NotMyFault

Export preview rendering (zoomed ca. 800% Exported image shown in preview

The issue is not related to any layer fx or overlays. Even if you export a jpeg, open that file, and start export preview again the same issue occours, in Designer and in Photo.

It took some time to understand what the issue is, as the description in the posts left room for interpretation and the jpg after upload does not really show the issue. the export preview is shown in 1/2 resolution of the actual file, leading to artifacts the rendering inside Designer and exported files are ok. for me a bug. Image shows a screen capture of export preview (at 800%) put back into the source document, masked by a rectangle.

The grid will vanish when you use integer position and size for all tiles. it gets visible in png only as jpg does not support transparency. or add a fill layer on bottom of the stack and give it the color sampled from one of the tiles.

Looking forward for your updates. It is possible that other apps may give faster / better results, especially if using AI based methods which are intentionally not offered by Affinity (at least until now). Never the less, I stand to my advise to invest more into taking less number of images, but better suited for HDR and stitching than to expect everything can be corrected in software by throwing huge numbers of images to it. Ultimately, I won’t use HDR alt all for manual stitching. You Olympus camera offers enough dynamic range for highlight recovery or push of shadows when correctly exposed to the highlights. I have a Insta360 which can take HDR images in camera, but it struggles with the same principle limitations (moving objects and clouds, unnatural see, changes in lightning).

If you can share a set of raw files we can check how to process them. There are many variants, it depends on the actual files and the intended final format what works best.

Caused by banding due to insufficient color bit depth. Convert from RGB/8 to RGB/16 and it is gone.

Thank you for elaborating. i have asked the questions because every little detail can influence both steps, and what may be good for stitching can be bad for HDR and vice versa. and yes, I have done 100 HDR merges, some dozens panoramic stitching, and once the combination of both. And from my experience the combination is almost impractical for images taking in nature with influence of moving objects, windy conditions, and frequent changes of lighting if sun gets hidden by clouds. Others successfuly use Affinity to create Gigapixel panoramas, but without HDR. Don’t take this as offensive, but your process of taking the images quickly (no tripod), and expecting that software, specifically Affinity can hide or heal all imperfections may be a stretch. HDR composition requires perfectly aligned images, and images that are taken with specific camera settings to achieve the expected high quality result. This means that adjusting the exposure time, while keeping aperture and iso constant, is the only way to go. Otherwise aperterture difference will change depth of field and spoil sharpness, or iso will cause more noise and spoil the HDR effect (you could get the same quality from one exposure without the additional effort of HDR). But bracketing over exposure creates its own complexity for capturing. panorama stitching requires good overlap on every edge of the image, and that all images are taken from the same spot by only rotating the camera (ideally from tripod). Otherwise stitching becomes far more difficult, and you may get artifacts or failed stitches moving objects (clouds, people, trees) are negative for stitching and HDR. So if you camera can process HDR in-camera, use this. But as far as I know this takes its time, and could slow down capturing by 30 seconds or more. the main issue of stitching and HDR is that you will need almost perfect stitches, that HDR can find „identical“ parts. If you stitch first, then HDR may introduce artifacts as the stitches may vary in several areas, or globally. If you do HDR merge first, you need to leave out the tone mapping, and export to RGB/16 using a very flat tone curve (identical for all images). Then do HDR tone mapping as final step. my honest recommendation is starting a bit smaller: try to optimize the full process from capture over pre-merge, stitching to final tone mapping with a smaller number of images, and try to use optimal camera settings , and limit the number of HDR bracket images to 3. more will produce more trouble, not more details or better quality.

If you have access to a friend with some IT knowledge or local PC expert, please try to involve them. We need to check several settings related to display, OS, color profiles, GPU drivers, and Affinity apps. One at a time. But it will be solved. having access to a second PC would be a plus.

To calm down everyone: your file is 100% ok. the issue can be solved after getting some sleep and a fresh start it will require some patience and structured analysis

It is specifically gamma 1 vs 2.2. not sure what caused this, probably color profiles, wrong use of RGB/32, or GPU issue

Please elaborate: Camera and lens used and effective zoom in case of zoom lenses format taken by camera (raw, jpeg, …) camera settings used to control exposure (Av, Tv, M, ISO etc. which parameter changes for exposure bracketing) using a tripod? amount of overlap between images / angle for rotation in x/y axis between images Overall time from start to finish of all captures all settings used for panorama stitching all settings used for hdr stack (alignment, noise reduction, etc) do you use raw files or preprocessed files ? When processed, what exact settings?

To sort things a bit: CMYK has nothing to do with this issue.

Steps to reproduce create new file in RGB/32 (in V1, create RGB/16 and then convert to RGB/32) create a rectangle over full canvas set black to white gradient (from default swatches) switch between ICC managed and unmanaged. Expected: rendering must differ. ICC managed shows „normal“ gamma 2.2 gradient, „unmanaged“ shows typical gamma 1 gradient Observed: rendering is always „icc managed“ Tested on M1 IPad (2020) with V1 (correct rendering) and V2 (2.4.2 beta and retail, wrong rendering) RPReplay_Final1713373061.mov RPReplay_Final1713373041.mov

A simple levels adjustment with gamma to 0.45 will correct the colors. but you need to deactivate it before exporting .

I added a levels adjustment with gamma 2.2 to the lighter image, and this results almost 100% in the darker image. or add gamma 0.45 to the lighter image to get lighter image. So gamma curve seems to cause the issue. This normally happens only if you convert those files to RGB/32 mode. please include the full app window in screenshots. capture: assistant settings default color profiles the actual file color profile (shown in line below menu while hand tool is active) screenshots of OS settings from display and color profiles

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/display-colour-management-in-the-affinity-apps/

Other probable causes: color profiles on OS level changed or broken using display calibration like Spider Xrite etc recent OS upgrades recent GPU driver updates Change in OS display settings, e.g. activating HDR/EDR mode

If you cycle selection box or set selection box on iPad, the transform panned does not update to reflect the change. e.g. Rotation should switch from 15 to 0 degree etc.

The wording of this sentence could be interpreted as desperate and demanding or even offensive. Please help the forum to stay a nice place and try to avoid sentences which can be taken offensive, especially if you want to get help / support for your issues.

Never the less, i tried on iPad and it works (all sliders to off, no alignment or noise reduction). Depending on which image you select first, the resulting document will be either grey or color. it is possible to enter tone map persona.

One is grey/8, one is rgb/8 color format. so please use at least the same color format for all.

The images are in no way technically suitable for HDR merge. One is black/white with hard contrast on artificially created edges which do not match the other color image. So this is a kind of creative abuse widely out of expected specification for HDR merge. But it may depend on the chosen settings before starting HDR, please provide a screenshot cropped to the relevant part of the merge UI before clicking “go”. (Align images, go into tone mapping persona).