RobinMcL

Of course, I'm caught in the middle here. For the better of the entire community, it would be best that I have done something silly and there is no bug in the software. But then I look like a total idiot. I have tried to be careful. As to the line being white OR black, it is the "opposite" of the background color. That is, if on creation I have a white background, and create a black square of, say, half the height of the page, and place it over the gutter, then the center line (the one I don't like) starts from the top of the page as black but changes to white as it crosses the black square, then back to black at the bottom of the page. So it is not a normal line with some color. One wild guess I have had is that, when sticking the left hand page next to the right hand page the counting got off (perhaps due to arithmetic rounding) by one pixel. Say each side is 100 pixels wide. Now I start to compose the image to be printed. I start counting from 0 (zero) as many computer scientists do. So I count of the 100 lines as 0,1,2, ..., 99. Then I go and get the right hand image. Where do I place it? This is where I make a mistake. I argue that the left hand image was 100 lines so now I must start the right hand one at 101! Makes sense? Oops! I have just skipped over line 100! So this "line" is NOT actually a line. It is a GAP. This is why it changes from black to white. Another interesting thing is that while this line appears on the monitor, it does NOT appear if one exports the spread but DOES appear if you print. So it seems (to me at least) that there are two issues. The first is that the line should not be there in the first place. If one DOES want a guide to show the center of the spread, then it should be blue like the margin lines and vanish in Preview mode. The second problem appears to be related only to printing. This is where the 2-up and the compositing of the left hand image and right hand image comes into play. It is here that the "gap" appears. I appreciate all your efforts here. Robin

The layers panel is pretty simple, having only two entries. The top one is the Picture Frame with its tiff file. The bottom one is a Master page but the white line is there even with the Master page turned off. Even with the Master page on, this page has a text frame (for a page number only) that does NOT straddle the gutter. This Master page also has a background jpg image but, as I said, the white line shows even with the Master page turned off. Now, just to make sure, I have just deleted the Master Page and so the layers panel now shows ONLY the Picture Frame with its tiff image. (To do another check (because I am so utterly confused and have struggled with this for ages) I opened the tiff file in Photo just to make sure that the white line was NOT in the tiff image. It is not.) I still feel that the most likely thing is that I have done something silly. I also tried the following: File New, Facing Pages, start on left, 2 pages Create. Go into Photo from Publisher, create a black square on left page, Copy, Paste, Move one square over the gutter. White line appears. The layers Panel shows only two rectangles. Mystery. Robin

The image is a single file (tiff file). It is in a frame and it covers the entire spread. It is not two images butted together.. I am using a single picture frame. It is on the actual pages, not in a master page. (I also use this only for a sheet that is in the center of a signature and hence the image is also printed as a single image. Being in the center of a signature, the white line is clearly visible in the final book. Had it not been in the center of a signature, the white line would have been hidden in the crease between different pages.) Thanks for looking at this. Robin

Once more, thanks. I have so much to learn and am very thankful for all the help I get through the Forum The issue has not been solved. See the attached file. I put two images in the one file. The images are screen shots taken with Snip & Sketch. The image on the left shows a part of my whole image that straddles the spine. Notice the blue lines and the white line down the middle. The blue lines are showing the margins. The white line is exactly between the facing pages. So then I simply used Preview mode. As expected, the blue lines went away. See the right image. But the white line did not. While I could live with this on the monitor, I can't tolerate it if it actually prints out this white line. The tragedy is, that it does. In my current specific case, some of my full spread images will not have anything printed on the other side. In these cases, I could create another file, not using facing pages but simply having one page twice as wide. In other cases, I have pages of the book printed on the other side. I can see a way to getting this done but it would be a great pain. The real solution is not to have this white line in the first place. I did a book (with the same size of facing pages and images that crossed the spine) a few years ago and did NOT have this problem. Of course that was with a much earlier version of the product. Thanks, Robin White line.tiff

Thanks for considering this. You are correct about the "line" and I was sloppy in my use of the word. I can't select it but the issue is that, when I print out a spread which has a single image that crosses the median line between the left hand and right hand pages, there is a while "line" down the middle of my image. It looks like a line simply because there is no ink there. That's why I also used the word "gap". It looks like Publisher has taken the left hand page and right hand p[age and stuck a thin "gap" between them. This gap has nothing in it and this is why it is not printed which them makes it look like there is a white line down my image. An earlier user (a couple of years ago) mentioned the line. Yes, it does show that boundary. No problem there. Thanks, Robin

