White lines on selections

[waltonmendelson]

I am using Affinity Photo 1.10.0.1127 on Windows 10 system. I am getting white lines that do not come from careless extracting/erasing.

 

Example A: I am doing a book that contains scans of printed pages to demonstrate print quality at KDP.  In this example, there are four scanned pages per book page; and there will be approximately 20 such pages.

 

Example B: The problem is that there are white lines on the pages.

These are caused by artifacts of other selections which are made as follows:

 

Example C: this is my workflow . . . 

1. Scan a page, right side of C, with red drop shadow to outline the page
2. Place it in the working file
3. Select the image using the Rectangular Marquee Tool
4. Copy the selection: Shift Ctrl C (I am aware that Shift is not necessary, but it seems to prevent either not copying the selection (Ctrl C) or not copying over the previous selection: both happen when I only use Ctrl C)
5. Paste the selection into a new layer: Ctrl V
6. Turn off the base layer for the selection (See D)
7. Trim, square, resize and position the selection
8. Lock the layer

 

Example D: The trimmed selection layers are active, their respective base layers are turned off.

 

I group all the layers for each page, and I export each group as a jpg.

 

I tracked down the white lines to another one of the trimmed images.  When I clean around the image the white lines disappeared. But where do the white lines come from?

 

I have made 28 scanned pages.  Each has been treated exactly the same way:

• I make a selection, using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, of the image within the scan/layer
• I copy the selection to a new layer
• I turn off the original layer

 

I have noticed this on two other pairs of pages.

 

Walton

 

[NotMyFault]

Hi Walton,

sorry to hear about your issues.

Could you explain a bit you process how do you scan the images, store the scanned images, and the process the images in Photo?

And what you want to achieve by these steps?

In the first place, i do not understand why you are using selection, copy and paste. Affinity offers other methods to hide unwanted parts of the images which might be better suited:

• Using a rectangular shape nested as clipping mask to the original scanned image layer
• Using a mask layer

Never the less, the issues could be caused by one of the following common issues. I absolutely do not want to say there is any mistake on your side, but could you please double-check:

• layers not pixel aligned (check with transform panel, while move tool is active)
• Not using snapping / force pixel alignment while moving or selecting
• GPU driver issues (check if latest driver is used)
• Rendering of images in Affinity could temporary show artifacts, especially when using any zoom level other than 100%, or by GPU driver issues. Please check if the white lines are visible after "merge visible" or in exported files.

It would help to solve the issue if you could upload the afphoto files.

[waltonmendelson]

Thank you for getting back to me. 

Scanning is straight forward:

• I scan in RGB at 1200ppi (maximum optical resolution) or 300ppi, depending on the purpose; I use a USB microscope for more detailed analysis
• I save as JPGs
• These scans are saved is working folders, relative to the issues they represent. 
• I do no image processing/enhancement whatsoever, other than straightening, trimming, cropping

I have been studying how Amazon (first CreateSpace, now KDP) prints color and B&W.  As a printer they are exceedingly secretive.  For most people, that doesn't matter.  But for anyone with graphics experience, or wanting to get the most out of what can be done, secretiveness is not good.  Currently I am compiling probably several hundred tests (source files in CMYK and sRGB for color books, on two different papers; CMYK and sRGB for B&W books converted on the fly; text & rules in varying sizes, and text & rules reversed out of Registration Black, Photoshop Black, and 100& K-only; etc.)  These will go into a book that demonstrates KDP's digital printing capabilities.

While I have drawn conclusions, I want to be able to show people what I base them on.  

Workflow: Working in Photoshop, a quick rectangular selection, Ctrl J to put the selection on it's own layer, and tweaking the rotation/alignment, is much faster than masking.  Old habits are hard to break.

White lines/artifacts: I suppose you're thinking of things like Stitching Lines in PDFs.  These white lines print and they can be erased.

Snapping: I have snapping off for much of the work.  I like snapping, and use it whenever possible, but here it's more of a pain.

Pixel alignment: I'm not sure what you mean by "layers not pixel aligned (check with transform panel, while move tool is active)"

Walton

 

 

[NotMyFault]

30 minutes ago, waltonmendelson said:

These white lines print and they can be erased.

What do you man by "can be erased"?

31 minutes ago, waltonmendelson said:

Workflow: Working in Photoshop,

Do you mean Affinity Photo or Photoshop? Do you copy within one application, or between Photoshop and Affinity apps?

Could you please upload one of the scanned images as jpg, and one Affinity Photo document where the issue is visible`?

[waltonmendelson]

Again, let me thank you for replying. I spent several hours earlier, active on the KDP forum, with someone who is having problems and has taken almost all comments as personal attacks.  This relationship between posting a question and getting answers is fraught with landmines.   

Erasing the white lines: I can take the Erase Tool, and with a black slip sheet layer behind the offending layer, so I can see them, I can erase them.  This is significant in that the lines are not like Stitching Lines in PDFs. 

Workflow in evolved from Photoshop: I meant I developed my workflow from Photoshop, which I've been using since before there were layers!  So that I've had almost 30 years of developing and learning workflows.  For this project I am using Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher, and a little Affinity Designer.  I would love to jettison my Adobe rental fees, but so far, I cannot.

I have been working in the Affinity suite as much as possible, probably 98% of the project so far.  But, there is no way in Affinity to check/double check the PDF for Color Spaces (using Acrobat's Output Previewer and Preflight panels), or going back into Photoshop to double confirm CMYK and RGB spot checks (at least not conveniently).

Examples of white lines: Examples A (top two images), and B (with arrows) show the white lines. While these examples do not show the white lines with any prominence: the printed pieces will, and I am trying to be as faithful to the printed pages and the scans of them.  

Walton

 

[NotMyFault]

Thank you Walton for additional input.

I've seen your screenshots already, but to really analyze the cause of the issue it would be required to reproduce how the issue where started or caused, and therefore the jpg images of the scanned files (not a screenshot) would really help, and one .afphoto file that where created by "your" workflow. Unfortunately it is not possible to get this information from the screenshots you already provided. There are too many potential causes for the white lines.

If this is not possible for you, unfortunately I'm unable to help in this case, but other forum members or Affinity moderators will hopefully step in.

Regarding transform panel and pixel alignment, have a look here:

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Panels/transformPanel.html

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/DesignAids/pixelAlign.html

 

Have a nice evening

 

 

 

 

[waltonmendelson]

Again thank you . . . I appreciate the time.  

I agree that there are many possibilities for the problem.  However, given my initial workflow, at least in Photoshop (where I've been doing this sort of thing for over 20 years) I've never had this problem, there is a point of dimishing returns in trying to work out the who, what, where, when, why, and how of it.  Perhaps I am committing a post hoc error, who knows.

Anyway, I don't have the time to pursue this, or any of the other problems I've noted, mostly regarding AffinityPublisher.  Several days to solve and document each of them (i.e. 8 to 40 hours) does not get my work done.

Thak you, too, for the links. 

Walton