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1 bit TIFF/Bitmap support please


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11 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

I once had a client refer me to their website (early 2000s) when I requested logo files for a print job 😭

Their response: "Just grab the logo from our website header": a 150px wide anti-aliased pixel mess with unclear lettering.

This!!! tooo many times to count   😂😂

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1 hour ago, loukash said:

Um, no offense, but in a layout app context, that sounds to me like a workflow I've been using around 1994 with PageMaker 4… ;)

Not using a certain technique - or not knowing how - doesn't make that technique obsolete. We also used tiffs in PageMaker...

1 hour ago, loukash said:

Yes, I understand that this is a different thing.
But logos?

Yes, logos too.

32 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Ah, yes, I understand what you mean.

I've had my fair share of clients sharing bitmap files of their logos with me and lost access to the original files/vectors... Generally it means I have to trace them manually and recreate as vector 🙄

Clients sharing low resolution badly compress jpg bitmap logos embedded in a Word document - good times indeed! 😉

Yeah, delightful nostalgia! Great topic for the retirement home, but not useful (to me) here. But thanks for sharing!

1 hour ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Last week I tested Publisher's new PDF Passthrough feature: I created a PDF with a 600ppi 1bit image, and placed it in Publisher, expecting it to at least leave the content alone. Right? Placing an external PDF in passthrough mode should NOT change the contents in any way.

Much to my surprise it converted the bitmap to a greyscale 300ppi one!!! Even though a 'true' pdf passthrough ought to leave the contents of an existing external placed PDF alone, Publisher happily converted that externally placed PDF's contents!

This REALLY needs to be looked at by the Affinity developers.

That's the definitive show-stopper for me; I use PDF Passthrough all the time in InDesign. Will unfortunately return to InDesign and maybe have another go with Publisher in a year or so.

Attaching a design entirely based on 1-bit tiffs. No way I would have prefered to save that illustration and the logo in endless colour-variations to test which one I would choose. In InDesign I changed the colours of both with a simple click.

5033351-origpic-a828d8.jpg

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43 minutes ago, DaKo said:

ONE BMP file = 106 Kb

You mean this "BIS" label logo?

43 minutes ago, DaKo said:

hundreds of eps files in various colours.

20th century has called and wants all of its EPS files back… :D
This is how I've been doing it since at least 20 years:

1 hour ago, loukash said:

I would then dissect the vectors to clean paths in Illustrator, be it AI, PDF or EPS, and paste them as paths into my InDesign logo library for future use, then copying simply per drag & drop into a layout as fully editable group or compound path object.

Logos as editable paths. That's the keyword. Just a few bytes for every logo, fully editable directly in each and every layout. Colorize them at free will. No linked EPS/bitmap/PDF logos whatsoever.
This very principle works in an Affinity workflow, too. Actually even better because InDesign (CS5.5 here) path tools were severly limited and the Illustrator "roundtrip" is annoyingly clunky.

Interestingly, the reason why I started with this "dissective method" was a client whose brochures were at that time – early 2000s – duotone only: black and a spot color. I'd always had to include some 3rd party logos but often they would be CMYK EPS, i.e not suitable for duotone. So I'd had to dissect and convert them to b/w, and while at it I'd simply paste the paths from Illustrator into InDesign; that was pre-PDF/X-3 workflow, so packaging an InDesign folder was the "hit" of the day, and with a landline analog internet connection, the less MB to mail the better…

1 hour ago, DaKo said:

No way I would have prefered to save that illustration and the logo in endless colour-variations to test which one I would choose. In InDesign I changed the colours of both with a simple click.

You don't need to. It can be done with Affinity workflow. See

^ It's all there: 1-bit bitmap export, colorizing, you name it.
The only drawback is the PDF export and lack of the downsampling option for 1-bit/grayscale files. Workaround: downsample regular color images externally to ±300 ppi  first (if manageable) and set the PDF export downsampling to whatever you need for the placed 1-bit files. Will be a p.i.t.a. for broschures with many photos… :/

That all said…

1 hour ago, DaKo said:

maybe have another go with Publisher in a year or so.

