Export to .BMP

[rubs]

Hi,

We can discuss as we like, but I believe there is no interest from Serif to pursue this and other issues. We would know, if they bothered to talk with us. I recall a time when they were actively responding to customers via this forum, which was very nice. But this was several years ago: they stopped doing it all of a sudden. And it's hurting their business, no doubt. My company has switched to Figma already and we're not looking back (here's my comment from last year). Figma does not completely replace Designer and they are already semi-deaf like Serif, but their software performs much better for large designs and is not ridden with bugs.

Have luck,

Rubem

[Sigurt]

Die Datei als TIFF Speichern und danach umbenennen nach BMP, wäre eine Möglichkeit.

[Wosven]

5 minutes ago, Sigurt said:

Die Datei als TIFF Speichern und danach umbenennen nach BMP, wäre eine Möglichkeit.

That's not really the same things... One format is compressed, the other is nearly raw data... It's possible that after renaming some app will use the preview of the TIFF file instead of the real datas, but it's risky...

And if you need to send files to someone else, and they realize you're doing this, I'm not sure they'll take you seriously. Just use another app to convert the files.

[Fizmarble]

I got an extra icon on  the right side by squeezing them together a bit. I didn't make the dialog box any wider.

[dirkkaiser]

I'm in the same boat.  I use BMP format all the time and would love a direct export to this format.  As it is now, I have to save to a non-lossy format and then convert over to BMP in another program.  Seems like this would have been an obvious export format...

[jimklo]

I’d also request BMP export. It’s silly that Affinity doesn’t provide this feature. It’s CGI 101 - all images are bitmaps. Most software development requires BMPs.  I shouldn’t have to rely on yet another tool to do such a basic thing. Time is money Serif!

[jimklo]

On 8/27/2021 at 1:25 PM, walt.farrell said:

As I see it, the main difficulty is not in understanding the format and processing the data, but in the required User Interface changes to the Export dialog and to the Export Persona. In those areas the addition of an additional output format requires some significant interface redesign and testing. Additionally, the Export dialog is getting quite large with all the formats it supports now, and each one that is added pushes us closer to the time, I think, that the dialog will need a complete overhaul.

 

The export dialogue is the worst dialogue in the entire suite. Needs redesign anyways. It shouldn’t take a competent team more than a week to rework.  It’s also not like they can’t take a day and make those icons scroll to accommodate more.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again - Serif doesn’t give a $#!7 about what users need in their product. They’ll add 10 more features nobody wanted and still not add something we need. They’re just looking for another $50. 

[Addio]

I would also like this.
When designing circuit boards, to add a logo or other art, the only format that you are able to import is BMP.
I'm also a software developer who uses this format as it is easy to work with.
When working with embedded devices, sometimes they do not have the power or space to work with compression, but they can accept a stream of data.
There is also tons of other software I use that require BMP, can't think of off the top of my head though.
Sure you can convert it else where, but its an extra step that wastes time, and the conversion changes your image slightly. It would be nice to see what the actual image will look like when exporting.

I am a little disappointed with Affinity's products. While I rarely use it for what its intended for (editing photos), almost every feature in my workflow that I was using in photoshop is non existent, and this is the most basic feature for photo editing, and you could probably add it within 10 minutes with something off of github.
I understand there is more under the hood, mainly the UI, but with a fully fledged program, you should have a system that would make adding new formats a piece of cake.

[PeterOFRe]

Please add Bmp format because it is used in every pixelstick for lightpainting.  

[WWIII]

Designing icons for my Nintendo switch.  BMPs are what they chose for their icon and background formats.  My workflow is 100% mobile based.  I am able to import the stock images and modify them with Affinity but have to ftp the results to my PC and use paint.exe to convert them because I can’t export natively in Affinity.  It’s really sad that this simple feature can’t be implemented when it’s abundantly clear the user base would be delighted to it.  Honestly it’s a weekend’s worth of work that has fallen on deaf ears for 7 years. Yikes!  Not a good look.

[Pšenda]

20 hours ago, WWIII said:

when it’s abundantly clear the user base would be delighted to it.

Because you mention the "user base" here, I am obliged to respond - Serif, please do not implement this outdated format, and prefer to pay attention to something more beneficial to all users.

 

20 hours ago, WWIII said:

BMPs are what they chose for their icon and background formats.

Write a request to the manufacturer to convert it to a more modern format - it's a weekend’s worth of work for them.

[PaulEC]

On 11/21/2021 at 10:51 PM, jimklo said:

It’s CGI 101 - all images are bitmaps. Most software development requires BMPs.