Hello, I am using facing pages in a small book and have the following problem. There is a blackline down the middle, between the two facing pages. In initially, I thought this was only a guide to let me see where the boundary between the pages is, but I see this even in Preview mode. The problem is that this line is, actually, a gap between the pages and is very serious for the following reason. I print and bind the books myself and often have a full-spread image on the sheet of paper that will be the center sheet of a signature. When I print this sheet my carefully prepared image (in Photo) has a white line right down the center. That is, there is no ink there and that's why I think that there is a gap (perhaps only a pixel or two) between the facing pages. What is even more weird is the fact that, on print preview, I do not see the white line (perhaps just a resolution issues since the dpi on the image is greater than the dpi of my screen). This is the second book I have done this way and I had no such problems with the first book which, of course, was using an earlier version of Publisher. I use N-up when printing, with N = 2. I have no gaps between the pages. (I tried to fix the problem by trying to enter a negative gap but the software would not allow this.) I am using version 1.10.4.1198 and Windows 10. This line between the facing pages appears on creation, before I have put in any text or images. The only workaround I can think of, and it would be a pain, is to create a second file, of non-facing pages, for each such case. This would be an astronomical pain because I would then have a nightmare in getting the correct pages printed on the other side of the paper! Is this a bug or have I done something wrong? In other words, how can a use facing pages without getting this line. (On pages where I have an inner margin, there is no problem - since there is no ink there anyway.) Suggestions please. Robin

Hello everyone, I have the same problem but in a VERY different context and one which brings up a couple of additional questions on which someone may be able to give advice. I do NOT use PhotoShop but I do hire artists to illustrate my short stories and they do use PhotoShop. Because of the vagaries of the printer/ink/paper combination affecting the colours when printing, I get the source files and that means I do have to work with psd files. But I work on them in Affinity Photo. So, going forward I now see that I will need to specify to the artist that they do NOT use certain features of PhotoShop (the ones not supported in Photo). Question 1: I there a list of the PhotoShop features that are NOT supported in Photo and, if so, where can I get one? I will need to supply this to the artists I hire. I have noticed, sadly, that some of these files I get from artists are a real mess. In one case it took me several days to get the file into a sensible form. There were things that had been merged that never should have been merged. There were over 70 layers, several utterly spurious and switch off (but should have been removed). There was NO grouping whatsoever. There were NO descriptive names. Before I retired I worked for a software company. In that business there are usually clear guidelines as to exactly how code documentation should be done. Sensible organization, naming and grouping within Photo or PhotoShop does not seem a difficult task to me but it seems to be beyond the ken of several of these "professional" artists that I have been spending money on. I could easily make up my own Guidelines but I have no great desire to reinvent this very small wheel. Question2: Can someone point me to a general organization set of guidelines that I could also require those I hire to use? With thanks, Robin

Dear John, Thanks again. I did it, thanks to you. Do what you said to get the difference. The common area is black (of course) so it's a trivial flood select then cut. This leaves the bit I want but with the wrong colors. Select that bit, set opacity to zero then merge it with the layer that had the correct colors. Then merge these layers. The selection stays through the merge and, since the selection came from that layer in the first place, it is exactly in the right position. This, of course, merges the colors but, since I set one to be totally transparent, the merged color is exactly what I want. Now I simply cut and paste into a new layer. While, in theory, I could have selected this in the first place, in the situations I have, it is very complex and would have taken forever. So this rouse is a way of selecting the difference between two layers (or many layers) when these differences are rather complax. Couldn't have done it had you not set me off in the right direction. Robin

Thanks John, This is a very interesting suggestion. It almost works. It gets rid, completely, of the common areas and that is great. However, it blends the areas that are different. Instead of a blend in the areas that are different, I want the pixels from the top layer only. This then represents the addition I had made in the collage. Think of a big sheet of blue paper as my start. I photograph that and make it layer 1. Then I scatter some leaves on the blue paper, photograph it and make that layer 2. But I want to create (for future editing purposes) a layer that has only the leaves. (I could do it by selection but this can be tricky in my case.) Your suggestion obliterates the blue background and that it great. However, the bit left is a blend of the leaves and the blue that was behind the leaves. However, it's a great idea and I will think some more along these lines. Thank you.