… I hear you. Even though I've been an "early adopter" since the first v1.7 public betas, I haven't used Publisher for any serious job until just last December. It just sucked. But for the upcoming jobs and clients that I have this year, and after taking a lot of time to study the Affinity workflows without being stuck in the Adobe mindset, I'm ready.

Now, if only Serif would finally fix the crappy boolean operations…
Oh well.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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Many thanks loukash for USEFUL tips! I didn't know about the editable paths. Will take a look at that.

I always save my linked images at 300 dpi, so setting the export resolution to 1.200 dpi would indeed be enough for the bmp (and hopefully not upsampling the tiffs!?). But somebody mentioned earlier that Publisher doesn't keep the transparency in bmp files. Or did I misunderstand that?

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25 minutes ago, DaKo said:

hopefully not upsampling the tiffs!?

No, I tested that already. In my aforementioned workflow, I simply set "Raster DPI" to 580 (I think) and the preset would then automatically adjust to "Downsample images above 600 DPI".

25 minutes ago, DaKo said:

somebody mentioned earlier that Publisher doesn't keep the transparency in bmp files. Or did I misunderstand that?

No idea about the BMP format. If you need bitmap transparency, see also my workflow for creating a 1-bit PNG. It works. Just make sure to keep as a placed image layer and don't convert it to a regular pixel layer, otherwise you'll lose the crucial "K Only" function. Also, placed images can (should) be put in an image frame for easy handling, cropping, background, etc.

I think this video was particularly useful to help me understand how it works: affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/desktop/video/497574347. It's for Designer but applicable to Publisher as well.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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22 hours ago, Fixx said:

Not around but since...!

Having learned graphic design the analog "old school" way in 1980s and being self-taught in DTP during the late 80s and early 90s, eventually I'd almost learned the hard way what happens if you use poorly scanned bitmap logos camouflaged as an "EPS" in an old school page layout application that will show you a low-res pixelated EPS preview at best, if any. Luckily, the print guy alerted me before he'd start to print. He also explaned to me why when it comes to logos, vector = good and bitmap = bad.

But don't get me wrong folks: I'd definitely like to see full 1-bit support in Affinity as much as you do. Sometimes, it is the right format.
Context matters.™

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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  • 3 months later...

Maybe I missed it when scanning this topic. But one thing I've always loved and often used with Photoshop's bw/bitmap capacities is the ability to choose the way the resulting sw-"bitmap" files will be rendered – for example with a strict threshold between b and w or by diffusion dither or emulating a certain way of (preferably coarse) rasterization. With the exception of the one first mentioned I like to use these mostly as a stilistic or artistic choice but with the added value of setting a desired resolution (independent of the original source file) for export resp. change of colour mode AND – of course – being able to assign any colour later in InDesign.

Accordingly I'd very much like to have similar options when exporting strictly black and white images from Affinity Photo. This has nothing to do with outdated vs. up-to-date workflow but with getting things/pictures to look like I want them to look – and without being forced to use one or more 3rd party apps for achieving this.

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  • 1 month later...
26 minutes ago, emarillo said:

First thing I tried after the update...

Mmhhh, I haven't actually read anything about version 1.10 except these performance boosting measures that have been taken. Now that we haven't got 1 bit bitmap support, ARE there ANY new features or improvements on given ones in this update after all?

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44 minutes ago, Lorox said:

Mmhhh, I haven't actually read anything about version 1.10 except these performance boosting measures that have been taken. Now that we haven't got 1 bit bitmap support, ARE there ANY new features or improvements on given ones in this update after all?

Why don't you just look at the Release Notes for the simple answer to your question?

