1 bit TIFF/Bitmap support please

[puntdepica]

1 minute ago, puntdepica said:

Yes, each job have different situations.

There are times when it even happens with a pattern (for example on a wrapping paper for shops), in those cases the multiplication of nodes is even a bigger problem, whereas a linked 1bit image is not.

I also remember streamline, at that time it was fine

In our case we work with cs6, and we stay in Mojave to avoid making monthly payments. That prevents us from updating equipment and that is the reason why the Affinity proposal seduced us. There will be no more new computers that can run Mojave natively.

Sorry for not correctly quoting the previous posts 😞

[gunbunny]

On 2/7/2021 at 7:46 AM, loukash said:

I'm old enough to remember Adobe Streamline

Ye gads I remember that. And the 8,000,000 nodes it would create. Would cause our Scitex rips to choke, sometimes taking 45 minutes or more to process one image. There were basically 2 Streamline options: 1) Preserve detail and have an overly-complex vector file, or 2) lose all the fine detail but have a more manageable number of points. Ultimately, there's a good reason why it's no longer being developed.

Attaching a file that needs 1-bit TIFF at 1200+ dpi, that is unable to be easily vectorized. This is a type of image I deal with all day, every day.

Obviously there needs to be some sort of algorithm(s) employed for dithering, stochastic, or halftone screening. Tinrocket makes HyperDither that has a few different methods, but as of right now they output RGB files.

When sent to PDF, these are downsampled to 300dpi, and all the crispness of the linework is lost. If a 1-bit TIFF, when sent to PDF they retain 1200+ dpi and are outputted at the max resolution of the output device. As previously noted, they can also have a solid color (i.e. spot color) applied.

Edited February 8, 2021 by gunbunny

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, gunbunny said:

Attaching a file that needs 1-bit TIFF at 1200+ dpi, that is unable to be easily vectorized. This is a type of image I deal with all day, every day.

Thanks, that's a very interesting example!
Looking forward to bring Illustrator down to its knees with this.
Frankly, I never had to deal with this type of illustrations yet. My own lineart is usually pretty simple.

4 minutes ago, gunbunny said:

Would cause our Scitex rips to choke, sometimes taking 45 minutes or more to process one image.

I never fully understood the technical details back in the day, but I vaguely recall in the 1990s having made a few print guys going mad with some of my vector EPS files from Freehand…

[Chris L]

56 minutes ago, gunbunny said:

Ye gads I remember that. And the 8,000,000 nodes it would create. Would cause our Scitex rips to choke, sometimes taking 45 minutes or more to process one image. There were basically 2 Streamline options: 1) Preserve detail and have an overly-complex vector file, or 2) lose all the fine detail but have a more manageable number of points. Ultimately, there's a good reason why it's no longer being developed.

Attaching a file that needs 1-bit TIFF at 1200+ dpi, that is unable to be easily vectorized. This is a type of image I deal with all day, every day.

Obviously there needs to be some sort of algorithm(s) employed for dithering, stochastic, or halftone screening. Tinrocket makes HyperDither that has a few different methods, but as of right now they output RGB files.

When sent to PDF, these are downsampled to 300dpi, and all the crispness of the linework is lost. If a 1-bit TIFF, when sent to PDF they retain 1200+ dpi and are outputted at the max resolution of the output device. As previously noted, they can also have a solid color (i.e. spot color) applied.

This was my point exactly. And it's also neat being able to scan bits of line art and colourise with a transparent background. 

I'm surprised Serif is being so stubborn about not implementing this feature. It's almost like 'Er, no. We don't want pro studios using our product, so we'll hobble it' 🙄

But at least we can now select items with the same fill/stroke. Yay!

[MikeW]

Even if Serif were to include the ability of  generating 1-bit art, they need to make APub & AD have the ability to output line art at a different resolution than continuous tone images. That applies to grayscale images too...just like QXP and ID can.

