appear to say later in your post that it should be < or = to 2. So I'm confused: I'm worried about triggering anti-aliasing on move and on rasterization. So, it better to have 1 or 2, or 5 or 5 decimal places? Or is it too context-dependent, and I'll just have to learn by trying everything? 🙂 See also my next response to @thomaso about the orange-and-green experiment video.

Aha. I had both of them ON. But testing now I can't find any troubling difference with them ON or OFF. I tried several ways, resizing a couple of different 300 dpi hand-drawn letters, and rotating and moving them. One was an original scanned letter, a hand-printed 'a', and the other was a number '1' I drew carefully beside it on the same pixel layer, using the paintbrush, with the shift key down to create all straight lines, so I could follow more exactly the changes in the edges. During the rotation, move, and resize of these, I can see that with FPA=ON—and even moreso when MBWP=ON—the movement becomes jerky while I'm dragging. So something is happening behind the scenes. And yes I can see minor differences in how the pixels are being coloured during the move/rotation. But the end results don't seem to anti-alias or create any visible distortion. They seem pretty much identical. So, perhaps you could describe a situation where this becomes problematic? I will leave MBWP=OFF now, just to be safe. But it's nice to know why. 🙂

Why would this be useful? L&R

That's what rasterizing is all about: you adjust the resolution of a bitmap layer so that it matches the document resolution. Because on the other hand, the basic Affinity concept is that every bitmap layer is a "smart object" (to use Adobe terminology) that will keep its original attributes when scaled up or down. That's a Good Thing™. But in order to work, each object must remain a unique layer (object). Got it. I think what happened was that I rasterized things and then resized them. I wasn't careful enough of the direction of sizing -- so sometimes I'd rasterize, lose the original dpi of the imported image, and then resize upwards and it looked awful. Example: I imported a 600 dpi image into a 300dpi document in AD, and eventually used a detail from it enlarged. But at some point when smaller it had become a pixel layer. When I made it larger after that, I expected the original 600 dpi to still be there when I enlarged. But it wasn't, and so had beome unusable. So thanks, I think I understand what AD does better now; including that I can probably use the 'group and rasterize' option for cloning when I really need to, if I plan correctly. L&R

@thomaso and @loukash, You experts move waaaaaay too fast. If you look at my original post, you'll see that this solution has previously been noticed. 🙂 And why don't you use that solution, you may reasonably ask. Because in some rasterization instances, unrelated to this issue, I seemed to lose dpi of the original image by rasterising. And also I find anti-aliasing crops up unexpectedly in rasterising (and in moving). Even with 'keep exact pixels' selected. And I can't find where to control the dpi of rasterising in individual re-rasterising events like this (if this is even possible. Is it?) And my understanding from other threads is that it's not possible to turn anti-aliasing off in AD1. Thus: since I'm new to AD and don't understand when it's going to suddenly create digital artifacts if I repeatedly rasterize the same pixel layer as I'm adding new objects over and over, I'm reluctant to use this solution. @loukash I don't have APhoto. But I'll suppose the 'merge' solution will really be a 'rasterize' by another name? Which means I'd still not want to use it over and over. L&R

@loukash & @thomaso: I tried to make my example as simple as possible to avoid misunderstandings. But I got one anyway. LOL. That is, to ask my simple question, about duplication on the same pixel layer, I didn't feel it necessary to explain the actual situation; but I might as well now. I'm working on a file that contains a pixel layer which, on its own, contains scores of hand-drawn icons and hundreds of hand-printed words, which I'm editing. Occasionally I see a short-cut where I could clone something from one place (like a single letter) and use it in another place if I modify it slightly. Other drawing programs I've used in the past, at least four of them, have allowed that in bitmap files. I assumed AD1 would also. But the two of you, as part of your (to me) somewhat mind-bending experts' discussion, have, I've decided, confirmed that AD1 doesn't allow this. And so—unlike the 'flip horizontal' and 'flip vertical' features, which are undocumented but which I found by searching the Internet to in fact exist (in AD1!) via a slick trick—I will accept that I cannot clone within the same layer, since you say so. 🙂 @loukash My aversion to extra layers might seem nonsensical to you, but consider: In this file I have not only that large main pixel layer, but, if I open all my groups, hundreds of other supporting vector and/or pixel and/or image objects in several layers. And so I didn't want to add new objects for clones of small pixel areas if I could avoid it. I projected this would add to what is already a complex management problem. I do thank you both for the information, to the degree that I understood it. It's good to know that it's fixed in AD2. Maybe someday I'll get past High Sierra and get to use it. 🙂 L&R

Hi, In Affinity Desiger V1, I can't copy a selection area within the same Pixel layer. This seems amazing so maybe I'm missing something. I've read the manual, searched the forums, and tried everything I can think of. Example: 1. Create new Pixel layer. 2. Draw the number '1' with a paintbrush. 3. Select the '1' and then the Move tool, and option-drag, to copy. Nothing happens. 4. Command-copy and paste it. It pastes into a new layer, separate from the original layer. Not what I want. The only way I can find to do this is after #4, I group the two layers and then rasterise them. This creates a single layer with both copies. But working with large files and complex layouts, this is a pain to have to do over and over. Is there really no way to copy a selection area into the same pixel layer? If so, is this fixed in V2? Thanks L&R

10.13.6, High Sierra. I'm pleased to hear that it works for you, so maybe as you say it's a local/OS issue. Here's my nudge search, and as I said I get this for half the searches I do for AD:

Thanks firstdefence. That brings up another issue: that link is a different Help than the one bundled with my Affinity, that I get to by the Help->Affinity Designer Help. If I search for 'nudge' in both, I get "no results" in mine; yours returns "Transforming Objects", which has the key command as you showed me. They look similar in interface, but the search is clearly different. Yours, on the Web, says it's version: "1.10 045b0" / Serif 2020. Mine, on the Mac, says it's version "1.108ab56 / Serif 2020. But the search doesn't function the same. I usually get 'No results' using my bundled one, which is quite annoying. 🤐 Anyway, thanks for the link and I'll start using the web version now. L&R

Got it. Works. I guess I didn't try hard enough. 🙂 Do you know if it's somewhere in the list of changeable key combinations? I scrolled through these seemingly endlessly, looking for it, but didn't see it. I wish there was a way to search for a key like that, rather than guess where it's supposed to be. L&R