Quote

Fixes & Improvements:

  • Improved GPU rendering
  • Improved Serif Labs RAW engine
  • Improved IME text editing for Japanese and Simplified Chinese languages
  • Improved Lens Correction for Canon, Tamron and Sigma lenses
  • Improved PDF import/export
  • Astrophotography
    • Edit stacked image names for better organisation
    • Stack images for different filters simultaneously using file groups (auto-alignment avoids resampling)
    • Open FITS files directly in Photo Persona (control over demosaicing)
    • Support for FUJIFILM X-Trans sensor images
  • Improved performance with:
    • Panorama stitching
    • Defringing and increased maximum radius
    • Multiple placed Info page samplers
    • Adjustment layers when hardware acceleration is disabled
    • Heavily layered documents (faster rendering during panning and text reflow)
    • Placed images
    • Embedded documents
    • Low-memory situations (including Windows OpenCL preventing fall-back from hardware to software)
    • Converting documents between ICC profiles / pixel formats
    • Documents which contain flattened, opaque layers (usually the result of merge visible)
  • Raw CR3 support (for Canon EOS 850D)
  • Median Blur mode for Frequency Separation filter
  • Added hardware acceleration to Gradient Map adjustment
  • Added support for most emoji  
  • Added ability to Load ACM lens profiles
  • Added additional file drag drop options when holding Alt key
  • Resource Manager:
    • New Relink option for missing resources
    • New File Type column
    • EPS files can be linked
  • Various stability improvements and assorted other fixes.
  • Help and localisation improvement.

I'm not sure why anyone was expecting 1-bit bitmap support from 1.10. It wasn't in any of the beta 1.10 builds, so it would have been quite surprising to see it in the final release.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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On 6/8/2021 at 11:54 AM, Lorox said:

Maybe I missed it when scanning this topic. But one thing I've always loved and often used with Photoshop's bw/bitmap capacities is the ability to choose the way the resulting sw-"bitmap" files will be rendered – for example with a strict threshold between b and w or by diffusion dither or emulating a certain way of (preferably coarse) rasterization. With the exception of the one first mentioned I like to use these mostly as a stilistic or artistic choice but with the added value of setting a desired resolution (independent of the original source file) for export resp. change of colour mode AND – of course – being able to assign any colour later in InDesign.

Accordingly I'd very much like to have similar options when exporting strictly black and white images from Affinity Photo. This has nothing to do with outdated vs. up-to-date workflow but with getting things/pictures to look like I want them to look – and without being forced to use one or more 3rd party apps for achieving this.

Agreed. Right now my workflow looks something like this:

  1. Open scan of old line art in Affinity Photo
  2. Convert to Greyscale
  3. If resolution is < 800 then upres to 800ppi (and make any adjustments as necessary to clean up the image)
  4. Use levels to drop the background to white
  5. Save as JPEG
  6. Open JPEG in HyperDither
  7. Apply best possible dither, then save as JPEG (saves as RGB, no option for other color modes)
  8. Open JPEG in Affinity Photo
  9. Convert to Greyscale
  10. Switch to export persona
  11. Export as B&W PNG with 2 levels
  12. Place PNG in Affinity Publisher
  13. When exporting as press-ready PDF, ensure "downsample" is turned off

This has been working fine, so long as the placed PNG only needs to be black. Fortunately, the current stuff I'm producing is black & white. But things get nasty when you have placed 1-bit images that you want different spot colors (as @DaKo showed in his example, above), or with transparency. Sure, you can set the layer mode to multiply if you want a background color to show through and make a fake duotone, but if you want to knock out the background color, you have to jump through more hoops.

The ideal workflow would be:

  1. Open scan of old line art in Affinity Photo
  2. Convert to Greyscale
  3. If resolution is < 800 then upres to 800ppi (and make any adjustments as necessary to clean up the image)
  4. Use levels to drop the background to white
  5. Convert mode to 1-bit and select dithering algorithm
  6. Export 1-bit TIFF or PNG
  7. Place in Affinity Publisher, color as desired
  8. Export press-ready PDF
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11 hours ago, gunbunny said:

The ideal workflow would be:

  1. Open scan of old line art in Affinity Photo
  2. Convert to Greyscale
  3. If resolution is < 800 then upres to 800ppi (and make any adjustments as necessary to clean up the image)
  4. Use levels to drop the background to white
  5. Convert mode to 1-bit and select dithering algorithm
  6. Export 1-bit TIFF or PNG
  7. Place in Affinity Publisher, color as desired
  8. Export press-ready PDF

Absolutely so!

