Pixel layer does not expand when expanding artboard

[Caius Nocturne]

Computer details:

• Affinity Designer Version: 1.10.4.1198
• OS version: Windows 11 Home (21H2 - 22000.376)
• OpenCL compute acceleration is on

To the best of my knowledge, my computer is not running any of the software on the list of things that can interfere with AD.

How to reproduce:

1. Make a document with an Artboard.
2. Put a Pixel Layer in that Artboard.
3. Draw in that layer with the Brush tool.
4. Expand the enclosing Artboard without expanding its contents.
5. Draw again in that layer in the new space that expanding the artboard has created.

When I do this, the brush stroke will be clipped as if the Artboard was at it's previous size. The only workaround I've found is to make a new Pixel Layer and merge it with the original layer, but as you can imagine, this is far from ideal.

I've only been using the raster feature of Affinity Designer for the past year and I have not noticed it be any different version to version or with any changes to my computer's software (my hardware did not change throughout this time).

 

[carl123]

After resizing the artboard, right-click and Rasterise the pixel layer

[Caius Nocturne]

I've also noticed that this behaviour applies to scaling pixel layers too. When you scale a pixel layer, drawing more inside that layer maintains the same pixel density as it was at it's original size unless you rasterise it, so I'm beginning to think it's not a bug and that both of these are part of how Affinity works to preserve pixel information and avoid unnecessary resampling.

If that's the case, I think that's good but it's just very unusual behaviour when it comes to digital drawing and painting (and it's not explained at all in the app), and maybe there should be a something in the UI to make this kind of behaviour explicit?

[Dan C]

Hi @Dzuk,

Thanks for your report and my sincerest apologies for the delayed response here, we were extremely busy over the Christmas period and working from home during the pandemic is unfortunately extending our response window to be longer than normal, many thanks for your continued patience and understanding here.

On 12/20/2021 at 12:26 PM, Dzuk said:

How to reproduce:

1. Make a document with an Artboard.
2. Put a Pixel Layer in that Artboard.
3. Draw in that layer with the Brush tool.
4. Expand the enclosing Artboard without expanding its contents.
5. Draw again in that layer in the new space that expanding the artboard has created.

When I do this, the brush stroke will be clipped as if the Artboard was at it's previous size.

I can confirm this is a known bug which is logged with our developers, I'll be sure to 'bump' this report for you now.

On 12/21/2021 at 6:52 AM, Dzuk said:

I've also noticed that this behaviour applies to scaling pixel layers too. When you scale a pixel layer, drawing more inside that layer maintains the same pixel density as it was at it's original size unless you rasterise it, so I'm beginning to think it's not a bug and that both of these are part of how Affinity works to preserve pixel information and avoid unnecessary resampling.

When resizing Pixel Layers using the Move Tool, you can see the 'DPI' of the layer in the Context Toolbar -

If you then Rasterise the pixel layer after resizing, it will be rasterised using the DPI of the document, and therefore returns to the previous value -

I hope this helps clear things up