weheri Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 (edited) Hi everyone, new Affinity Designer since yesterday here I'm currently working on my first project with the tool and have encountered something strange. I'd like to use to outer shadows for some text elements. This works quite well, unless I put some black background behind the text. Then the outer shadow (no matter which color it has) is not being displayed. It seems, like the shadow is hidden behind the background color. When I export the file as a PDF, the outer shadow is back again, both on the white and the black background. I attached 2 screenshots to show you the problem. Is this a bug or is there any setting I need to change, so the outer shadow is always shown, no matter which background color I use? Thanks in advance! Preview in Affinity Designer: Result in PDF Export: Edited December 22, 2020 by weheri changed order of screenshots & added a description Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gear maker Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 30 minutes ago, weheri said: Is this a bug or is there any setting I need to change, so the outer shadow is always shown, no matter which background color I use? This is because the default blend mode for the outer shadow is a Multiply (black times any color gives you black). Open the Layer Effects panel by clicking on the fx at the bottom of the layers panel and change the Blend mode to normal or play with others to see the effect. weheri 1 Quote iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) with macOS Sierra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weheri Posted December 22, 2020 Author Share Posted December 22, 2020 Thank you so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gear maker Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 Just now, weheri said: Thank you so much! Any time. Quote iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) with macOS Sierra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pšenda Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 (edited) 8 hours ago, Gear maker said: This is because the default blend mode for the outer shadow is a Multiply (black times any color gives you black). But it is interesting, that when exporting to PDF it works completely differently! Either it is not exported as Multiply mode, or Multiply mode is blended differently in the PDF. Anyway, this can be quite a surprise after exporting to PDF. Edit: So I made a small test. This is what the image looks like in ADesigner: Here's what it looks like in Acrobat Reader: And this is what it looks like after loading the PDF back into ADesigner: It is therefore clear, that during the export, the fx function was replaced by a specific image layer, which, however, does not correspond to the original appearance, ie that the Multiple mode with black is mixed again into black. Is this a desirable function (the exported image "does not" match the original), or is it an bug? Edited December 22, 2020 by Pšenda Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301 Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 2 hours ago, Pšenda said: Is this a desirable function (the exported image "does not" match the original), or is it an bug? I seem to recall reading in these forums that the PDF specification does not support the Multiply blend mode, which probably requires rasterization (unless your export options don't allow it). No, that seems to be an incorrect memory. Thanks, MikeW (below). Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.7, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pšenda Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 8 minutes ago, walt.farrell said: I seem to recall reading in these forums that the PDF specification does not support the Multiply blend mode, which probably requires rasterization (unless your export options don't allow it). Yes, why not - that's not the problem. But this export rasterization (not really rasterization, but the creation of a specific layer with a shadow) must respect the way it is displayed/blended in Affinity. Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301 Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 It's due to the fact that when it is exported as a vector format (PDF, SVG), the shadow will be handled as a complete bitmap portion of the initial text here and in the vector sample there is then no blend mode is supplied. Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted December 22, 2020 Share Posted December 22, 2020 For exported SVG it should be as with PDF here, aka there isn't any blend mode applied then. Though SVG can make use of the mix-blend-mode CSS property, which then sets how an element's content should blend with the content of the element's parent and the element's background. Here is a small example, which draws three little circles in SVG and blends these together with the CSS "mix-blend-mode" property in multiply mode. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>SVG blend example</title> <style> circle { mix-blend-mode: multiply; } </style> </head> <body> <svg> <circle cx="40" cy="40" r="40" fill="black"/> <circle cx="80" cy="40" r="40" fill="lightgreen"/> <circle cx="60" cy="80" r="40" fill="red"/> </svg> </body> </html> However, these things aren't supported by Affinity exports. Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted December 23, 2020 Share Posted December 23, 2020 1 hour ago, walt.farrell said: I seem to recall reading in these forums that the PDF specification does not support the Multiply blend mode, which probably requires rasterization (unless your export options don't allow it). Multiply blend mode is permitted in a pdf, regardless whether vector or bitmap. Serif uses PDFLib (if I recall), which can export using these blend modes (from the programming manual): /* Records with all blend modes */ final blendmoderecord blendmodes[] = { new blendmoderecord("Normal", "no blending effect: foreground obscures background"), new blendmoderecord("Darken", "symmetric mode"), new blendmoderecord("Multiply", "symmetric mode"), new blendmoderecord("ColorBurn", ""), new blendmoderecord("Lighten", "symmetric mode"), new blendmoderecord("Screen", "symmetric mode"), new blendmoderecord("ColorDodge", ""), new blendmoderecord("HardLight", ""), new blendmoderecord("SoftLight", ""), new blendmoderecord("Overlay", ""), new blendmoderecord("Difference", "symmetric mode"), new blendmoderecord("Exclusion", "symmetric mode"), new blendmoderecord("Hue", ""), new blendmoderecord("Saturation", ""), new blendmoderecord("Color", ""), new blendmoderecord("Luminosity", "Like \"Color\", but with foreground and background exchanged") }; Some of which will require rasterization. walt.farrell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.