It's a bit late to respond to this, but I must point out, for any newcomers, that this is (was!) a common cause for confusion. All raster images are indeed bitmaps, but .BMP is just another file format (like JPG, PNG, TIF etc) that uses bitmaps. Most software development may require "bitmaps", it does not require them to be .BMP files! (It's just a name Microsoft/Windows chose to use for a file type.)

[Pšenda]

On 11/21/2021 at 11:51 PM, jimklo said:

Most software development requires BMPs.

Of course, I don't know all the development tools, but I seriously doubt, that the development tools for MacOs, Linux, Android, etc. require BMP, a specific Windows format.
The truth is that Windows development tools were built on this format, but it's been many years ago. Today's tools accept most standard bitmap formats, such as here:

[rubs]

> Today's tools accept most standard bitmap formats

It depends of which tools you are talking about. BMP is an old format and has no use on the web, agreed. But its most distinctive characteristic is that it is super simple to implement as it is just an uncompressed bitmap (at least in the original specs) with a very small header. As such it is blazingly fast to display since it requires no extra decoding steps. This is probably the reason it is still used in some gaming platforms, specialized software and embedded hardware like some POS terminals my company worked on.

[Pšenda]

15 minutes ago, rubs said:

This is probably the reason it is still used in some gaming platforms, specialized software and embedded hardware like some POS terminals my company worked on.

Thank you for confirming that the previous statement "Most software development requires BMPs" will probably be quite exaggerated.
It is clear that DIB has its justification due to the simplicity of decoding in many applications, but it is the memory requirements, which are also very important in embedded applications, that put it at a considerable disadvantage.
So I definitely don't think that it is a dead format, but its representation is already minimal, and it will still decrease (with the current increase in performance, even its easy decoding will not save it :-).

[jorsh]

Hi there,

Made a forum account specifically to add my name to the list of people wanting BMP export here.
I fall into the software development/application packaging crowd I think.  The lack of BMP export makes the process of iterating on multiple resources in my application take 4x or 5x as long and is very frustrating.  Using a different format would require me to make my application larger and slower, so I'm between a rock and a hard place with regards to the time that Affinity Photo is wasting for me.
I'm aware this could be automated, and I've been using other software to convert to BMP in place of AP.  I hope I don't end up on the list of professional users in this thread being told they don't actually want what they say they want, which is BMP export.  I'm aware of the details of the format, and aware of the alternatives.  It's just a fact of life for me (and lots of people in this thread) that exporting directly to BMP is the simplest, most obvious, most intuitive workflow and I was baffled to find it unsupported in a professional product.

[AdamStanislav]

3 hours ago, jorsh said:

It's just a fact of life for me

And for many others. BMP is about the simplest image format in existence, just a header followed by essentially raw pixel data. It is not perfect, but so simple it has been the default format of a lot of software for decades.

[Humam2104]

Can we please export to a .bmp file? I need that feature and this post is so old I'm surprised it's not implemented!

[Pšenda]

10 hours ago, Humam2104 said:

this post is so old I'm surprised it's not implemented!

The age of the request may not be relevant at all for its implementation - due to the lack of perspective of this format, it may not be implemented at all.

[Humam2104]

Just now, Pšenda said:

due to the lack of perspective of this format

What do you mean by lack of perspective?

[Pšenda]

7 hours ago, Humam2104 said:

What do you mean by lack of perspective?

Do you not understand the mentioned term, or do you perhaps feel that it is, on the contrary, a modern and highly perspective format, the use of which and thus the interest of users will continue to grow in the future?

[Humam2104]

4 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Do you not understand the mentioned term, or do you perhaps feel that it is, on the contrary, a modern and highly perspective format, the use of which and thus the interest of users will continue to grow in the future?

I'm asking about the term itself. Currently, you need another program like paint.net to modify bmp/dds files. So this program doesn't really replace Photoshop, it does partially replace it though.

[Pšenda]

30 minutes ago, Humam2104 said:

I'm asking about the term itself.

It was a translation from Translator, so maybe there is a more appropriate/correct English term.

It was just that the number of users with a need for this format is not high and will very likely continue to decrease. Serif has already mentioned the problems with adding other formats to Affinity applications and their maintenance and testing (I suspect in discussions about WebP), so the question is whether the BMP format will be added at all, and possibly when (how high priority is it compared to other urgent tasks).

[Przemysław Sztoch]

BMP is the only format supported by many unusual devices or software that works with such devices. Lack of export to BMP (with different bit resolution, also in the 1-bit version) is a nuisance for the convenience of work. PhotoShop does the job here.

[PaulEC]

4 minutes ago, Przemysław Sztoch said:

PhotoShop does the job here.

Photoshop also costs considerably more! Is the slight inconvenience of using a third party app. (such as XNConvert) to get BMP files, worth the extra cost?