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When copying and pasting parts of my sheet music, and then exporting as a PDF, I find there are thin visible outlines around every area I have pasted, which makes the sheet music very messy looking.  The lines are not visible when editing in Affinity Photo.  An example is attached.

Can anyone help please?

page4.pdf

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@Fixx,

I see the border lines on your screenshot on the top and the left too. As far as I've understood the OP this is what he meant. And you're right the sheet looks like a scan with low resolution,  and he wants to export as an pdf, he hasn't written that this is an pdf.

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I open the original PDF in Affinity Photo, and then move sections around by selecting and moving, and also using copy and paste.  Both methods show up the issue. The selection or paste lines are not visible within Affinity Photo, but when I export as a PDF and open the resulting file (I use PDFSam), I see the lines.   But I assume the reader is not the issue, as the exported file also shows the problem up when I import into my sheet music app (MobileSheetsPro) and look at it there.  It must be a problem in the way that Affinity Photo handles moving a selection, and also the way it handles pasting.  Or am I missing something  ...  a setting perhaps?

I don't understand Fixx's comment - it is not possible to crop out the lines is it? (e.g. with the attached example where I used the free select tool around the symbols on the left hand side and in the middle.

(PS. A friend of mine has tried the same process with Photoshop, and there is no problem with that.)        

Display Issue.pdf

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If you open in Affinity Photo select the image layer and then go to Filters > Colours > Erase White Paper (ewp) and then export as a Pdf the lines don’t show, see example below.

page4- ewp.pdf

1516359455_ScreenShot2020-03-29at23_35_23.png.0d0b8f39283b1cbe07887bb845c02df0.png

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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Another method is to rasterise the image to convert it into a pixel layer, and use the Flood Fill tool to fill the page with white.

Yet another method is to just add a fill layer filled with white, drop it below the image layer and right click on a layer and select merge visible.

 

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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11 minutes ago, Ricardas said:

That fixed it firstdefence!  You're a genius!

Many thanks!

That’s what Facebook says too hahahaha!

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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I'd be very interested in the original scanned files. Looking at the exported PDF, it seems to me that the original scan was 1bit, and if that is the case, Affinity Photo converts these images to 8bit greyscale ones. As a result, when the OP exported the edited version as a PDF from Affinity Photo,  the export setting seems to be set to JPG, further wreaking havoc with the clean 1bit scanned images.

@Ricardas Could you tell us how you scanned in the original sheets? Could you provide a sample (without opening it in Affinity Photo)?

I ask, because Affinity Photo does not support 1bit images, and will always convert these to 8bit ones - without user intervention possible.

Scanning of sheet music is typically a job done by scanning the originals at a very high PPI resolution (1200ppi) and at 1bit bit depth. It makes no sense to scan black-and-white sheet music in greyscale 8bit bit depth, unless it is to be used for screen display (in which case scaling down a high res 1bit image to a screen res greyscale image would also be preferable and result in better quality) .

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Hi Medical Officer Bones.  You're right in that the original scan is 1 bit. Sample attached.  I can't see where/where/why the export setting would be set to JPG.  Under the Export Setting pop-up box, I have been using the 'PDF (for export)' preset which I think was the default.  I just tried using 'PDF/X-1a2003', and that does fix the problem.  Downside is the file size is 7 times bigger!  But at least I can play around now and work out the most acceptable options for me.  Thanks for your help!      

scan.pdf

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Hi Ricardas.

I checked the file, and imported it first in PhotoLine, because that image editor does support 1bit bit depth images and to check for the original resolution: it is indeed a 1bit image scanned at 300dpi.

That means the moment it is imported into Affinity Photo, it will convert it to a 8bit greyscale image. It also means that visually in Affinity Photo the result is anti-aliased a bit due to it being placed at non-decimal values. When editing, this may introduce extra anti-aliasing.

Exporting as a PDF, it is important to turn off JPG compression, because that results in visual artifacting due to JPG being JPG. JPG is wholly unsuitable for this type of image as a compression algorithm.

[When exporting as PDF/X-1, turn off jpeg compression]

As you discovered for yourself, turning off that compression will solve the issue, because Photo is no longer reducing the quality and introducing rogue grey pixels.

But this comes at a cost: since the bit depth of the scan is automatically converted to 8bit, it results in an 8x image file size increase. Which is something utterly unnecessary, and one of my pet peeves with Affinity Photo: it does not support 1bit images. Which in certain use cases causes issues, such as in this case. Luckily Affinity Photo's PDF export is smart enough to reduce the file size to ~80kb versus the ~30kb 1bit version. So it's not too bad.

Still, it is REALLY frustrating: 1bit images are THE answer in cases like these. And file sizes blow up dramatically with higher resolutions. Just imagine if this sheet music had been scanned in at 1200ppi, and the pdf had 50 scanned sheets. 1bit images would keep the file very manageable.

No-one in their right mind wants to send 1200ppi greyscale images to an image setter - and in practice those images are then downsampled automatically to 300ppi before printing, resulting in a drastic reduction of resolution and quality. Only 1bit images maintain the wanted resolution when printing.

And unfortunately 1bit support may never be added to Photo: the developers have unequivocally stated that 1bit image support will not be worked on in Photo. Frustrating. :(

 

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8 hours ago, Ricardas said:

I don't understand Fixx's comment - it is not possible to crop out the lines is it?

I used Designer where is a separate crop tool. Though mask in Photo should do exactly the same thing.

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