[loukash]

17 hours ago, gunbunny said:

Attaching a file that needs 1-bit TIFF at 1200+ dpi, that is unable to be easily vectorized. This is a type of image I deal with all day, every day.

Alright, here we go:

1. It's grayscale JPEG but I didn't bother to convert it to 1-bit – imported straight to Illustrator CS5 for live tracing as is.
2. Just "quick'n'dirty" settings (pardon my French, mein Illustrator can nicht speak Englisch), the tracing is thus a bit "rough":
   
   Would give a better result if I'd fine tuned the pixel image first. That could be easily done in Photo and exported as 1-bit PNG for tracing in AI or another app.
    
3. Saved as Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot.ai
4. Opened Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot.ai in Designer.
5. Ungrouped the imported vector layers (boolean Add doesn't work on groups?!)
6. Boolean Add to convert all traced objects – over 4000 here – to a single curves layer. Can take quite some time (as in: several minutes) on my 2012 MacBook Pro…
7. Applied Pantone spot color to the curves, set to overprint
8. Placed a random background photo from Unsplash Stock
9. Encountered a beach ball of death when trying to move the placed photo while the complex curves were visible. Solution: 1) force quit Designer, 2) relaunch, 3) disable curves layer, 4) position and resize photo as background and lock, 5) reenable curves layer
10. Voilà in Designer (still v1.8.4 on El Capitan):
    
     
11. Exported as PDF/X-4 and double-checked in Acrobat 10:
    

The PDF/X-4 file here: Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot.pdf
Size: ca 105×105 cm (!), ca 5 MB
And that's the beauty of vector: scalability!

Didn't test if it's printable though. Print at your own risk…

[Chris L]

23 minutes ago, loukash said:

Alright, here we go:

1. It's grayscale JPEG but I didn't bother to convert it to 1-bit – imported straight to Illustrator CS5 for live tracing as is.
2. Just "quick'n'dirty" settings (pardon my French, mein Illustrator can nicht speak Englisch), the tracing is thus a bit "rough":
   
   Would give a better result if I'd fine tuned the pixel image first. That could be easily done in Photo and exported as 1-bit PNG for tracing in AI or another app.
    
3. Saved as Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot.ai
4. Opened Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot.ai in Designer.
5. Ungrouped the imported vector layers (boolean Add doesn't work on groups?!)
6. Boolean Add to convert all traced objects – over 4000 here – to a single curves layer. Can take quite some time (as in: several minutes) on my 2012 MacBook Pro…
7. Applied Pantone spot color to the curves, set to overprint
8. Placed a random background photo from Unsplash Stock
9. Encountered a beach ball of death when trying to move the placed photo while the complex curves were visible. Solution: 1) force quit Designer, 2) relaunch, 3) disable curves layer, 4) position and resize photo as background and lock, 5) reenable curves layer
10. Voilà in Designer (still v1.8.4 on El Capitan):
    
     
11. Exported as PDF/X-4 and double-checked in Acrobat 10:
    

The PDF/X-4 file here: Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot.pdf
Size: ca 105×105 cm (!), ca 5 MB
And that's the beauty of vector: scalability!

Didn't test if it's printable though. Print at your own risk…

LOL, just because you can doesn't mean you should 🙂

You just illustrated perfectly why many people would like this feature. I would hate to have seen the number of vectors if a more accurate trace had been done.
 

[loukash]

15 minutes ago, Chris L said:

many people would like this feature

And I never said that I wouldn't like it. I'm all for it.

15 minutes ago, Chris L said:

a more accurate trace

Didn't have enough time today, but I can look into it later.

15 minutes ago, Chris L said:

just because you can doesn't mean you should

42 minutes ago, loukash said:

the beauty of vector: scalability!

In other words:
Sometimes you want.
Sometimes you must.

Edited February 9, 2021 by loukash

[000]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

And that's the beauty of vector: scalability!

