Resizing Affinity Design (.afdesign) File

[lai1]

Hi,

I have an .afdesign file that is 1200px x 1200px. I would like to reduce it to 100px x 100px and then export it as a .png file to be used in a website however, when I do this the image on the website is blurry.

What is the correct way to take an .afdesign file and export the desired size in pixels? In this case I want a 100px x 100px .png file.

Thank you,

lai1

[BofG]

Is the png blurry if you open it directly in Affinity, or is it only blurry on the website?

[Alfred]

What resampling method are you using? Bilinear resampling generally works quite well for downsizing.

You’ll get better results if you can use a power of two (e.g. 1600 -> 800 -> 400 -> 200 -> 100) but that isn’t always a practical proposition.

[lai1]

Hi BofG,

It is definitely not as crisp as the 1200px image when exported as a .png file.

Additionally, when I reduce the 1200px afdesign file to 100px the navigator pane renders it blurry while the 1200px afdesign file it is crisp and clean.

I do think I am doing something wrong.

Thanks,

lai1

[lai1]

Alfred,

Can you please provide a step by step on what you are suggesting and I will attempt it and report back my results?

I would appreciate that.

Thank you,

lai1

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, lai1 said:

Can you please provide a step by step on what you are suggesting and I will attempt it and report back my results?

It might be better if you could provide a step-by-step on what you’re doing so that we can see where the degradation is creeping in.

[BofG]

10 minutes ago, lai1 said:

Hi BofG,

It is definitely not as crisp as the 1200px image when exported as a .png file.

Additionally, when I reduce the 1200px afdesign file to 100px the navigator pane renders it blurry while the 1200px afdesign file it is crisp and clean.

I do think I am doing something wrong.

Thanks,

lai1

Can you post the png here?

[telemax]

Double-click the magnifying glass icon in the toolbar. The AD will display the true size of the image. 100x100.afdesign

[lai1]

5 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It might be better if you could provide a step-by-step on what you’re doing so that we can see where the degradation is creeping in.

Hi Alfred,

I figured out what you meant and I attempted it. I opened my .afdesign file which is 1200x1200px and selected "objects will rescale" and resampling is set to "bilinear".

When doing this I can immediately see that in the navigator pane the image is blurry at 100% while the original image was crisp and clean which is also the case when using the .png file on a website.

I can attempt to perform the power of two method you suggested seems there should be a simpler way, I'm no expert so I'll defer to the folks on the board here.

Thanks,

lai1

[BofG]

1 minute ago, lai1 said:

I can immediately see that in the navigator pane the image is blurry at 100% while the original image was crisp and clean

Turn on pixel preview mode.

Without seeing the png in question it's all a guessing game. For all we know the image could be simply unrepresentable at such a small size.

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, lai1 said:

I can attempt to perform the power of two method you suggested

Just to be clear, I wasn’t suggesting repeated applications of a factor of two. All I meant is that applying a factor which is a power of two (e.g. dividing by 8 to reduce 1200 to 150) will avoid rounding errors.

[MEB]

Hi @lai1,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
If the image has intricate/small details it's expected it looses definition when you scale down the image 10x. At 100x100 pixels there may not be enough pixels to convey all the detail required - some of it will lose clarity/sharpness due to the resampling. 

[lai1]

3 hours ago, MEB said:

Hi @lai1,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
If the image has intricate/small details it's expected it looses definition when you scale down the image 10x. At 100x100 pixels there may not be enough pixels to convey all the detail required - some of it will lose clarity/sharpness due to the resampling. 

Hi MEB,

I'm not sure that what you suggested is what is actually happening. I performed a small test. I created a 1200px x 1200px .afdesign file then added two layers they are both circles one smaller than the other (inner circle and outer circle) both 4 pt strokes and saved it, exported a .png file and closed it.

I then reopened and selected the document button and changed the canvas height and width to 100px and in the navigator pane the image is once again blurry. I also saved a .png file and when I used it the website it is indeed blurry and less crisp than the original 1200px image. What I think might be going on is the re-scaling that happens behind the scenes does not shrink the stroke size enough to match the reduction in size that is taking place. I can't be sure it's just my guess, either way it would be nice if the image stayed as crisp and clean when being reduced.

Hopefully this experiment helps with finding a solution.

Thanks,

lai1

[telemax]

I don't think you should be guided by the navigator panel. See image at actual size (100%)
Yes, the navigator will show a blurred image if it is displayed more than 100%, in the navigator window.
 

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[lai1]

Hi Telemax,

It is blurred even at 100% in the navigator pane.

Thanks

lai1

[BofG]

40 minutes ago, lai1 said:

Hi Telemax,

It is blurred even at 100% in the navigator pane.

Thanks

lai1

1. Why are you working at 1200px x 1200px when the final output is to be so small?

2. Are you using pixel view mode?

3. Do you have force pixel alignment turned on?

4. Are you exporting via export persona?

5. Have you loaded the final png directly into Affinity to check it? (your answer earlier was a bit ambiguous)

6. Why can you not post the problem png here?

[lai1]

1. I created an a logo for use in many different applications. I am now trying to take this bigger logo and shrink it to make it usable on a web page.

3. I don't know let me check

4. I am using File -> Export

 

Just to be clear, I am a software developer not a graphic artist or expert user certainly possible I am doing something wrong. But my test that I posted above produces the same results I get with my logo.

 

Thanks,

lai1

 

[telemax]

All I can say is, don't use the navigator 🙂 It will display a small image blurred. 

[Wosven]

9 minutes ago, lai1 said:

I created an a logo for use in many different applications. I am now trying to take this bigger logo and shrink it to make it usable on a web page.

For this like for fonts, having different artboards at different sizes, and working to get a stronger/accentuated (more readable) result in small sizes would be better. Like strenghtening the parts that are easily readable in big sizes... but not at smaller sizes.
People won't notice the differences, they'll just be able to read the same logo.

Another option with too complexe logos, is to use only a reconizable part (usually deleting the text, or keeping only significant characters, drawing, etc.). Good (or extreme) examples are icon files for tabs in browsers.

[BofG]

18 minutes ago, lai1 said:

Just to be clear, I am a software developer

Out of a list of 5, you picked the two easiest ones, deferred one and skipped two... definitely a software developer

 

[iconoclast]

How did you downsize your logo? It is important to do it using vectors to take the benefit of its lossless transformation. If your graphic contains pixels, there will always be a loss of quality if you up- or downscale it.

The right way to downscale a 1200 x 1200 pixels graphic to 100 x 100 pixels in Designer would be to select all content of the graphic - maybe by grouping the whole stuff first - and downscale it then with the Transformation panel. After that make an Artboard of 100 x 100 pixels outoff it or crop it to that size with the Vector Crop Tool. Then export it as a png.

Be aware of that you will only see the true quality of the result if you watch it with a zoom factor of 100% - the original size.

[Old Bruce]

From way back I was told to work on the Largest size and the smallest size concurrently. Start small and scale that up and add detail to the largest, then see if you can add the detail to the smallest. The smallest size has very few pixels to show detail, sometimes the detail gets smudged when a large image is shrunk.