dpt Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 Hi, I've got an Affinity Designer document here that I've just printed out and found unexpected mushy pixel halos around some shapes. The problem shapes are plain vectors, but semi-transparent. Clearly these shapes have been rasterised but I'm failing to find an option in AD to stop it from happening. Not wanting to burn through my ink and paper I'm testing this by using the Print dialogue and using PDF > Open in Preview. Is this the same stream that the print driver receives? I've tried boosting the DPI in the Document Setup dialogue but that has had no effect. I can however export PDFs which dodge the issue. AD 10.10.4 running on macOS Big Sur 11.6.2 Regards, Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 Sometimes it is necessary to Export to PDF, and then print the PDF. What kind of printer do you have, and what color format is your document? What options for color management are you using in the Print dialog? Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpt Posted December 21, 2021 Author Share Posted December 21, 2021 33 minutes ago, walt.farrell said: Sometimes it is necessary to Export to PDF, and then print the PDF. So I'm interested to know how "sometimes" is defined. Is AD's Print dialogue essentially unpredictable for .. printing? The printers are a couple of Canons, but I'm not sure knowing that helps much. I can meddle colour formats and management options all day long and hit the same basic problem: a simple, albeit semi-transparent, shape prints as mush. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 There are perhaps several factors, but I am not an expert so I can't be very specific. But from what I've read here, Exporting to PDF is the recommended option if direct printing doesn't work as needed. First, I think that many (most?) consumer-grade printers expect RGB data. So, if you have a CMYK document, and Affinity is doing the color management, Affinity will convert the document to RGB before sending it to the printer. (I'm pretty sure that is true on Windows, but it may behave differently on Mac.) I'm also not sure what happens if you tell Affinity to let the printer manage the color, vs Affinity managing it. And, again, color management is different on Mac than on Windows. Next, to a printer, at least a consumer-grade printer, I think that transparency is a raster attribute, not a vector attribute. So some rasterization may be required when printing semi-transparent vector objects. I think that even vector lines must be in raster format for printing on some printers. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 5 hours ago, walt.farrell said: In think that even vector lines must be in raster format for printing on some printers. I am far from an expert on any of this but I think everything must be rasterized unless possibly you are outputting vector content to a plotter. Doesn't the "R" in "RIP" stand for 'raster'? Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 All 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 33 minutes ago, R C-R said: Doesn't the "R" in "RIP" stand for 'raster'? Well it probably depends on ... if you mean in the printing domain (a Raster Image Processor = RIP), or instead more the undertaker domain (Rest In Peace = RIP). 😉 Another older forum thread, but dealing instead with color variances between vector & raster, was: Color Variance when Printing Vector vs Raster Other than that and just to give a different example here and one more for Adobe specific vector output: I'm also no expert in printing and the printing domain in general, but AFAIK Illustrator for example outputs Postscript data for printing. But most end-user inkjet printers do not have a Postscript RIP (Raster Image Processor). Without a RIP, the printer will output the low resolution preview image of an AI file rather than the actual postscript data, because the printer can not process the postscript data. There is no way to correct this directly for a printer lacking a postscript RIP. However, there is a workaround one can use... Save the AI file as a PDF, then print the PDF from Acrobat or Reader. PDF/Acrobat is a software RIP and processes the actual postscript data to a high resolution preview image. Then the printer can print that high resolution image as opposed to the embedded low resolution preview image. One can also merely open the AI file with Photoshop and then print from within Photoshop. Photoshop has an internal RIP and will output a high-resolution raster image an inkjet will understand. In case of Postscript, the third option is to upgrade the printer to one with a Postscript RIP or trying out instead to use Ghostscript as a RIP. However, that's as far as I know, but don't take my words for it, some of our other forum users here, like @MikeW, do know the printing domain for sure much better and thus can also tell much better here, also from a daily practise! Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 13 minutes ago, v_kyr said: Other than that and just to give a different example here and one more for Adobe specific vector output: But in all these instances, isn't the output to the printer in raster format, whatever RIP (Postscript or otherwise) is involved in the process? IOW, are there any printers besides plotters that can print vectors without rasterizing them? Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 All 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 Obsolete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpt Posted December 22, 2021 Author Share Posted December 22, 2021 It's a question of knowing when and where in the print process that AD is going to transform objects, to avoid surprises - I wasted ink and paper discovering this. The surprise for me was that when printing AD is rasterising semi-transparent shapes by some (apparently uncontrollable) DPI value. I'd at least have expected a small warning on the print dialogue saying "(Some areas will be rasterised)" like you get on the export dialogue. sundaymorningstyle 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 25 minutes ago, R C-R said: But in all these instances, isn't the output to the printer in raster format, whatever RIP (Postscript or otherwise) is involved in the process? Yes, since that's what the name RIP also implies here, a raster image processor (RIP) is a component used in a printing system which produces a raster image also known as what we call commonly a bitmap. - Further also all modern inkjet printers have a RIP, aka ... Quote ...To determine the positions at which the individual droplets are sprayed onto the paper, a raster image processor is used, which uses dithering and color separation (in color printers) to convert the pixels of an image to be printed into print cells (dither cells or, in the case of grayscale printing, "halftone cells"), that is, in groups of ink dots in the print image that reproduce the color and brightness of the image dots as precisely as possible by superimposing and combining the droplets with regard to number, color, possibly size and arrangement. The actual resolution of pixels (determined as ppi, points per inch) that can be achieved by a printer thus depends on the positioning resolution of the individual droplets (e.g. specified as dpi, dots per inch) and the size of the print cells. For example, a printer with a nominal resolution of 5000 dpi with a print cell size of 5 × 5 print pixels has a resolution of the pixels of 1000 ppi. In so-called dithering with error diffusion, no dither cells are formed, but the image is analyzed line by line and a quantization error is calculated in the software for each point, which is then distributed to the neighboring pixels. The processes used to convert images into ink droplet patterns on the medium contribute significantly to the quality of the print and are part of the know-how of printer manufacturers. 33 minutes ago, R C-R said: IOW, are there any printers besides plotters that can print vectors without rasterizing them? Good question, I believe plotters are mostly associated with vector printing here, since graphics & CAD/CAM etc. and the availability for huge paper sizes were their main domain. Though nowadays there are also other wide-format printers which might do an equally good job here also for vector based printing. Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 Obsolete. v_kyr 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 6 hours ago, Lagarto said: Affinity apps do transparency flattening by rasterizing the overlapping colors in vector objects (rather than clipping them as separate vector shapes with resolved color values) which can result in a situation where edges of affected areas have been rasterized e.g. at 300 dpi while the remaining parts of the "same object" , are still in vector mode and would eventually get rendered by using a higher accuracy. In the Print dialog (on Windows) there's a Rasterize section in the options that includes a "Clip Transparency" option. (I'm not at that computer right now, so the names may be a bit different.) I haven't found an explanation for what it does, but it sounds like it could be related to what you've described. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacerto Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 Obsolete. walt.farrell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 8 hours ago, BofG said: Usually there is an intermediary format, a page description, PostScript is a very advanced one for example, the lower end is something like PCL. Vector data can be within this. The print driver is technically the RIP, it interprets the page description and produces the final raster for the printer. Whatever the intermediate format, one way or another the vector data has to be rasterized for a conventional printer to print the page. Plotters are, as far as I know, the only kind of printing device that can print vector data directly, without processing it into raster image data ('dots'). Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 All 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpt Posted December 22, 2021 Author Share Posted December 22, 2021 So I've spotted the trigger - transparency was applied to a group. It was intended and that auto-rasterisation is happening is understandable, but it's the cause. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R C-R Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 1 minute ago, BofG said: Think of it a writing the state of each of the printer's physical dots. What would you call that besides rasterizing the image? Isn't that exactly what a Raster Image Processor does? Quote All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7 All 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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