Firstly, even though this workflow works, it is incredibly tedious and requires another software — working professionally I don‘t have the time and my customers don‘t want to spend the money wasting my time like this when I could just use InDesign, import the original file and recolour it with a single mouse click.

Also, you need to consider that the sample above is an artwork and since vectorising is never 100% accurate by doing so you change the artists vision in many subtle ways that may change the aura / impact / energy / personality of the image — an absolute no-go!

There are workflows that require 1 Bit images for one reason or another and fact is, that all three Affinity products are currently not suitable when you need to work with this kind of images.

I think it is important to raise and push the issue with 1 Bit images once in a while and talk bout it, hoping the developers implement it at some point, but ‚alternative workflows‘ are just not feasible in many cases and currently the situation simply is that you have to use another software if you need to work with 1 bit images — and for me that is absolutely fine; I like the Affinity apps very much, but in cases where my favourite tool doesn‘t work, I use a different one.

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

requires another software

Definitely. As long as Serif doesn't add any vector tracing tools.
Doesn't need to be Ill-frustrator though. I've seen threads here with links to many affordable alternatives.

3 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

working professionally I don‘t have the time and my customers don‘t want to spend the money wasting my time like this when I could just use InDesign, import the original file and recolour it with a single mouse click.

Hm.
Lemme think.
Could it be that InDesign is obviously the best tool for what you're doing? And since you do it professionally, its subscription fee would be actually part of what you're charging for your work?

Don't get me wrong. I'd like to get rid of Adobe apps as much as the next guy. CS5.5 doesn't work on Catalina and beyond. I never jumped onto their CC subscription ripoff because for the amount of work and turnover that I have with graphic design, the subscription fee simply doesn't add up. So, e.g. in Designer I'd love being able to accomplish anything I can do in Illustrator (I'm looking at you, vector roughen effect which I can apply on live typography!). Etc. etc. But Affinity is just not there yet. So we're keeping on asking for features. And bugfixes. Sometimes we get some. (Features AND bugs, haha.) Sometimes not, and so we have to resort to workarounds.
Or we have to resort to the software that will do the job now without crashing or tedious workarounds, etc.

It's really that simple.™

12 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

you change the artists vision in many subtle ways that may change the aura / impact / energy / personality of the image — an absolute no-go!

Er… not the point here whatsoever. That's something between you and the artist.

19 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

I think it is important to raise and push the issue with 1 Bit images once in a while and talk bout it

Definitely! As I said:

2 hours ago, loukash said:

I'm all for it.

20 minutes ago, Jens Krebs said:

‚alternative workflows‘ are just not feasible in many cases

That's inevitable.
Much like Illustrator or Photoshop CS5 were "just not feasible in many cases", so that I've completed a task in Designer or Photo instead. (Sadly, can't say that about InDesign vs. Publisher yet.)
That's why we – being professionals – are using specialized tools. Right?

Cheers!

[Poziomka]

On 2/7/2021 at 9:30 AM, Fixx said:

Export to 1-bit can be done with Affinity, but the real problem is how to use 1-bit art in Designer or Publisher. Thus far it cannot be done as we would like.

This is the actual problem. Even in the new version (1.9) 1 bit image saved as pdf and placed as a link in designer (should pass unchanged - passthrough) is visible in the project and exports to pdf x4 as 1 bit but black and white! And only black 1 should remain, white 0 - that is, none. The image retains bit depth, resolution and raster, but the biggest advantage - no background is gone!

[loukash]

On 2/7/2021 at 9:30 AM, Fixx said:

the real problem is how to use 1-bit art in Designer or Publisher. Thus far it cannot be done as we would like.