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12 hours ago, gunbunny said:

The ideal workflow would be:

  1. Open scan of old line art in Affinity Photo
  2. Convert to Greyscale
  3. If resolution is < 800 then upres to 800ppi (and make any adjustments as necessary to clean up the image)
  4. Use levels to drop the background to white
  5. Convert mode to 1-bit and select dithering algorithm
  6. Export 1-bit TIFF or PNG
  7. Place in Affinity Publisher, color as desired
  8. Export press-ready PDF

I've reached a similar result as far as I keep a white background. Turning it transparent prevents me from coloring the tiff in InDesign/XPress (can't use Publisher, my clients still have indd/qxp based workflows).

 

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14 hours ago, gunbunny said:

Right now my workflow looks something like this

Hm. I'd remove a few steps and proceed like this instead:

  1. Open scan of old line art in Affinity Photo
  2. Add "Add Noise" live filter = dither
  3. Add Threshold adjustment = 1-bit conversion on the spot
    Optionally you can also use Filter > Color > Monochrome Dither, but it's a destructive filter.
    Adjust the above as needed until you like the result; optionally add Levels or Curves adjustments for fine tuning the original scan if needed.
    Note that the stack order of those layers makes a difference. Experiment!
  4. Document > Flatten
  5. Remove the white pixels: Flood Select Tool > Tolerance 0, Contiguous OFF > click any white pixel > delete = transparent 1-bit image
  6. Export as PNG > More > Grayscale > Nearest Neighbor > Matte transparent > […] > Palettized > Automatic > Colors: 2
    Export persona or "direct" export, whatever you like the best.
  7. Place in Publisher etc.
    Note that you must snap the placed image and its picture frame size and position to full pixels in order to avoid any subpixel dithering upon PDF export! Make sure you have set Decimal Places preferences for Pixel units to >1 (well, I set them to 6 just to be on the safe side), otherwise subpixels will be rounded up in the Transform panel!

In certain scenarios you can skip step 5, then export as a true 1-bit B&W PNG without transparency. In Publisher, you can then either use an Overprint swatch, or – if all remains in CMYK and you don't have to export in PDF/X-1 or X-3 – set the placed and colorized image to Darken or Multiply blend mode for a "fake" overprint with transparency respectively.

See also my earlier posts in this thread.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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6 hours ago, emarillo said:

I've reached a similar result as far as I keep a white background. Turning it transparent prevents me from coloring the tiff in InDesign/XPress (can't use Publisher, my clients still have indd/qxp based workflows).

 

Really?

Placed 1-bit .bmp in QXP. Placed resolution is 1348 dpi. Colored with just Cyan.

Capture_000831.png.c29660dbb96f8bc2100f149e28814a61.png

Export to pdf where lineart/1-bit images are downsampled to 1200 dpi...

Capture_000832.png.acb6b49039a8986dd359d0e1ea383898.png

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1 hour ago, MikeW said:

Placed 1-bit .bmp in QXP. Placed resolution is 1348 dpi. Colored with just Cyan.

Possibly 1-bit BMP works similar to 1-bit TIF in XPress – but transparent PNG (like emarillo writes) maybe just doesn't?

Don't have any QXP on my machines so I cannot try...

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The thread is 1 bit tiff or bitmap. 

Even if jumping through hoops to create a png in a single color with transparency works for y'all (grayscale with only black colorant is the same), it still requires jumping through other hoops to have sufficient dpi in the single bit image when exporting if there are any other images or bitmap effects because Affinity applications do not have the ability to distinguish between them and export at different resolution. 

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2 hours ago, MikeW said:

Affinity applications do not have the ability to distinguish between them and export at different resolution

^ This being the primary p.i.t.a. here.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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2 hours ago, Lluís said:

Today I've needed to make a document with 1 bit but surprisingly I've realized that is not possible to do it with Affinity Photo.

Yeah, that's really surprising as it's such a basic need many designers have with their layouts resp. the material going into them. I felt the same way, when I happened to have the same problem...

Let's hope for version 2, then! (Fingers crossed)

Edited by Lorox
typos, oh man...
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