Most awful bug I’ve encountered in affinity

[AspiringDesigner]

Latest iPad and affinity soft as of posting, iPad 7.

So I tried to export this art into an 8000x8000 300dpi image but the export bar wouldn’t make a drop of progress. I decided to rasterize the whole group of vectors into an image. The progress bar took 5min (Which is understandable since there are so many layers and big image) BUT when reaching the bar at the end, it would stay there for a little and the iPad would crash completely, shut down.

I repeated and same crash after reaching the end of rasterization. Also, for some reason the affinity storage on iPad got an addition 5GB of occupied storage, which disappeared after deleting that 8x8 image. 

It’s not a performance issue either, the iPad was cool to the touch. (Gets hot in heavy games) 

Im fine with waiting for the progress bar to take a while, but those crashes and inability to export such a big image is bad...

[AspiringDesigner]

Tried exporting again (without rasterizing) at 6500x6500 300dpi and bar won’t make a drop of progress over minutes. It’s a bug which makes this app unusable, quite literally.

[AspiringDesigner]

Is there a way for me to get it out at 6500x6500 300dpi? 

[AspiringDesigner]

The app seems to export with 144dpi, but I still need 300dpi for printing...

[DM1]

I just created a 6500x6500px @300dpi doc and added a few images. It exports without issue. 

Try turning off history as it apparently uses a lot of ram in complex documents. If it exports at 144dpi it may be ram related.

Don’t know if it would help but try selecting all curve layers and use Merge Curves (Edit menu) and see if that helps. It reversible and maintains vector.

 

[Jowday]

@AspiringDesigner and @DM1

DPI is just a metatag. The pixel resolution won't be affected by it. If you export to PNG/JPG as 6000 x 6000, you will get a 6000 x 6000 pixel image no matter what DPI you chose.

So if you need 8000 x 8000 pixels change the DPI to 72 if that is what it takes for Designer to output the file and not crash.

DPI is the most misunderstood term I have ever encountered. 🙂

[DM1]

42 minutes ago, Jowday said:

DPI is just a metatag. The pixel resolution won't be affected by it.

 

44 minutes ago, Jowday said:

DPI is the most misunderstood term I have ever encountered. 🙂

You got that right, I'm confused.😄 I thought dpi in Designer acted as ppi and determined final image dimension? DPI being printer related (as in density of ink laid down). Wouldn’t 72dpi result in a much larger image than 300dpi at the same pixel density? (DPI being PPI in Designer).

[Jowday]

6 minutes ago, DM1 said:

You got that right, I'm confused.😄 I thought dpi in Designer acted as ppi and determined final image dimension? DPI being printer related (as in density of ink laid down). Wouldn’t 72dpi result in a much larger image than 300dpi at the same pixel density? (DPI being PPI in Designer).

I hope this article written by native English speakers will explain it? 🙂

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/understanding-dpi/

[AspiringDesigner]

10 hours ago, DM1 said:

I just created a 6500x6500px @300dpi doc and added a few images. It exports without issue. 

Try turning off history as it apparently uses a lot of ram in complex documents. If it exports at 144dpi it may be ram related.

Don’t know if it would help but try selecting all curve layers and use Merge Curves (Edit menu) and see if that helps. It reversible and maintains vector.

 

Well I tried to rasterizes all the layers and the iPad crashed twice. I don’t think it’s ram related when exporting because the progress doesn’t even make a drop of progress, stuck at zero. 
 

The rasterization crash might be RAM related, but it should still do the job, maybe slower but still. Like maybe rasterize a limited/maximum amount of layers, then rasterizing the rest, and then unite the images. A workaround surely exists. 

10 hours ago, Jowday said:

@AspiringDesigner and @DM1

DPI is just a metatag. The pixel resolution won't be affected by it. If you export to PNG/JPG as 6000 x 6000, you will get a 6000 x 6000 pixel image no matter what DPI you chose.

So if you need 8000 x 8000 pixels change the DPI to 72 if that is what it takes for Designer to output the file and not crash.

DPI is the most misunderstood term I have ever encountered. 🙂

I know it won’t affect resolution I just need 300dpi for printing. Even if it’s so misunderstood that’s what many clients want 😄 

[Wosven]

21 minutes ago, AspiringDesigner said:

The rasterization crash might be RAM related, but it should still do the job, maybe slower but still. Like maybe rasterize a limited/maximum amount of layers

You can be right. I had similar problems with the desktop app because it was unable to handle adding thousand of dot (small vector circles) in a row. But if did it in 3 round, it was done in few seconds each time. The apps need to be able to do complex operations in stages, flushing the memory after each steps.

[AspiringDesigner]

I tried exporting another artwork at 300dpi and it won’t work at all. Only 144dpi...

ALSO, the bug with not being able to copy/paste a group with symbols is still there despite me and probably others reporting it before...

[Mark Oehlschlager]

@Jowday

One of my pet peeves as someone who started designing for print is the conflation of dpi and ppi. Dots per Inch has always meant the ratio of literal dots of ink per inch applied to a paper substrate, where a high-end image setter could image a printing plate with a resolution of 2400 dpi – not to be confused with the 300 ppi resolution of the raster art being processed. It seems that the definition of dpi was appropriated as an analogy for explaining pixel density of electronic displays.

The other pet peeve is the insistence of web and app developers who've never worked in print to refer to the pixel dimensions of an image or screen as the "resolution" of that image or screen. Without a ratio of pixels to inches, nothing is resolved. There is no resolution described or implied by the simple pixel dimensions 800 x 600 px. We simply have dimensions expressed in abstract and relative units.