Inspired by another thread, I just reran a few tutorial videos from affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/desktop.
So let's take the Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot JPEG again:

1. open JPEG in Photo; would be a good idea to upsample to 1200 ppi but let's keep it @ 300 for now
2. it's got too many shades of gray, so let's add a few curve adjustment layers to increase contrast
3. Layer > Merge Visible = creates a pixel layer copy
4. Filters > Color > Monochrome Dither – looks pretty much 1-bit to me, even though it technically isn't
5. Let's remove the white pixels! Flood Select Tools > Tolerance 0, Contiguous OFF > 1 click > delete = transparent 1-bit image
6. File > Export > PNG > More > Grayscale > Nearest Neighbor > Matte transparent > […] > Palettized > Automatic > Colors: 2
7. open Designer > new CMYK document
8. add your Pantone spot color swatch to document swatches, set it to Global and Overprint
9. import the 1-bit Gates-of-Heaven-DP891322-Jacques_Callot.PNG from previous export
10. select the image > context toolbar > click the K Only button > Fill: the Pantone swatch you've added in #8
11. take note of the 1-bit image resolution, in our example it's 580 ppi
12. add whatever other content/background you wish
13. export as PDF/X-3 or X-4 with Raster "DPI" set to 580

Voilà:

And the Afdesign doc:
Gates-of-Heaven.afdesign.zip

[StrawHousePig]

On 2/10/2021 at 4:08 PM, loukash said:

open JPEG in Photo; would be a good idea to upsample to 1200 ppi

I'm sorry, but how is this done? Photo maxes out at 400 as far as I can tell.

 

At any rate, found this thread searching for affinity photo high dpi bitmap after discovering this limitation today. So add +1 for high res 1 bit image support, pls!

[loukash]

58 minutes ago, StrawHousePig said:

how is this done?

Type the value into the field by using your keyboard …

[John Rostron]

1 hour ago, StrawHousePig said:

I'm sorry, but how is this done? Photo maxes out at 400 as far as I can tell.

Use Resize document and type 1200 into the box.

John

[StrawHousePig]

23 hours ago, loukash said:

Type the value into the field by using your keyboard …

The reason I ask is I opened a 600 ppi scan PDF to convert to bitmap and "400" was the max option other than "best guess" or whatever the wording is in the import dialog. But I went ahead and tried to generate my file for production and you know how that went, so I wound up here.

Later I used "Resize Document" and it does work, but I'm not happy with the dithering (or lack of) done during resample. It's not wrong, but Preview (macOS) does a nicer job of that. I'm OK doing that. It's fine for digital, but analog production will not work with that. I'll have to whip out GraphicConverter or something.

 

Oh snap, further testing before posting I see you can save a "palletized" PNG as Black&White that (for my purposes) seems to work as a 1-bit bitmap. Waiting on my film to develop...

[Medical Officer Bones]

Converting 1200ppi 1bit images to vector is just not a feasible workflow in stressful production scenarios. Aside from the problem that for very detailed line work it produces very heavy and difficult to process vector files, for more detailed inked art work it just can't resolve the details sufficiently.

Take comic printing as an example: it is entirely impractical to convert hundreds of pages of line art... And having to check each page for problems.

And, as @MikeW pointed out earlier, as long as imported high resolution 1bit artwork isn't even retained in the PDF output, the whole point is moot.

The preferred solution is for [1] Affinity Photo to natively support 1bit images at any resolution, and allow these to be edited that way. [2] Publisher and Designer should be able to process them, and output to a PDF. Colorizing should be possible in Designer and Publisher.

The developers have already stated that [1] will never be implemented. (I suspect this might be related to them wanting to avoid a complete re-haul of the core processing engine.)  Instead, they have seemingly decided to output 1bit images only. Which leaves [2] - and this must be added before Publisher can be fully integrated in many regular prepress conditions and workflows.

[2] is absolutely essential for prepress work. Simple as that. No workarounds, no excuses. That said, I am pretty certain the devs are aware of this, and will implement support for this at some point. It should be given top priority after the latest 1.9 release.

I agree with @loukash: be software agnostic. If Affinity or other software will not provide what is required to pull off a job without turning upside down and twisting left and right, then switch to other software that can. I still use InDesign for FXL ebook work, because Affinity Publisher lacks this option.

