No smooth contour.

[R C-R]

15 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

Better quality is smooth and not, especially with round shapes, pixelated contours.

If you export to any format that can contain only a raster image, the output must of necessity be pixelated because pixels are the only image elements in raster images. There is no way around this, period.

[Designer1]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

If you export to any format that can contain only a raster image, the output must of necessity be pixelated because pixels are the only image elements in raster images. There is no way around this, period.

You don't need to explain that to me. Then antialiasing does not work optimally.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

Then antialiasing does not work optimally.

There is no way to avoid pixelation; thus no way for antialiasing to produce 'optimally' smooth contours; so what exactly do you mean by "optimally"?

[LondonSquirrel]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I don't care that they are different.

I've noticed in a number of threads over time that *some people* when comparing output from Affinity apps and (let's be honest) Adobe, want the output to be exactly the same as Adobe. If it is not the same, then somehow it is not so good. Different is considered to be worse. I've never accepted that. Arguably Corel Painter is the best photo painting app out there, so is that the gold standard for digital painting or is it Adobe?

[Designer1]

18 hours ago, R C-R said:

There is no way to avoid pixelation; thus no way for antialiasing to produce 'optimally' smooth contours; so what exactly do you mean by "optimally"?

Here is a text example with OpenSans 24 pt. As you can see, letterforms are not well smoothed. Especially with round shapes export quality is not good.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Designer1 said:

Here is a text example with OpenSans 24 pt.

That looks blurry to me. Was your screenshot taken with a zoom of exactly 100%? If not, that is part of your problem (as we have mentioned before).

2 hours ago, Designer1 said:

As you can see, letterforms are not well smoothed.

Again, that is a subjective assessment. Each of us may have our own opinion of what "well smoothed" means, and part of your problem in this thread and your other one is that you are not getting many (any?) users who have the same opinion as you.

[Designer1]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That looks blurry to me. Was your screenshot taken with a zoom of exactly 100%? If not, that is part of your problem (as we have mentioned before).

Again, that is a subjective assessment. Each of us may have our own opinion of what "well smoothed" means, and part of your problem in this thread and your other one is that you are not getting many (any?) users who have the same opinion as you.

So you think text quality is good, text is sharp and smooth? In your opinion, does it not need any improvement?

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

So you think text quality is good, text is sharp and smooth?

I said it seems blurry, and asked if your screenshot is with a 100% zoom.

The answer to that question is important.

[User_783649]

@walt.farrell It may look blurry if you're looking at the image preview in the forum's popup window. Try opening image in new tab so it appears at its real size.

[walt.farrell]

Just now, Alex M said:

It may look blurry if you're looking at the image preview in the forum's popup window.

Thanks. I forget that.

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

So you think text quality is good, text is sharp and smooth? In your opinion, does it not need any improvement?

Looking at the image in a new tab (thanks, Alex), I am happy with the way the text looks, and I do not see a need for any improvement.

[Designer1]

18 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I said it seems blurry, and asked if your screenshot is with a 100% zoom.

The answer to that question is important.

Yes, with 100% zoom.

[Designer1]

16 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Looking at the image in a new tab (thanks, Alex), I am happy with the way the text looks, and I do not see a need for any improvement.

You do not have high standards.

[walt.farrell]

47 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

You do not have high standards.

Or, perhaps, yours are too high.

[Designer1]

32 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Or, perhaps, yours are too high.

My criteria are not too high. Currently Affinity Designer exports a quality of PNG that is ok for hobby designers, but not for professional design and advertising agencies. Only if you design a vector graphic in 600 - 1200 dpi and then rasterise, you get a really very good export quality of PNG and JPG.

Affinity Team probably works with professional designers, or they are employed by Serif (Europe) Ltd. These people should be the best ones to check the export quality.

[Old Bruce]

5 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

My criteria are not too high. Currently Affinity Designer exports a quality of PNG that is ok for hobby designers, but not for professional design and advertising agencies. Only if you design a vector graphic in 600 - 1200 dpi and then rasterise, you get a really very good export quality of PNG and JPG.

Are you saying that Adobe Illustrator and other applications give "good export quality" when designing at 300 dpi?

[Designer1]

3 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Are you saying that Adobe Illustrator and other applications give "good export quality" when designing at 300 dpi?

The export quality with Adobe and Corel is much better.

[JimmyJack]

On 3/18/2022 at 4:32 PM, Alex M said:

@JimmyJack My Friday’s bet will be is that first one is AD.

