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[1.10.1127] Any image saved in .afphoto format becomes blurry


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What... happened here? What are you talking about?

This is a very simple problem.

If you open the original PNG image and set the zoom to 100% you get this, a sharp looking image:

176784714_DielinesOriginalCrop.png.4ec418c8baac7e5ac8c754b06400940f.png

 

If you save it as Affinity Photo file without changing anything at all, close and reopen the file, you see this:

902461209_DielineGuides1Crop.png.c780a3cab99853e6cb13b8196278a37f.png

 

It's clearly blurry, and this happens with ANY image, not just this one. I've chosen it because it's easier to see, but pick any image and do the steps, the result will be the same. That's all there is to it.

And it's obviously a rendering bug limited to Affinity Photo for Windows since the same file will always look sharp when opened in Designer, in Publisher, and in Photo for the iPad.

 

EDIT: Your very own 'restored' (?) file shows the exact same issue! I've recorded a video so you can see it (see it full screen please). Just notice how the layer will become much sharper as soon as you move it. A rendering bug. That's it.

Also, not captured here, but undoing the move will not make the layer blurry again. Once it's sharp from being moved, it remains sharp. Once again, obvious rendering bug, there's nothing changed in the image data.

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The “restored” layer is not sharp. Its still blurry.

what you perceive as “sharper while moving” is a rendering artifact. It is a downsampled version upscaled in a way that creates blocks of 4 pixel showing the color of 1 downsampled pixel. This looks sharper, as it removes 3/4 of all pixels - especially the blurry ones. But it uses only 1/4th of the resolution. 
And this effect event gets amplified by mpeg compression used for screen recording.

You can see it if you export individual images from the video with ffmpeg. I have done it before, but my time budget i’m willing to discuss this matter gets exhausted.

 

 

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49 minutes ago, LCamachoDesign said:

If you open the original PNG image and set the zoom to 100% you get this, a sharp looking image:

176784714_DielinesOriginalCrop.png.4ec418c8baac7e5ac8c754b06400940f.png

 

If you open the png file with Photo, zoom in to 800%, you can clearly see it is not sharp at all.

There are halos around every grid line.

When you use the info panel and hover over individual pixels, you will see how the color values differ.

 

image.thumb.png.b2a42f1a07daa449737939409a1b508d.png

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@NotMyFault we must be talking about different things. I'm referring to the overall resolution (?) of the image displayed by Photo.

This is how the original PNG image looks like at 800% zoom, notice the amount of pixels visible. It's particularly noticeable in the white outline around the text, and on the text itself:

2023916553_OriginalPNG.thumb.png.d2ddfa4a8ca639a6a8d8d3c09dfb8e57.png

 

And this is how it looks like, again at 800% as you can see, if you save the PNG image as an AFPHOTO file, close it, and reopen again. See how the white text outline, and the text itself, looks much more pixelated:

346106529_SavedAfPhoto.thumb.png.56ab025c224b82029eabef225c81a1b7.png

 

It's almost like the resolution is halved, and it results on a blurry looking image at normal zoom levels. But if you move the layer slightly, it will regain the full resolution look like the original. It's feels like the image has not loaded completely, and it needs a final nudge to do so?

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The effect has been explained in my post from on August 12.

Normally you get the correct rendering within a split second after opening.

When it takes longer, or requires an edit action to become full quality, this might be related to your hardware, GPU and driver.

I almost never observed this issue on my W10 PC (maybe once a long time ago).

Our cross-talking may be the consequence that the PNG file you uploaded ist not really sharp in the first place, and you claimed that Affinity always creates blurriness- which is not true. It might be the fact on your specific PC, but not in general.

So as long as others are unable to reproduce your claimed issue on their PCs,  its tricky.

It would be really helpful if you test with the checkered PNG i uploaded, and check if this creates blurriness on your PC. It will simplify as the file is absolutely sharp, so any observed blurriness is the result of the rendering.

