Ragged contours

[Paul_from_Poland]

Hello
Since several versions of Affinity Photo I have had problems with displaying graphics, previously the edges of objects were nicely smoothed and now they are ragged which looks very ugly, any ideas how to fix it ?

I am currently using version 1.8 of Affinity Photo on Windows.

Obrazek1.bmp

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.
What is the DPI of your document? If it is low then you will see jagged edges on things, see attached images.

[Paul_from_Poland]

Changing to a higher resolution does not change anything.

Maybe the reason is the small size of the picture

Edited March 17, 2020 by Paul_from_Poland

[smadell]

OK, I'm making an assumption here: you're working in Non-Separated Mode (that is, either you're in Windows or on a Mac with "Separated Mode" on the Window menu NOT checked). When this is the case, your graphic will normally expand to fit the available space. If you're judging the "jaggies" by the display on the screen, the DPI of your document really doesn't matter; what matters is the number of pixels you're dealing with. A quick way to evaluate this is to check the top of the Toolbar, where you should see the name of your document and a percentage. That percentage represents how much magnification has been applied to your image to have it fill the workspace. The higher that magnification is, the easier it will be to see the jaggies that result from individual pixels. DPI really only applies once you print your document onto a physical medium (like paper).

The difference between screen resolution and print resolution is a long story - you can search this forum and come up with 1000's of words on the subject. However, if your image is being magnified by greater than 100% on screen then those jagged edges will start to become obvious; the greater the magnification, the more obvious the jagged edges become.

Here is an image created on a 200x200 pixel canvas:

Here is an equivalent image, this time created on a 2000x2000 pixel canvas:

The reason that the first one is "jaggy" and the second one isn't is simply because the number of pixels in the second one is so much higher. (By the way, the dpi on both documents was set at 300 dpi. When displayed on screen, you can see that this setting really doesn't matter.)