Cut and paste differences

[Tony Jackson]

Hi Walt, following some discussion under "Absolute beginner" here is an example of what I've come across.

"Sample Squiggle" was a blank document, in which I made a random squiggle in black with the pixel tool.

I then copied and pasted it (using Cmd C and Cmd V), and used the Move tool to slide the copied version away downwardss from the original.

If you enlarge it to, say, 3,000% you will clearly see a mid-grey artefact attached  somewhat unpredicatbly to the shape of the original.  Less obvious is a very pale grey artifact, usually on the opposite side of the line.  Some bits of the line are not affected at all, so far as I can see. I found three levels of grey.

I would copy from my diagram, but in pasting it into a document you could see I would be corrupting it anyway, which would be confusing.  But if you care to believe me I will say that I usually get more complicated blurring than this.

I've put up the original diagram, renamed as "Wiring x", and at position 57 on the scale at the bottom of the page, and about half way between top and bottom there is a box with the legend 'Na 7' in it.  The box is made of two black one-pixel-width lines, with the space between them filled with pink.  A similar box, with the legend 'Na 5' is to be found at 47 on the bottom scale and a bit above the middle vertically; it show no sign of blurring.  I can't say for certain whether this is something which I copied without the paste problem, or something I made from scratch.  But this is what Na 7 looked like originally.  The pattern of artefacts is similar, but different.  The letter 'N' has artefaacts on both sides of its legs and of its diagonal.

You will see that the original single-pixel line is still there in my 'Squiggle' example, but it has been lost in the Na 7 example.

Interestingly, when I opened the diagram the squiggle vanished.  Luckily I had saved it!

Best regards, Tony.

Wiring_x.afphoto

Sample squiggle.afphoto

[Tony Jackson]

No reply on this topic!  Does this mean that I've wasted a load of time getting to begin to cope with a program which won't support pixel-accurate editing?  I'm sure I've managed to get some stuff to copy clean, but I've wasted a lot of time picking out jpeg-style artifacts one pixel at a time since.

Not just cut and paste.

I've unclicked anti-aliasing, but text I produce with the text tool still appears 'smoothed', and thus quite out of keeping with the document whose style I'm trying to conform to.

This blurring is clearly a topic which some others have wrestled with, and a behaviour which is surprising in a professional application.  No such problem with Photoshop, but those of us without big corporate employers are no longe able to use it.

Any one suggest something more suitable I might try?

Best regards, Tony.

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, Tony Jackson said:

No reply on this topic! 

You posted in the wrong place to be asking questions, Tony. Questions belong in the Questions forum, not Share your Work. Posting in the wrong place makes it easy for things to get lost, as seems to have happened this time. Sorry.

Possibly one of the moderators will move this, so it will get more attention

I'll try to take more of a look at it later.

[Tony Jackson]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your kindly interest!  I obviously hadn't spotted that the forum was divided in this way.  Will it offend if I copy and paste to the questions forum, or should I wait until a moderator moves it?

Best regards, Tony.

[carl123]

In your squiggle document the grey artefacts are because your X/Y coordinates are not whole pixel values. Change them to whole pixel values and the grey will disappear

 

[Tony Jackson]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for your note!

How can I change the X/Y coordinates – or better, how can I arrange for non-integer numbers of pixels not to be allowed (if that is what the issue is)?  I can't see any display of coordinates on the screen?  The original squiggle clearly doesn't offend, the pasted version does.  I found that if I enlarge to, say 2000% I can drag the pasted squiggle so as to eliminate the artifacts eiither to the sides or above and/or below, and reduce the number of shades they display.   Pretty fiddly, but possible.  No way I could find to eliminate the artifacts both up and across at the same time.

The 'clicking' or 'notchiness' of the way things move I find very helpful, but I guess it doesn't apply when I'm drgging a paste away from its copy-parent?

Best regards, Tony

[Lee D]

As @carl123 shows in his screenshot, use the Transform panel to change the X & Y coordinates of a selected object to non-integer numbers. You can also enable Force Pixel Alignment and Move by Whole Pixels on the toolbar next to Snapping.

If the Transform panel isn't visible use View > Studio > Transform.

[Tony Jackson]

20 minutes ago, Lee D said:

Quote

 

As @carl123 shows in his screenshot, use the Transform panel to change the X & Y coordinates of a selected object to non-integer numbers. You can also enable Force Pixel Alignment and Move by Whole Pixels on the toolbar next to Snapping.

If the Transform panel isn't visible use View > Studio > Transform.

Sorry, can't make the Quote system work today...

Hi Lee,  thanks for this note – it has pointed me down another avenue!

In practice what I've learned is that I can avoid the 'Move Tool' by using a marquee, which I can drag around without any artifacts, so this solves my immediate problem.  It is a bit clumsier than I'm used to, insisting on an extra layer all the time, and only posting where I copied from, rather than where I've politely put the cursor, but I gather that that is nowadays the way of things, and I'm getting quicker at it.  And to avoid an impenetrable stack of layers I try to discipline myself to merge my working document and the layer with the paste on it as soon as I'm happy with where it is.

Just today I've discovered that the reason I couldn't adjust my marquees (meaning I have to keep doing it until I get it pixel-correct) is because I'd taken the circumflex symbolt to mean 'Shift'.  Alas, my shift-up key is broken, so when I spotted a panel offering to latch a 'modify' mode to my marquee-drawing I was very pleased (my supplier of keyboards is hiding in lockdown I presume!)

I've some other things to learn, but I'm on the way, my diagram is substantialy complete.  I'd like to be able to reduce its file size, which seems to have crept up with little, and lately a big jump, as I reduce the mumber of pixels in the drawing!  Nice if I could define the small number of colours I want which I suspect is part of the problem, as also some text I've typed in which I got near to rasterising, but not near enough!

I will have an experimental go at the transform panel.  With something like my squiggle, which is inherently pixellated in the original, I'm not sure how I wuld decide on a position for it – perhaps a number of x- and y-pixels of displacement.  I will check. Thanks for the prompt!

Best regards, Tony