Export to .BMP

[Schregorius]

Hi. I'm just bought the two affinity products. the first thing i have missed was the bmp export. please try to implement this. this is a must have basic feature. i'm a bit dissapointed and now i'm a bit scared of what else i will miss when i start using affinity.

[dominik]

2 hours ago, Schregorius said:

Hi. I'm just bought the two affinity products. the first thing i have missed was the bmp export. please try to implement this. this is a must have basic feature. i'm a bit dissapointed and now i'm a bit scared of what else i will miss when i start using affinity.

Hello @Schregorius,

welcome to the forum.

You can check the full feature lists of the three programs at

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/full-feature-list/
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/full-feature-list/
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/full-feature-list/

They are very clear about what is possible and what not.

Cheers,
d.

[webrockers]

+1 for .bmp export.

Thinking of the old Amiga times coding assembler... 

Bitmaps are nothing more than the representing bits in order they appear on screen, each bitplane after another. No fancy compression algorithms.

Other than, that it is work, that takes time, what are the reasons that make it difficult to implement this feature?

 

Thanks for making one of my favorite tools on my Mac!

Marco

[semaja2]

Just wanted to add another vote on this, I recently switched from Photoshop to Affinity and have loved the change so far, but this is such a basic feature that is missing

My usage of BMP comes down to hardware vendors such as phone handsets, and integrated computer systems that require BMP

Would love to not add additional steps, and be able to quickly export right from the design software

[Medical Officer Bones]

BMP support would be great, as well as DDS, DXF, WEBP export, .... Common file formats, really.

But I think I figured out why the Affinity devevlopers seem so reluctant to implement additional file formats!

The Export dialog would become awkwardly wide, with silly proportions and too many icons would cause cognitive overload in the poor brains of Affinity users! That makes absolute sense to me! Therefore I think it is better to limit the number of export file formats in Affinity, because adding more export icons would impact this export dialog's user experience in a very negative manner.

TGA was added only a short while ago, and I assume it led to many a deliberation and heated argument in the Affinity team whether to include it or not, which obviously led to a stand-off, and which in turn led to its very belated inclusion, even though many users had requested it. I understand their conundrum in this case. Each new export file format that is proposed leads to more icons, and hence, to an ever more widening dialog, with more and more icons.

I propose to remove TGA and WMF (luckily the Mac version omits WMF). Too many icons already clutter this Export dialog, in my opinion, so less is more!

 

 

[Adriano de Regino]

Truly, we should choose aesthetics over usability or resources, that's why I´v painted my computer screen green, it will fit much better with my room decoration.

For God sake, no feature decision should be taken by current UI restrictions, that's insane,...

[Fixx]

10 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Export dialog would become awkwardly wide,

Devs should just make format selection as drop down menu, like the preset selection next. Saves space also.

[Patrick Connor]

On 11/29/2019 at 9:07 PM, Medical Officer Bones said:

The Export dialog would become awkwardly wide

I think the programmers who are bright enough to make full Affinity Photo on iPad are capable of solving this UI problem

[MikeW]

6 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

I think the programmers who are bright enough to make full Affinity Photo on iPad are capable of solving this UI problem

Yeah, but the screen shot is/was kinda funny...regardless of iPad/desktop...

[Patrick Connor]

It was my example of complex UI fitted into a limited space, his screenshot is funny agreed

[MikeW]

3 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

It was my example of complex UI fitted into a limited space, his screenshot is funny agreed

I don't have any type of iThing (else I would have bought a license). Guess I could look up a tut/vid to see it in action.

[SharonBo]

I would like BMP support as to program some LED light shows in items like hula hoops, LED light sticks etc the program uses BMP files. 

thanks 

[donka]

Another vote for BMP export support. I’m working on textures for a game franchise where the SDK requires 24bit BMP files. I can do all the necessary editing of the PSD templates In Affinity Photo but need to export as PSD and switch to desktop to use an app like Photoshop or GIMP to be able to prepare the BMP files. 

[DanMaffle]

+1 for BMP. Was pretty surprised to discover just now that it wasn't an option in Affinity Designer. True it is an old and outdated format, but it is still in use for that very reason - it's a simple format that is widely supported. If "it's an old format" is a reason not to include it as an option, then by that logic EPS support should be removed as well. It's about as old as BMP...

And as evidenced by the many posts on this topic, BMP use is alive and well.

[fde101]

On 12/2/2019 at 9:23 AM, Patrick Connor said:

bright enough to make full Affinity Photo on iPad

They didn't though.  There are things missing (like creating global colors).

[XXBeforeDecaf]

I just discovered Affinity’s lack of bitmap support. It’s honestly appalling. Serif’s current suite of software is so far from being pro-ready, I’m sure I’ll be dead and gone before it ever reaches that level. Serif’s existence is the best advertisement for Abobe that I can think of. 

[Rawshooter6]

+1 for the old .BMP format

It is still needed for many uses under Windows.

[fde101]

They don't support export to the XPM, NEO or ILBM formats either.  How lame is that?

[dominik]

21 hours ago, Rawshooter6 said:

+1 for the old .BMP format

It is still needed for many uses under Windows.

Hello @Rawshooter6 and welcome to the forum.

I don't think it is wrong to ask for support of the old .BMP format but I think it is of low priority on their to do list.

I say this because convertion from Affinity's supported formats to .BMP can be solved easily and even automatic. I think it would be better to use a working solution now than to wait until it is implemented by Serif.

Example: the free to use (for non commercial work) XnConvert (https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/) converts many different image formats to .BMP. And it can do this even automatically. Quote: 'Watch folders for new or updated images and automatically apply a custom set of edits.' 

Cheers,
d.

[Josh Ford]

I too see the need for bitmap export. I work in printmaking and need to create bitmap images for colour separations all the time. This should be a standard inclusion and I don't understand the resistance to it from Affinity developers. Not all of your users are working purely digitally, our work enters the physical world too and creating bitmap images is a big part of that workflow. Sort it out please.

[mackleys]

On 2/27/2020 at 12:25 PM, Josh Ford said:

I too see the need for bitmap export. I work in printmaking and need to create bitmap images for colour separations all the time.

Agree 100% with this. 

[Mark Ingram]

We do import BMP, and for exporting there is often a better format to use than BMP. Do you have a list of applications that only accept BMP files?

[Houpo]

I need .BMP export format too.

[Patrick Connor]

On 4/5/2020 at 8:55 AM, Mark Ingram said:

We do import BMP, and for exporting there is often a better format to use than BMP. Do you have a list of applications that only accept BMP files?

.

6 hours ago, Houpo said:

I need .BMP export format too.

Huopo and others here. I have moved Marks post from another thread. What programs still insist on BMP files, or is the palettized nature of BMP that is required and is so why?

[lastfuture]

For me it's embedded systems with microcontrollers that can load and display BMPs from storage like SD cards easily without a library because almost no conversion has to be done. Example:

https://gamebuino.com/academy/standalone/add-images-to-your-games

Quote

Supported are BMP files with 4-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit bitdepth