AP reading PSD PDF/X‑1a file blurry

[ronald618]

Ciao!

When I open a  PSD PDF/X‑1a file in Affinity Photo it is blurry.

The text shown below is zoomed at 400%. The top text is how it looks when I open the file in PhotoShop. The bottom text is what it looks like when I open it in in AffinityPhoto.

What am I doing wrong?

 

Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks!

[MEB]

Hi @ronald618,
What format are you opening exactly? PSD is one format, PDF is another.
Assuming you have Import PSD text as text rather then bitmap (ticked by default) and import PSD smart objects where possible both ticked in Affinity Photo Preferences, General section it should import correctly in the case of PSD. If you are importing a PDF it would be helpful if you could attach the file in question. I can provide an upload link if you wish to keep the file private. Just let me know

[ronald618]

Thank you for your quick response.

To be clearer:

- I have a PDF file. It was created in PSD.

- When I open the file in PSD to view it, it is perfectly clear.

- When I open it in AP to view it, it is blurry.

(The text was converted to curves when the file was created)

[MEB]

Can you attach the PDF is question please? Looks like the text is being rasterised for some reason.

[Old Bruce]

To me it appears that the top WONDER is at twice the resolution of the lower WONDER.

[ronald618]

When I open the file in AP, it asks for the resolution. I set it to 300 dpi (the resolution that the file was created in).

Below is a detail from the PDF/X‑1a file.

When I view it in Photoshop, zooming in,  it is clear.

When I view it in AP, zooming in,  it is blurry.

 

[Old Bruce]

What is with that document? 17 MB for a tiny little 3 cm square one page graphic?

[MEB]

Thanks for the file ronald618. Let me check what's going on and i will get back to you.

[Fixx]

There certainly is a difference in sharpness:

[Dazmondo77]

I reckon the problem is with photoshop and is related to how it creates a PDF, as even opening in Acrobat looks low resolution - one solution = as the file is raster save as a Jpeg or Tiff from PS and open in Affinity and all should be good

[Hangman]

Looking at Resource Manager it would suggest the file was originally 72 dpi and has been scaled up 99% so it is now effectively 150 dpi in a 300 dpi document so it is going to looking blurred if that is the case.

Though having said that the image in the pdf itself is actually only 150 dpi...

@ronald618 It would be helpful if you can upload the original Photoshop file so we can take a look at the settings...

[ronald618]

The file that I uploaded is the original file.

I simply cut out a detail and saved it again in PS as a PDF/X‑1a.

It looks perfect when reopened in PS, blurred in AP. As you can see in the post by @Fixx

And the file was most definitely created at 300 dpi.

Thank you all for your concern, I'm hoping we can find an answer here,

[Hangman]

@ronald618 Are you happy to upload the PS file itself rather than the PDF file, otherwise I don't think we'll be able to track down the reason as to why it's looking fine in PS but blurry in AP?

 

[Hangman]

I'm not totally convinced this is the 'cause' but I'm wondering if PS is applying it's own default rendering that simply happens to differ from APs, hence why you're seeing the difference. There's a noticable difference just changing between the two available rendering options in AP (see below, best viewed full screen).

[MEB]

Hi @ronald618,

This is apparently due to the way Affinity and Photoshop import the file. Photoshop does a better job rendering the file because it's apparently loading  the embedded full res photoshop data rather than the 150dpi image included in the PDF. Affinity is using the 150 dpi image included in the PDF and upscaling it to 300 dpi assuming that's the resolution you are picking to match Photoshop 300 dpi thus the differences in quality.
I'm passing this to the dev team to see if/what can be done/check what's going on.

[ronald618]

I'm pretty much at the point of abandoning the software for client work. Fine for certain things but for major client projects it makes me nervous.

[Old Bruce]

52 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi @ronald618,
This is mostly due to the differences in the resampling methods Photoshop and Affinity use to import the PDF. Photoshop does a better job rendering the file. I'm passing this to the dev team to see if/what can be done.

If you look at the first example there is an obvious doubling of the resolution with the Photoshop version. I don't know if this is a setting for Photoshop importing PDFs or not.

[Fixx]

PDF content is plain pixel image. Both PS and AP should import and present it equally. It is possible that PDF rendering does some weird things.

Acrobat esports the image as 186X211 pixels, as AP reads it. Direct opening to PS gives 371 X 422 pixels. Can @ronald618 tell which is one the real resolution that was placed to PDF?

 

[Old Bruce]

2 minutes ago, Fixx said:

which is one the real resolution that was placed to PDF?

 

There was mention of 300 DPI in the third post from the OP.

[ronald618]

The file was created at 300 dpi.

[Hangman]

Though the image is only 150 ppi as shown in the pre-flight info...

[ronald618]

I just opened the file in Photoshop to check once again. The file is at 300 dpi.

[Hangman]

Very strange, that conflicts with PDF pre-flight data (as per previous screen grab) which shows the image as 150 ppi.

It would really help if you are able to upload the PS file (assuming that’s an option)?

[MEB]

@ronald618,
Original PDF file and image/reproduction removed from the thread as per your request.

[ronald618]

Thank you MEB!