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Issues with editing an embedded picture


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Hi to all,

I am encountering a strange behaviour which might be a bug (or a feature? - I don't know).

I have a document in designer which consist of multiple embedded pictures. One picture needed further retouching so I want to open it in Photo. The problems came when I tried to get things back to designer. I tried two different approches

1) In designer I selected the picture and clicked "Edit image" (I don't know the correct english words as I am using the German version). Then I clicked File->Edit in Affinity Photo in the menu. Photo opened up, I did my retouching and saved. A dialog appeared if I wanted to save a reduced version for the desired file format can only contain pixel data -> ok. Then I closed Photo. But the changes did not appear in Designer at all. Bad luck. So I tried a different approach:

2) In designer I selected File->"Edit in Affinity Photo" for the whole document. Photo opens up. There I select the desired picture and select Edit image. Retouching. Save. Reduced format -> ok. Everything's fine. Then I save the whole document and open it again in Designer. But there the picture looks really ugly with huge pixels (like 32 x 24 or so). When I click "edit image" I have the HQ result from Photo but when I close the editing mode, again I have those big blocks. If I try to export a pdf for example - the picture is just not present (in my case there is a coloured square - the container which holds the image in the document).

I am not quite sure if this is the correct behavior. But in my opinion at least (2) should have worked properly. So it seams that there is a bug somewhere.

Anyway - it would be grad to have a better way to edit an embedded image in photo, like it works in publisher. That's really cool. The workflow to edit an image and then start up the other application while the document in the original application is closed is a bit clumsy imho.

 

Thanks so far.

Jan

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28 minutes ago, jackmcbrezel said:

Anyway - it would be grad to have a better way to edit an embedded image in photo, like it works in publisher. That's really cool. The workflow to edit an image and then start up the other application while the document in the original application is closed is a bit clumsy imho.

I can't tell from that comment if you have Publisher or not, but if you do it's probably easiest to just work in Publisher rather than in Designer :)

If you don't, I'm not sure there's a good way for you to edit an embedded image like you're trying to do. If you can't do the edit with the capabilities provided by Designer, then it would probably be better to locate the original, edit that in Photo, export it, and then Replace the image in Designer.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Hi Jan,

The process you're going through in Scenario 1, sounds like going from one application to the other with an (Embedded) document and the link is being lost. As far as I'm aware this is not something that is possible - the second method you are using sounds like the correct approach. Unfortunately the results you're getting from that is hard to see without the document and seeing what changes you're making.

Would it be possible for you to attach the source document (prior to the edit) and a screen recording video showing the process you're doing? That will help us a lot in understanding on what may be happening and reproducing the issue.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank for the replies. Today I managed to get some time to reproduce the problem. And now I'm a bit puzzled. But first things first.

@walt.farrell You're right - probably publisher would have been the better solution. But as I started in designer I wanted to finish things there...

@Sean P I tried to reproduce the issue and partly succeeded:

I took two images from pixabay, put them into a document. Then I opened the doc in photo, selected one of the images, clicked on "Edit image" (in the menu bar - next to "Replace image") and did some editing stuff (added a pixel layer below, removed some background from original image) and saved it. The program asked if I wanted to reduce the image as non-pixel data was not supported. I accepted. And had the same blurry stuff (without my adjustments) in the photo document. When I again clicked on "edit image" everything was like after the adjustments. Then I recognized that the original file on disk had the adjustments as well. So to me it seems as if affinity photo had done the editing on the original jpg file but somehow in the document. The afdesigner document is attached.

Then I wanted to make another approach with screen recording, as you had requested. But in all further approaches, the button "Edit image" was just not there. I think this is a feature - but I just do not understand when the button is visible and when not. Perhaps you can enlighten me ;-) Unfortunatelly I did not manage to edit the image and thus cannot provide a recording of all my steps...

bug_test.afdesign

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That's an interesting document, Jack, because the images are Linked not Embedded. Designer and Photo are not supposed to support Linking images. If you create a document in Designer or Photo, all Placed images should be embedded, and there should not be an Edit Image button.

However, there are some bugs that can cause images to become linked, and you may have stumbled onto one of them. It appears that when you created the document you specified a document type of "Print (Press-Ready)" and that's one way to trigger the bug.

You really don't want to be using Linked images in Designer or Photo, as they do not have all the functionality to support them. For example, they do not have a readily accessible Resource Manager, which would allow you to update the local views of the images when the originals are changed. And they do not have the option to automatically perform that update.

If you're going to use Designer rather than Publisher, I suggest recreating the document using "Print" as the document type, and setting the color mode to CMYK/8 yourself, and setting the color profile you want. That should avoid the bug and give you embedded images.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Thanks @walt.farrell for this detailled explanation. I think this hit's the core of the issue. I tried the two options (Print & Print (press-ready)) and it results exactly in the behavior you are pointing out. So till this bug is fixed I will do the workflow you are proposing.

But another issue is the, no matter which doc type I am choosing, when using the "Replace image" function, there is an option group where I can choose if the image should be embedded or linked. I think this has no effect if the image is linked or embedded (like there is never the "Edit image" function when using "print"). But for the user it is not really clear what is happening.

 

I think now I understood the "Edit image" function - the original (linked) image is affected only. But now - when I understand things right - there is no possibility to edit an image "in place", i.e. without editing the original file and reimporing, in designer?

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3 hours ago, jackmcbrezel said:

But another issue is the, no matter which doc type I am choosing, when using the "Replace image" function, there is an option group where I can choose if the image should be embedded or linked. I think this has no effect if the image is linked or embedded (like there is never the "Edit image" function when using "print"). But for the user it is not really clear what is happening.

The presence of the option to Link when doing Replace Image is also a bug, according to Serif, and that option has been removed in the current 1.8 beta of Designer. It does have an effect in 1.7 (it makes the replaced image Linked), and is another way you could get Linked images in Designer. I recommend not using it :)

4 hours ago, jackmcbrezel said:

I think now I understood the "Edit image" function - the original (linked) image is affected only. But now - when I understand things right - there is no possibility to edit an image "in place", i.e. without editing the original file and reimporing, in designer?

For an embedded image, your choices are:

  1. Use the tools and adjustments in Designer to do your editing directly on your Designer canvas or artboard. For adjustments and effects you would use masks or selections to isolate the effects to the image that you want to edit.
    Or
  2. If you also own Photo, use File > Edit in Photo to transfer the Designer file to Photo, where you can use the tools, adjustments, and filters provided by Photo to do the editing directly on the Designer canvas or artboard. Again, you would use masks and selections to isolate any adjustments, effects, or filters to the image that you want to edit.
    Or
  3. If you own Publisher, do all the work there, where you can switch between the Publisher, Designer, and Photo Personas using the functionality provided by StudioLink. Again, though, you are editing in place, and need to use masks and selections to isolate the effects of your editing.

All of these approaches also work for Linked images, if you want to edit "in-place" rather than updating the original. But if you use Edit Image you will need to Save (or Save As) your edited version. If you Save that affects the original. If you Save As, you will have a .afphoto file instead of an image file. In either case, you're right that you would need to use the Replace Image button to update your Designer file (if you're using Linked images there) or close and reopen the file.

It would certainly be convenient if Embedded images worked as they did previously in the 1.7 beta cycle, where you could double-click on one and edit it in isolation, locally, with the edits just being saved in the Designer (or Photo or Publisher) document. But that capability was removed before 1.7 was finalized. I hope it comes back, someday.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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