I want to make a new layer which is the content of one layer minus the shared content of another layer. In other words, I want to isolate the difference between two layers. I have used a stack to remove this difference (as in the tutorial) but I don't want this discarded. I want it as a new layer. The problem comes from a physical collage that is being made in, essentially, four physical layers. I want to have a digital counterpart and I thought about doing it the following way. Make layer 1. Photograph it. Add layer 2, Photograph it. In Affinity Photo have these two photos as layers. Subtract, from image 2, what it shares with image 1 and save as a new layer. Continue in this way till the collage is finished. I now have a photo of the final collage BUT if I do need to edit this, I have isolated the separate entities and that will make the editing so much easier. I could do this by selecting pieces from the final image but this can be very tricky. It would be so much easier if I could do this as the collage is being made. In short, it's like the removal using a stack with the additional capability of "remove to a new layer". I'd be happy to have suggestions.

Hello, Thanks for moving my comment to this forum. Here I will take the opportunity to give a better idea of the user interface I feel would be very helpful. I made a mistake. Since I had not used it for a while I got mixed up with which SyderCHECK I had. I have the 48 patch one. However, I think it would be nice to support both the 24 patch and 48 patch charts. BUt I would like much more flexibility. The ability to work with several common charts (Datacolors 24 and 48 but other too). The ability to select a subset of colors from the chart rather than them all. (I may have an image where certain tones are utterly critical but others are not.) The ability to design and store my own custom chart. That would be fantastic. In the meantime,... Great product.

I have searched but could not find any mention of using color charts for color correction in photos. I apologize if I have, inadvertently, overlooked one. I see that I can use a single white pixel or patch to help correct white balance and, indeed, this is helpful but I am wondering if I can do more. I have the Datacolor SpyderCHECKR 24 color patch and used to make test shots with this in the photo. I know that other software has a very simple way of using the entire chart to optimize white balance correction. Though tedious, I could enter a list of true colors and then select the corresponding pixels in the photo. Does anyone know of an add-on or separate software that would take this information and return the optimized color temperature and tint correction for Affinity Photo. Having such a tool would enable me to get a good starting point for my processing of RAW files. With thanks, Robin

Hello Walt, I feel a bit embarrassed. The problems I had with Canon were very real indeed. It took forever to get them all sorted out but, after that, I have made many profiles, all successfully. So, when the same thing happened with my new Epson printer, I assumed that the problem must have been with the printer. I then went off going through the entire litany of things that had cropped up in the Canon episode. Eventually, after forever with no success, I decided to go through the whole process again. This time - no problem. What was wrong the first time? Ah well, sorry, shame on me, I know I'll be shunned by all on the Forum from now on but, well, I had forgotten to switch off color management in the printer when I was printing the test patches. I've done it correctly so any times, why did I mess up this time and why did I not think about this after spending so much time messing with the printer. I guess my brain had become conditioned after the Canon episode. On a brighter note, I did manage to print out the book, individual signatures, and I got the alignment done perfectly but it was an enormous effort. If I ever again have images that cross the spine, I will restrict them to the center sheet of a signature. So one book is now behind me and I need to find an artist for the next one. Thanks to all, Robin

Hello everyone. I had hoped that such problems were behind me - but no. To begin with, let me say that I had similar problems with my Canon PRO100 but, after months working on them with help from Forum members, several Canon Tech people and Datacolor, I eventually managed to get my printer NOT to do its own color management (Even though color management was set to NONE, it still did it.) I was using Windows 7. Now, on another PC, running Windows 10, I have the same problem with an Epson XP960. The Auto setting does a pretty good job (I am using Epson paper) but I wanted to do better and so created (as I have done many, many times) custom ICC profiles. Soft-proofing on the monitor (a high-quality,14-bit LUT calibrated model) worked just as expected. I then, as the manuals instruct, switched off the color management in the Epson printer dialogs and selected color management by the App in Publisher (and in Photo). I then selected the ICC profile I had just created and printed. The prints were very dark, nothing like what the soft-proofing suggested (and I made sure that I de-selected the soft-proofing before printing). I then tried the additional things that, eventually, got things to work on Windows 7 with my Canon PRO100. (This entailed going into Properties, selecting the device and setting color management to Use My Settings and (manually) adding the new ICC profile to the list. Sadly, and although I have tried all the fixes I had to use to get the Canon PRO100 NOT to do color management (and let the app do it) I simply cannot find a way to STOP my Epson XP960 from doing its own color management. To summarize, if I let the printer do the color management, things work reasonably well. If I try to do better by having the app (either Photo or Publisher) do the color management (selecting the appropriate ICC profile and Rendering Intent) and selecting; More Options -> Color Correction -> Custom -> Advanced -> No Color Adjustment, the prints are much too dark, wildly different from the originals. Does anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks to all for the suggestions. On the border-less printing, I'll try using a margin, registration marks, overlapping prints using the registration marks and then cutting both sheets at the same time just to make sure that the cut lines fit perfectly. On using a print shop, I did find one that was a reasonable price, but they don't use any color management and only use eight inks on their twelve ink Canon printer. I have been encouraging them to try color management (and all twelve inks) and they did say that they would (at least) let me show them how I calibrate my own printer/paper combination. I'll keep working that angle too. As it happens, there is a company in Portland (Oregon) whose business is color management and supplying the commercial printers with ink and inkjet printers (Epson). I chatted with them and was told that MANY of the printers here use no color management. It's a pretty steep learning curve for me and I very much appreciate all the help the Forum has given me. Robin