Similarly, any 1bit high resolution artwork editing I do in PhotoLine, which is the only image editor that I know of that allows for native 1bit editing AND use layers! Nothing else on the market, including Adobe Photoshop, handles 1bit images that well. Being able to edit layered 1bit images is pretty darn awesome when an important part of my workflow revolves around manipulating 1bit high resolution imagery. 😎

Same for indexed pixel art jobs: Affinity Photo, Photoshop, PhotoLine, and just about any other general image editor out there cannot handle 8-bit  (or less) indexed fixed colour palettes with full layer support. Either it is not supported at all (Photo and PhotoLine) or the editing is severely hampered (Photoshop only allows for a single layer in indexed colour mode).

Which means I use alternative dedicated pixel art software (ProMotion NG, but there are other options).

Anyway, what I am trying to say: the job at hand should, in the end, dictate what tool fits best to handle that job. Endless work-arounds may be helpful in the odd unexpected bind, but are useless and time-consuming if used in a common day-to-day pipeline and workflow. Then it's time to find an alternative solution to fill the gap.

[StrawHousePig]

2 hours ago, StrawHousePig said:

Oh snap, further testing before posting I see you can save a "palletized" PNG as Black&White that (for my purposes) seems to work as a 1-bit bitmap. Waiting on my film to develop...

Bingo!

 

Speaking for myself, of course. YMMV

[DaKo]

On 5/29/2020 at 6:07 PM, Chris L said:

I used to use the 1 bit bitmap tiff an awful lot as an Adobe user. I can't find a simple way to drop a bitmap into a document and colourise it within the document, and also have a transparent background. I know I can create a png with transparency and drop that into a designer or publisher file, but this is no good when working with line art. You simply can't do it with the same quality.

Going back to the original topic of this thread... I've just started with Publisher 1.9 after 20 years of InDesign, and this is a MAJOR disappointment. 1-bit tiff (bmp) is an extremely useful format for logos, autographs, drawings etc. that need to be colour-adjusted according to other design elements. If I change the text colour I don't want to open - say a logo - re-colour it in another program, save it as a new file, and re-link it. It's a ridiculous waste of time.

PLEASE ADD SUPPORT FOR 1-BIT TIFFS (with transparency and independent resolution)!!

Edited March 2, 2021 by DaKo

[loukash]

7 minutes ago, DaKo said:

Publisher 1.9 […] colour-adjusted according to other design elements

In Publisher: select the placed image > Contextual Toolbar > "K Only" button > right next to it: Fill

10 minutes ago, DaKo said:

1-bit tiff (bmp) is an extremely useful format for logos, autographs, drawings etc

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…

13 minutes ago, DaKo said:

I've just started with Publisher 1.9 after 20 years of InDesign

I hear you, and there will be a lot of Adobe mindset and muscle memories to be left behind. Fear not, most of it will work out fine, just differently.

[Medical Officer Bones]

51 minutes 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…

Uhm, no: it is a workflow used for drawings in comics publishing and CAD/technical manuals everywhere. Also quite a bit in academic publications.

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.

[loukash]

Just now, Medical Officer Bones said:

in comics publishing and CAD/technical manuals

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

15 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

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!

Not good. Fully agreed!

[Medical Officer Bones]

9 minutes ago, loukash said:

But logos?

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! 😉

[loukash]

6 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

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

Yep, I had to rebuild quite a bunch of those to vector, too. The client paid.

But other than that, the first thing I've been doing in the past 20 years when someone sent me a crappy bitmap logo was to make them understand that if they want to have a layout that would work everywhere, in print and on Teh Interwebs, they must send me a vector logo. 99% of my clients got it in the meantime. For the rest, vectorizing or rebuilding from scratch to the rescue.
In any case, 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.

That said, I still haven't converted my InDesign logo library to my upcoming Affinity workflow yet. Should be easily manageable via IDML though.

[Medical Officer Bones]

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.