Affinity Layer/Mask looks great on screen, but is damaged when takein into Lightroom.

[VWI]

I am using lightroom and Affinity together. When editing in Affinity, I added a motion blur layer and masked part of the subjecty area (see affinity screen view below) - and it looked fine.  When I saved it and went back into Lightroom, the lego-like pathway of the mask was clearly noticable . I tried merging visible layers and re-saving, but it did not help.  Any ideas?

Thanks!

Vince

Here's the Affinity screen view:

 

Here is the image as shown in Lightroom (look for blocky pattern around her raised arm and following her body)

Edited January 22, 2022 by VWI
clarification

[thomaso]

What file format did you export in AP / open in LR? To me in a quick test it appears to works for a blur layer with soft edge mask without resulting in LR in such blocks shown in your screenshot. I used PSD + "preserve editability", I haven't tried another setting or format.

[VWI]

Hi Thomas I. I saved it as a tiff file with layers preserved. Do you think that may have made a difference?  Lightroom doesn't read afphoto files.  Thanks!

Vince

[VWI]

Hi Thomas I. I saved it as a tiff file with layers preserved. Do you think that may have made a difference?  Lightroom doesn't read afphoto files.  Thanks!

Vince

[thomaso]

I can't judge what exactly influences your experienced issue. Since I am not familiar to the workflow of mixing both apps my test can tell only that it seems to be possible to open an exported AP image with a masked motion blur adjustment in LR without getting this blocks.

Like you I assume a possible reason in both the file format and its export setting details, so you could try several versions. What if you entirely flatten / rasterize the image before export? (I think you can't edit the mask in LR anyway, right?) Also I wonder if the issue occurs with every image / mask / adjustment.

Your AP screenshot shows several layers, the top layer set to 75% opacity. (my test used 1 layer and opacity 100). May be the issue is influenced by an opacity setting? What if you open your exported, affected image in another image viewer app, does it show the issue, too, and in the same way?

Can you upload an example to the forum, in low res, as .afphoto + affected export?

[ashf]

What happens if you turn off the Hardware Acceleration in the Preferences>Performance?

[thomaso]

47 minutes ago, ashf said:

What happens if you turn off the Hardware Acceleration in the Preferences>Performance?

That's a known issue in Affinity but rather not in LR where the issue occurs.

[VWI]

Hi Thomaso.  I followed your suggestions and replaced the layer containing a mask screened back to 75%, and replaced it with the layer pulled back to 75% (leaving the mask at 100%). I don't know why, but that seemed to correct the problem.  I also discovered that affinity will export as a PSD file.  Thank you for your help!

Vince

[VWI]

I will also check turning off hardware acceleration.  Thanks Ashf!

Vince

Edited January 23, 2022 by VWI

[ashf]

Another method you might wanna try is to flatten document before export.

[Ron P.]

6 hours ago, VWI said:

Lightroom doesn't read afphoto files.

FWIW, the afphoto files are proprietary working files, like pspimage, and cpt are Corel's working files for PaintShop Pro and Photo Paint. LR can not see or use them also. I still use the last perpetual release of LR, and will use Tiff and have used PSD to hand-off to other apps such as Affinity Photo.

[VWI]

Hi Ron, I see. Thanks. I am continuing my search for a Lightroom alternative, but I do rely on tweaks after Affinity (b&w conversion, etc) but now and then like to go back into Affinity to adjust, or fix something and it's nice to see those changes ripple into Lightroom virtual copies as well. Thanks!

[thomaso]

9 hours ago, VWI said:

I followed your suggestions and replaced the layer containing a mask screened back to 75%, and replaced it with the layer pulled back to 75% (leaving the mask at 100%).

Thanks for the feedback and glad you managed to make it work. I am not sure if I understand correctly: Do you mean at first (in your screenshot) both layers, image and masked adjustment, were set to 75 % opacity – whereas a setup of image at 75 % and masked adjustment at 100 % did solve the issue of a blocky mask in LR? So, the solution was to keep the mask layer at 100%? – Or were mask + adjustment two separate layers in your affected example?

Aside that I'd like to try to reproduce the issue with an affected file of yours. Can you upload any .afpub + .tif which results in a blocky mask issue in LR to you?

[Old Bruce]

14 hours ago, VWI said:

Hi Thomas I. I saved it as a tiff file with layers preserved. Do you think that may have made a difference?  Lightroom doesn't read afphoto files.  Thanks!

I am going to bet that if you save without layers preserved all will be well. Layers preserved means the layers will be correctly interpreted by Affinity applications. Another way of saying it is only Affinity applications will correctly interpret the layers.

It is the nature of TIFF files.

[thomaso]

26 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

it is only Affinity applications will correctly interpret the layers.

It is the nature of TIFF files.

Doesn't TIFF always require to get saved not flattened (~maintaining layers) if it shall transfer 100% transparency? This is not a matter specifically of Affinity, right?

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Doesn't TIFF always require to get saved not flattened (~maintaining layers) if it shall transfer 100% transparency? This is not a matter specifically of Affinity, right?

No. Usually TIFF files, even with transparency (even with 100% transparency), do not have layers. They are flat files, just like JPG and PNG files.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

No. Usually TIFF files, even with transparency (even with 100% transparency), do not have layers. They are flat files, just like JPG and PNG files.

Alpha channel. Not a layer in terms of Layer panels of any app but as additional colour channel (layer in the Channels panel ;•) for TIF and PNG, respectively as a separate vector object (clipping path) inside of Adobe.jpgs. From this perspective understanding "flat" may vary.

But since you are here: What would you suspect as culprit element of a blocky mask appearance if opened in another app?

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

But since you are here: What would you suspect as culprit element of a blocky mask appearance if opened in another app?

I would suspect the the other application not being able to properly read the Affinity Photo proprietary Layers in the TIFF exported by Affinity Photo.

[walt.farrell]

16 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I would suspect the the other application not being able to properly read the Affinity Photo proprietary Layers in the TIFF exported by Affinity Photo.

I would certainly not expect any other application to read the Affinity Layers, but generally they would just be ignored by any application reading the file. (And, conversely, would be destroyed if any non-Affinity application read, updated, and rewrote the file.)

[thomaso]

51 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I would suspect the the other application not being able to properly read the Affinity Photo proprietary Layers in the TIFF exported by Affinity Photo.

This is rather expectation (of a result) than suspectation of the culprit element (on the way to the result). Obviously, here Affinity exports are able to work under certain circumstances, as the thread tells.

Instead of exporting a series of possible combinations of opacity settings of image and/or mask and/or adjustment + various possible file export settings of .TIF and/or .PSD I am seriously curios to get a more sensible, technical idea what exactly influences this blocky mask issue here.

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, thomaso said:

I am seriously curios to get a more sensible, technical idea what exactly influences this blocky mask issue here.

Then you will need to ask people who use Lightroom. Best would be to ask the people who make Lightroom.