Thanks Walt. Once again you have helped me out. I was struggling to get control of the places to do the split and did not come across the guide manager. This was a great help. My first attempt looks hopeful though not quite thee. The problem may be in the printer with its border-less printing. I'll work on that. My goal is the following and you may have a better suggestion. I got an artist to do paintings for a short story I wrote and I organized an exhibition of the artist's work. The paintings look great but they (and obviously the exhibition) was in Scotland and I live in Oregon, and the eight paintings were around 4 feet by 5 feet each. They're still there and it will be a pain to bring them back. So now I am investigating getting a digital artist. I have found one in Spain who thinks that he can handle a file size large enough to be printed out around 40 inches by 60 inches at 300 ppi. While this solves one problem, it creates another. How can I print so large an image. I have inquired of local printers and the quotes vary from $350 to $600 per print. I simply can't afford that. My Canon Pro-100 can do 13" x 19" and so I am wondering about splitting the image and printing it out in sections. I would need to get every line of pixels so that I could align them perfectly. Then I could use acid-free archival tape that is used in book repair to join them at the back. Voila! Okay, so I'm a dreamer. I'll work some more on your suggestion. Thanks, Robin

Hello, I want to split a rectangular image into, say, nine equal parts and have each saved as a separate page (or image). (I will then print out all nine and stick them together as a single image of huge size. (My initial image will have a huge number of pixels making sure that each of the final images will have a resolution of at least 300 dpi.)) I have Photo and Publisher. I have looked at the slice tool but don't think it can do what I want. Is there a way to accomplish this in either Photo or Publisher? If not, does anyone know a stand-alone app that can do this? Thanks for any suggestions. Robin

Hello, When I was about to get a PDF of the Lobster Two font, I noticed that the period (".") at the end of the sentence was (amazingly) from the Orkney font. (The Lobster Two font was used only in a title, well away from the main text which was in the Orkney. Anyway, when I changed it to the (correct) Lobster Two font, it worked fine. Thanks for all your help. I'm now finding that there is a little randomness in my Canon Pro 100 printer. It's about one millimeter in the difference of where it starts printing. This means, of course, that this is the lower limit of how accurately I can get the center of one side of the paper to the center of the other side. Kind regards, Robin

Thanks for the interest. I will get a pdf of the font and send it to you. (I should get that done later today.) The issue was a small difference in the look of the characters between Publisher and a pdf after export. A more dramatic font issue was with Orkney and that issue has gone away thanks to a corrected version of Orkney being sent to me. I'm so grateful. The book is 100 pages, hence 25 sheets of paper. I have not solved the imposition problem yet though, via several workarounds, I think I am getting close. The following are the kinds of issues that I have been experiencing. I have photos that are printed over the entirety of, virtually, every spread. This implies that, given the imposition, most of these images are split, the left side being printed on one sheet of paper and the right side on another. Hence, front to back registration needs to be perfect but, I have discovered, nominal 11" x 17" paper may not be exactly that size. I have been playing around with both custom paper sizes and with stipulating a margin when printing, say, the odd sheets and changing this margin when printing the even sheets. I'm getting close but it's not quite right yet. Even a millimeter off and it shows when the signatures are bound into the book. (Even a millimeter of the wrong image appearing down the middle of another image stands out. Such a small error would never be noticed in a "normal" book with margins on each page.) Also my Canon Pro 100 driver allows me to stipulate paper size to 1/100 of a millimeter but only lets me set a margin to 1/10 inch. Clearly, I want to use bleed, crop marks and registration marks. This has not proved easy. I can't use them successfully with the pdf editor I have and have recently downloaded the free version of Montax just to experiment. (The free version will not handle the paper size I need.) I get the feeling that Montax would enable me to do what I need but I have not yet managed to find out how. As with most software nowadays, the manual is, essentially, a description of features and NOT any instruction on how to do anything. That is, if I already know what steps I need to take but don't know which menu has the tools I need, then the manual will help. However, as a newbie, I don't yet know the steps. At this time, my book is divided into three Publisher files; part 1, part 2, and the appendices. Part 1, when exported as a pdf covers 47 pages of the book. It would be very efficient if I could select a subset of these pages and have them printed as a booklet (i.e. a signature) without having to create a new file. This would make it much easier on me should I decide to change the signature size. At this time Publisher cannot print a subset of the pages as a booklet. I'll get the pdf of Lobster Two as soon as possible. Thanks, Robin

