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Everything prints low rez with jagged edges


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Vector art & text look so crisp on my ipad screen. But when I print them they look low DPI and have jagged edges.

Non Affinity Designer docs print fine, so it’s not the printer.  I’m not printing directly from the app, or from my iPad, because AirPrint is totally (insert bad word here).

I have already tried:  

Increasing resolution of documents to 300dpi, 600dpi, & 1200dpi.

Exporting documents as PDF for print. Setting dpi in export settings to 300dpi & 600dpi.

Setting Rasterizing in export settings to unsupported properties, nothing, and everything.

Making sure layer opacity set to Normal in all layers.

I’m using a USB laser printer.

This is my first post. Any help appreciated.

 

08464E45-E252-4EDF-BBD4-BD657FBBB97F.jpeg

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Rae7

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

In Designer, are you using a standard font with no FX applied? After exporting to PDF from Designer and previewing, does the text look ok before print? How to this text compare to another PDF thats printed and have you tried another printer? If  not possible can you upload a sample document (the above) So I can test printing.

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I've been moaning about this for a few years - the only solution for reasonably accurate proofs from Affinity is PDF then open in Acrobat pro or reader and print = predictable CMYK and nice crisp vector - to my eye it looks like Affinitys very basic print engine doesn't have the beef to sent vector to a printer that has a postscript rip and just pre rasterises, plus converts to RGB then the rip converts back to CMYK to print - I did find a post a couple of years back which stated that there are no plans to improve this which is shocking (lets hope this changes) - not every printshop has an all singing and dancing PDF workflow RIP - I've personally never used another graphics app aimed at pros that does this - even acrobat reader can send CMYK and Vector - ?!?!?!

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Rae7 said:

That’s discouraging.  I’m planning to sell printable files. If they aren’t printable without jumping through hoops, it will just be a long line of angry customers demanding a refund.

Sorry to hear your dilemma - should look perfect if you export pdf then print from Acrobat reader but that's just another workaround - really sad that it's just taken for granted that a pro app would be upto the job for this simple task but doesn't currently have the beef -

Would be really helpful if Lee D could chip in with a comment on this?

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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My only guess is that the text is not 100% black and the printer has used a poor dither to make grey.Perhaps it's a colour profile issue making true black into grey as the printer sees it, and then a print dither issue on that colour. Are your files CMYK native or RGB? 

Lee asked for a sample file can you provide one?

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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Hi Patrick,

The text was set to black in Affinity designer. And I did set the document to CMYK.

My regular printer is a workhorse that’s never had this issue with grey text or shapes before. But I tried it on another printer. Same result.

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THANK YOU, Dazmondo77!

I tried opening the document in, and printing with, Acrobat. It came out perfect. I tried printing greys. Perfect.

I wish I could find a solution for jpgs, which still come out of the printer looking hungover.  But I can tell customers jpgs aren’t available and to open their files in Acrobat, which turned out not to be a serious hoop to jump through.

Thank you again!

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Good to hear from you Patrick - does this now mean that we now have the ability to be able to print crisp vectors and CMYK direct from Affinity that are as good as Acrobat?

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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On 12/18/2020 at 3:49 AM, Rae7 said:

My regular printer is a workhorse that’s never had this issue with grey text or shapes before. But I tried it on another printer. Same result.

Hi, I downloaded the file, opened in Designer, grouped, duplicated and enlarged one group. Then selected print fron Designers Document menu. Result was crisp looking print on paper. Printer is Epson ET-3700, networked to iPad for air printing. Took a photo of printed page to show result. 

89034719-9E26-43A0-AA10-206980F0E875.jpeg

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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Hi DM1,

Thank you so much for going to all that trouble to check the file for me.  

I have solved the PDF quality issue by opening my AD PDF’s with Acrobat Reader before printing. Unfortunately,  JPEG files  still look bad when they print.

I see you were using an Epson, which I believe is an inkjet.  I noticed another post on this forum from a user who had the same issue as me with their laser printer. So perhaps the problem is laser printer/Affinity Designer iPad compatibility.

If you are so inclined, I’ve attached a JPEG file.  I would be curious to see how a JPEG prints on an inkjet. 

Thanks again!

JPG300.jpg

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7 hours ago, Rae7 said:

Unfortunately,  JPEG files  still look bad when they print.

Nice and sharp too with jpg.🙂

There is a new Designer beta with improved PDF printing features (not sure if relevant to your print issue) might be worth trying. You can install separately to existing release.

 

9128DEF9-432B-4FD6-8146-0AA7387282EA.jpeg

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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The beta is for the iPad.
You should checkout Epson site as from time to time they have refurb units at around half the price of new. The 3700 model has more inkjets than the other Epson ink tank models. It was costing me $180 for ink in my old Epson xp850 printer so when it died after a close lightning strike, I bit the bullet and bought this one. It has ink tanks and comes with 2 years supply of ink. The refills are $15. In the long run I’ll be much better off cost wise.

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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I've just run a couple of tests in the latest pub 1.9 beta and nothing has improved  - my conclusion is that the Affinity print engine isn't (currently) compatible with Postscript which is a print industry standard ?!?!?! and my only option is to use Acrobat to print - where does that leave us?

If Big Sur and apple silicon is the future, we'll still have to resort to Adobe for accurate print until this problem is fixed 

On 6/25/2019 at 4:15 PM, Pauls said:

It looks unlikely that we will support printing directly in cmyk to printers - as you have found exporting to PDF/x standards and printing that is the workflow for this occasion.

see attached scanned print samples below

1471309449_Publisherprintcmykandvector.png.bf89fab5f43b3926562189caf3bd6a9d.png1862938772_Acrobatprintcmykandvector.png.81b66f0730ef36e486cd96eb1e8f1216.png

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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On 12/21/2020 at 4:33 AM, Dazmondo77 said:

It looks unlikely that we will support printing directly in cmyk to printers - as you have found exporting to PDF/x standards and printing that is the workflow for this occasion.

This appears to explain why the CMYK was printing poorly, but it doesn't really explain why the JPGs were also printing poorly, right? Am I misunderstanding?

Sorry, I read the whole thread and would really like to understand this issue since I also have plans to sell printable files down the road.

2019 MacBook Pro 16” | Affinity Designer 2 | Affinity Photo 2 | Affinity Publisher 2

2018 iPad Pro 12.9” | Apple Pencil 2 | Affinity Designer for iPad 2 | Affinity Photo for iPad 2 | Affinity Publisher for iPad 2

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Some laser printers have a toner saving feature where they don’t shade object fully. You may want to check if your printer has this turned on by default. I just Printed to my HP Color LaserJet with my iPad at 600 dpi with K, C, and M lettering and it came out fine.

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