But language evolves. Persistently misused terms become accepted standards. 

[Jowday]

1 hour ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

@Jowday

One of my pet peeves as someone who started designing for print is the conflation of dpi and ppi. Dots per Inch has always meant the ratio of literal dots of ink per inch applied to a paper substrate, where a high-end image setter could image a printing plate with a resolution of 2400 dpi – not to be confused with the 300 ppi resolution of the raster art being processed. It seems that the definition of dpi was appropriated as an analogy for explaining pixel density of electronic displays.

The other pet peeve is the insistence of web and app developers who've never worked in print to refer to the pixel dimensions of an image or screen as the "resolution" of that image or screen. Without a ratio of pixels to inches, nothing is resolved. There is no resolution described or implied by the simple pixel dimensions 800 x 600 px. We simply have dimensions expressed in abstract and relative units.

But language evolves. Persistently misused terms become accepted standards. 

Yep, agreed, I really meant pixel dimensions not 'resolution'... those damn terms are burned into the brain and muscle memory... but if you know you need to export fx exactly a 6000 x 4000 image, you don't need to bother about dpi/ppi. I hoped lowering this document setting could get him the image he needed with the desired pixel dimensions without the app crashing.

[DM1]

23 hours ago, Jowday said:

I hope this article written by native English speakers will explain it?

I think the last paragraph in the article (shown below) sums it up nicely! 😁
 

In a nutshell:

• Digital/screen work: Think in pixels, eg 2560x1440
• Print work: Think in dimensions and DPI, eg 5x7 inches at 240 DPI.

[DM1]

14 hours ago, AspiringDesigner said:

I know it won’t affect resolution I just need 300dpi for printing.

What size do you want the printed document?  8000x8000px printed  @ 300dpi is around 26” square.

[Jowday]

18 minutes ago, DM1 said:

I think the last paragraph in the article (shown below) sums it up nicely! 😁

Lets visualize it:

How many pixels do I need for an image that is to be printed on an A4 sized paper. It is a simple calculation.

So resolution is actually output resolution. Screen. Printer. Stone mosaic in church in Moscow.

 

[Jowday]

19 minutes ago, DM1 said:

What size do you want the printed document?  8000x8000px printed  @ 300dpi is around 26” square.

@AspiringDesigner

https://www.pixelcalculator.com/index.php?round=&FORM=3&DP=1&FA=&lang=en&pix1=8000&pix2=8000&dpi2=300&sub2=+calculate+#a2

[AspiringDesigner]

@Jowday @DM1 

I try to sell artwork on Society6, they require preferably 12000xsame 300dpi to fit most artwork. At least 6500x6500 300dpi. They do print on big stuff so it may have some logic. (I’m new to all of this. Society6 seems to be very over saturated market.)

[Sean P]

Hi AspiringDesigner,

Would you be able to attach a copy of the document you're trying to export please?

[Jowday]

4 hours ago, AspiringDesigner said:

@Jowday @DM1 

I try to sell artwork on Society6, they require preferably 12000xsame 300dpi to fit most artwork. At least 6500x6500 300dpi. They do print on big stuff so it may have some logic. (I’m new to all of this. Society6 seems to be very over saturated market.)

 Yep, it is a standard in the professional world to deliver image files with 300 dpi set as output resolution. But it is still just a meta-tag in bitmap files like JPG.

You can enter a new DPI in several online services: www.google.com/search?&q=dpi+converter&oq=dpi+converter

Because it is just a meta-tag the image data should not be affected. I never used online services, I just changed the value in Adobe Photoshop without enabling "Resample".

[AspiringDesigner]

27 minutes ago, Sean P said:

Hi AspiringDesigner,

Would you be able to attach a copy of the document you're trying to export please?

Untitled.afdesign

Again, can’t export it in jpeg best quality and cant rasterize the whole group.

[Sean P]

Thanks for the file.

Your document isn't 6500x6500 pixels - it is actually 6500x6500 points. At 300dpi this makes it 27084 x 27084 pixels. It looks like you're exporting out from the Export Persona as well so it will be exporting at 27084 x 27084 pixels. How long did you give the Export Persona export? Mine probably took around 4-5 minutes using an 11" Pro, but it did complete successfully

If you use Document > Export you can actually specify the pixel value you want to export too and the export will be much quicker because of this. 

Also remember that point size does not mean pixel size! If you want to use pixels, ensure you set pixel units when creating your document.

[Jowday]

22 minutes ago, AspiringDesigner said:

Untitled.afdesign

Again, can’t export it in jpeg best quality and cant rasterize the whole group.

Holy smoke! Your document size is 6500 points!!!

EDIT: Sean P answered, never mind me.

[AspiringDesigner]

@Sean P @Jowday
Lol, so when creating the file I forgot to switch to pixels instead of points in those circles. And I’ve been doing that to all my documents 😄 

Anyway thanks for help ❤️

[AspiringDesigner]

28 minutes ago, Sean P said:

Thanks for the file.

Your document isn't 6500x6500 pixels - it is actually 6500x6500 points. At 300dpi this makes it 27084 x 27084 pixels. It looks like you're exporting out from the Export Persona as well so it will be exporting at 27084 x 27084 pixels. How long did you give the Export Persona export? Mine probably took around 4-5 minutes using an 11" Pro, but it did complete successfully

If you use Document > Export you can actually specify the pixel value you want to export too and the export will be much quicker because of this. 

Also remember that point size does not mean pixel size! If you want to use pixels, ensure you set pixel units when creating your document.

I did give it 5min and it didn’t work. Maybe there wasn’t enough storage to export such a giant. Anyway, I set it to pixels and it does export as wanted.