LibreTraining, Thanks. I'll try those fonts tomorrow. I've been working on this little book for two years and am now, finally, at the stage of printing it and binding it. I'm amazed by how many problems, even at this late stage, arise. The fonts problem was a couple of days ago. Today I had another (and new) problem (never happened before). In order to get the imposition done, I am exporting a PDF, splitting into separate files and putting it back into Publisher one signature to a file. Then printing as a booklet. So a single photo that covers both left and right hand pages, gets split (on export as pages) then put back together again, as the central sheet of a signature. The problem is that, when put back together, the left part of the photo does not line up with the right part. Oh dear! I must try to find another way of doing it. But I'll let you know about the fonts. Robin

Hello, I am using a medium italic Orkney font at the beginning of a section and regular Orkney for the rest. The document has existed from before the 1.7.0.376 update. Now, although it looks fine visually (some italic and the rest regular) Publisher claims they are both medium italic. Furthermore, when I export to PDF, the regular comes out fine but the words that really are italic come out as gibberish. For example, the words "Front endsheet" come out as "Htqpv gpf uj ggv"! With another font, Lobster Two, an extra character appeared in the PDF. They used to print out fine. Is this a bug or am I failing to do something? Robin

Hello, I found the key in the Affinity Photo folder and all is now well. Robin

Hello All, I too had the situation that it would not accept the product key for Photo. I wondered if this was a result of an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I do have Photo on another machine and tried to check that I had the correct key. However, I cannot find where the key is kept. Where can I check the product key on my working copy of Photo? Thanks, Robin

Hello Mike, Thanks for the offer. That is very kind of you. Montax sent me another email today with more details and suggested that I first try it out on the free version. This seems a very reasonable approach to me and I am quite impressed that they have taken so much care in their responses. I think that I should follow their advice and try it myself first. Since both you and Montax think it will work, I need to learn the steps myself - so why not try to learn now. As I am doing this, I have (via my workaround) produced signatures and so have moved on to the printing stage. I have noticed, for a very long time, that the same image will print out differently (same paper, same profile, same intent etc.) depending on which app I am printing from. This issue is my next big hurdle. I will probably end up asking some questions on the Forum but, to be very careful, I am slowly stepping through things using a few test images I downloaded from the web. I'll let you know how my Montax test gets on. Thanks, Robin

Thanks for the suggestions Mike. My document has images that cover the entire spread and so I have to start with spreads and then have them split (automatically) into separate pages. Unfortunately, when Publisher does this they add extra bleed on the inside of the pages; bleed that was not there. If I could have started from pages (rather than spreads) I would have. I inquired of Montax and they told me that, while what I need was, with a big effort, possible in their software, I would have to do the splitting manually! What they said was the best way to accomplish this (surprise, surprise) was to export pages from the publishing software (exactly what I wanted to do but could not because of the bug in Publisher). So, no help from that source. I have discovered a reasonable (not good but "reasonable") workaround. I make the pages larger by the amount of bleed that I need. (Actual bleed set to zero) then I export pages to PDF. Then I split the pdf into separate files, one for each page. Then I take bunches of pages (as pdfs) back into Publisher; the right number for a signature. This gives me a Publisher file for each signature. Then I print each as a booklet. Voila. I then sew these into a text block. This block is a little larger than need. I then trim it to size. If Publisher could split spreads without adding extra bleed, it would be great. If, in addition, you could print a SELECTION of pages as a booklet (not just the entire document) it would be perfect. In the meantime, my workaround is not too onerous (because Publisher DOES split spreads correctly IF you DON'T have bleed) and the pdf splitting of a single file into many files is also automatic (in my PDF editor). So the entire process is not as cumbersome as my explanation of it is! Note: I don't think I would have come up with this workaround without the input of people (like yourself) on the Forum and (in this case) helpful comments from PDFSam (my pdf editor) support. Thanks to all. Robin