With your file, containing so many levels of blurriness, it is hard to see any additional blurriness.

 

 

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@NotMyFault The thing is, this also happens on my Surface Pro 4, which shares no relevant hardware with the desktop PC.

Desktop PC: AMD CPU, NVidia GPU. Surface Pro 4: Intel CPU, Intel iGPU...

In any case, I did test with your file and the results are even worse. Since the resolution of the checkered pattern is so low to start with, on the first load the whole image turns into flat grey. I'm attaching a video because it's really had to believe (again see in fullscreen).

Anyway, none of us can do anything about it, except report it. It's Serif that needs to look into what's happening here.

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Hi everybody! I can confirm this behavior (latest program version 1.10.3.1191, HP Z2 workstation, intel UHD 630). I recognized it yesterday when i opened a high resolution jpeg-picture and saved it in .afphoto format. When i close the .afphoto file and reopen it, the picture looks pixelated on high zoom levels, like a picture with lower resolution. When i unlock the layer and move it a little bit, the resolution becomes normal, like it was in the original jpeg-picture. When i place this .afphoto picture in publisher, the picture looks unsharp on high zoom levels. But when i place the jpeg File, the picture looks good as it should. Really weird ... And sorry for my english, i am from Austria and i had my last english lesson more than 20 years ago ;-)

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I can confirm too. Opened the afphoto file from @NotMyFault, saved as png with standard settings. Opened the png and saved as afphoto file with new name. Opened the new afphoto file and it's completely gray.

677894262_checkeredpng.jpg.54d3ec36fbfe8c9434f25daca0a04d90.jpg  836363617_newcheckeredafphoto.jpg.56045cb3706b4c3ec238ddb7bfd401af.jpg

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The Grey preview depending on zoom level is partially expected, partially a bug.

  • Expected for zoom below 50%.
  • Bug for zoom >=100% 
  • Additional factors to consider are View Quality and Retina Rendering
  •  Currently there seems no combination which fully renders correnct even at 100%

 

See

 

Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080

LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5

iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589

Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

 

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  • 4 months later...
  • 4 months later...

I discovered this conversation because I am having similar problems with vector files in affinity photo but because much of the technical stuff is beyond me I'm not sure if there is a solution hidden in here somewhere. My vectors are sharp when created in affinity photo, but when I return to the file they are blurred. Obviously this should never happen with vectors! Because of some of the comments in this conversation I imported my .afphoto file into affinity designer, and the vectors were sharp again. This is fine - obviously I can use designer but that means I can only do the work on my home computer, because the one I need to use at work does not have designer installed! 

I honestly believe there must be a bug in affinity photo that is causing this to happen, there is no other logical explanation about part-pixels or screen resolutions when dealing with vectors. However, if anyone else has a fix that I can try I am happy to give it a go as I don't know what else to do!

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Hi @fijenk Welcome to the forum.

From what you are saying, I'm assuming you're just talking about the way the files are displayed on screen, rather than when you export them. APhoto and ADesigner have different screen display options, which can affect the way you view the same file in the two apps. It's worth keeping in mind that, although you can open all Affinity files in any of the apps. APhoto is not intended for vectors and does not have the same options as ADesigner, which is. 

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2 hours ago, fijenk said:

I honestly believe there must be a bug in affinity photo that is causing this to happen, there is no other logical explanation about part-pixels or screen resolutions when dealing with vectors. However, if anyone else has a fix that I can try I am happy to give it a go as I don't know what else to do!

Without having one of your files we won't be able to help much, I'm afraid.

As @PaulEC mentioned, Photo and Designer are different applications, tailored for different purposes. Designer allows you to choose between a vector-based display, a pixel-based display, or a mix. Photo, though, uses only the pixel-based display, as it is primarily intended for working on pixel images.

You can see this for yourself by opening one of the files in Designer, then use the menu View > View Mode > Pixels to switch to the display mode that Photo uses. 

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