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I am creating designs in APhoto for printing. I've been told by a friend that I might need to provide a flattened file to the printer (I am aware the printer requires png files).

I which situations should I flatten & what are pros & cons?

Affinity Photo 1.10.6.1665 / Affinity Publisher 1.10.6 - Win 10 Home 64 bit 22H2, OS Build 19045.2251 - Asus ROG G20CB - i5-6400 2.7ghz - 8gb RAM - NVIDIA GX950- BenQ BL2783

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If you export to png (or jpg), your document will automatically be flattened before export. Your original document will remain in its unflattened state so you can save it as aphoto, psd or tiff. 

Flattening is destructive, so you do this at the end, before export in the final form.

John

Windows 11, Affinity Photo 2.4.2 Designer 2.4.2 and Publisher 2.4.2 (mainly Photo).

CPU: Intel Core i5 8500 @ 3.00GHz. RAM: 32.0GB  DDR4 @ 1063MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050

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As John pointed out the PNG is flattened so I wouldn't bother with flattening the .afphoto file that you work with simply because the printer may see some sort of mistake in the PNG and ask for a fixed file and then you can fix things easily.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Thanks very much for your responses John Rostron & Old Bruce. I understand what I needed to know. Cheers.

1 hour ago, John Rostron said:

If you export to png (or jpg), your document will automatically be flattened before export. Your original document will remain in its unflattened state so you can save it as aphoto, psd or tiff. 

Flattening is destructive, so you do this at the end, before export in the final form.

John

Are png & jpg the only file types where the doc is auto flattened on export? I require png for tee-shirt printing, but for fine art prints I usually supply tiffs, for example.

Affinity Photo 1.10.6.1665 / Affinity Publisher 1.10.6 - Win 10 Home 64 bit 22H2, OS Build 19045.2251 - Asus ROG G20CB - i5-6400 2.7ghz - 8gb RAM - NVIDIA GX950- BenQ BL2783

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TIFFs can contain Layers so in that case what I would do is Save as... (make a copy of the Affinity document) flatten that and export the TIFF, then toss the document in the trash, keeping the original.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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30 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

TIFFs can contain Layers so in that case what I would do is Save as... (make a copy of the Affinity document) flatten that and export the TIFF, then toss the document in the trash, keeping the original.

I don't understand. If the tiff can contain the layers of the project, why bother saving as an Affinity file at all? Wouldn't it be possible to open the tiff in the future for re-working the project if desired?

Affinity Photo 1.10.6.1665 / Affinity Publisher 1.10.6 - Win 10 Home 64 bit 22H2, OS Build 19045.2251 - Asus ROG G20CB - i5-6400 2.7ghz - 8gb RAM - NVIDIA GX950- BenQ BL2783

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2 hours ago, eightysevens said:

I don't understand. If the tiff can contain the layers of the project, why bother saving as an Affinity file at all? Wouldn't it be possible to open the tiff in the future for re-working the project if desired?

A TIFF file can indeed have multiple layers. However, the TIFF format will not be able to retain proprietary information such as can be preserved in the AFPHOTO format. For example, Live Filter data will not be saved within TIFF file layers. If you use those effects, then you need to save them in the native AFPHOTO format. 

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8 hours ago, Ulysses said:

A TIFF file can indeed have multiple layers. However, the TIFF format will not be able to retain proprietary information such as can be preserved in the AFPHOTO format. For example, Live Filter data will not be saved within TIFF file layers. If you use those effects, then you need to save them in the native AFPHOTO format. 

Sorry, but that's not correct. Almost all Affnity Photo data is preserved if you Export a TIFF with the "Save Affinity Layers" option enabled, including Live Filters. History is not preserved, and I have a vague recollection of finding one other thing that is not preserved, but I apparently didn't take any notes on that. It might be in a forum post somewhere. Snapshots, Live Filters, and other layers are retained.

Any layers in TIFF files hold proprietary data, because standard TIFF images do not have any layers. So anything that exists as layers in a TIFF has been added in some proprietary format by the program that created the TIFF. Adobe can put PSD format information into TIFF files as layers, and Affinity can put .afphoto format data into TIFF files as layers, when requested.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Sorry, but that's not correct. Almost all Affnity Photo data is preserved if you Export a TIFF with the "Save Affinity Layers" option enabled, including Live Filters. History is not preserved, and I have a vague recollection of finding one other thing that is not preserved, but I apparently didn't take any notes on that. It might be in a forum post somewhere. Snapshots, Live Filters, and other layers are retained.

Any layers in TIFF files hold proprietary data, because standard TIFF images do not have any layers. So anything that exists as layers in a TIFF has been added in some proprietary format by the program that created the TIFF. Adobe can put PSD format information into TIFF files as layers, and Affinity can put .afphoto format data into TIFF files as layers, when requested.

 

Oops!! Thank you for correcting that, @walt.farrell. It's not like me to post inaccurate info. It seems that I didn't check the box to "Save Affinity Layers" for my TIFF file test. 🙃

Apologies to the group. :) 

But like yourself, I also recall that there are certain proprietary features that are NOT preserved along with the TIFF. I'll have to do some digging through the forum posts when I have time to do so.

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