Thanks for playing!! You are the only one to venture an actual guess. I applaude you 👏.
I would think, if the difference is so outstanding, there would be many takers: "x is AD, x, x , x, x"
I'll let it run for another day or so in case others want to weight in. (I won't forget to reveal)

On 3/19/2022 at 3:48 AM, NotMyFault said:

There is a minor difference in gamma used for AA. The left shows slightly darker AA pixels.

Could be caused by by gamma, or the stroke could be minimal different in size.

Can you please give the exact data of the circle (diameter or height /width, position of center point .0 or .5, stroke width in px) ?

Actually, it would be helpful to start with the identical SVG file and see how Aph IS render the same file for export.

Yes, there is a very slight difference (good eye). For me to really see it I had to zoom in much farther (and my image above is already at 700%).
I also did an overlay of the two which reveals a tiny "halo" around the whole object. But the halo is complete around the edge so the OP's original complaint about just the 90º tangents isn't consistent.

The exact data really isn't important because it IS the same identical file used in both. It's a PDF, not an SVG, but that shouldn't matter. I can assure you though, that the circle image, inside diameter, outside diameter, size and placement is all absolutely pixel perfect. But this raises a good point.... in being pixel perfect perhaps I am coddling Affinity too much. I personally think it's absurd (if not impossible) to expect a creative person in a creative app to always be pixel perfect. Snapping overrides it, scaling destroys it. Text can never be pixel perfect. Affinity needs to be "smarter".

Next experiment coming. And that will be anything but pixel perfect!!

On 3/19/2022 at 10:55 AM, Designer1 said:

The best thing is to do a test yourself. Simply export the text or some words from affinity as PNG and from Illustrator or Corel and then compare the quality.

Good test, will do. Another head to head coming right up!

[JimmyJack]

Ohhhhh-Kay. Here we go.
Nothing about this is pixel perfect (except for original page size and final placement of images on the page for comparison)

Step right up!
(to me there is a clear difference)

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Designer1 said:

Here is a text example with OpenSans 24 pt. As you can see, letterforms are not well smoothed. Especially with round shapes export quality is not good.

I still do not understand what specifically you think is not well smoothed in this PNG. I have to zoom in to at least 250% of actual size to begin to see the effects of antialiasing. At 100% it looks fine.

5 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

Ohhhhh-Kay. Here we go.

Is this from zoomed in views or is everything at 100% of its actual size?

[LondonSquirrel]

An export test. One image is AD, one is AI (CS6), one is CorelDraw (an old version, nowhere near current). I've then brought the files into LibreOffice Draw and exported to PDF. The font is the same (not just the same name). Which number is better? My view: they are all very reasonable. 

 

which file.pdf

Edited March 20, 2022 by LondonSquirrel
I should add: the export from each app was a PNG.

[JimmyJack]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I still do not understand what specifically you think is not well smoothed in this PNG. I have to zoom in to at least 250% of actual size to begin to see the effects of antialiasing. At 100% it looks fine.

Is this from zoomed in views or is everything at 100% of its actual size?

400%. AFAIK any multiple of 100 is true.
(Gotta use zoom. Getting the pixels to show up at any reasonable size on output would require resampling..... and that is a whole other can of worms. 🥴)

[User_783649]

@JimmyJack Can you explain — why there are four samples? What apps you compared here? 

[R C-R]

26 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

400%. AFAIK any multiple of 100 is true.
(Gotta use zoom. Getting the pixels to show up at any reasonable size on output would require resampling..... and that is a whole other can of worms. 🥴)

Doesn't displaying the pixels at 400% (or any other integer multiple of 100%) of their actual size require resampling too? Sure, 200%, 400%, 800%, etc. should offer very straightforward ways to map the pixels to the display if everything is pixel aligned prior to the export, but otherwise aren't we right back to a comparison of antialiasing methods?

[JimmyJack]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Doesn't displaying the pixels at 400% (or any other integer multiple of 100%) of their actual size require resampling too? Sure, 200%, 400%, 800%, etc. should offer very straightforward ways to map the pixels to the display if everything is pixel aligned prior to the export, but otherwise aren't we right back to a comparison of antialiasing methods?

Not really sure how that works. All I can tell you, is that if I go from 800% to 700% to 600% on an on screen detail nothing changes. I mean none.
With any resample option.... big changes (some bigger than others, obviously).
The image I posted, at 100%, looks exactly like the 400% on screen magnification. An output in scale, or even an on screen rasterization, does not.

And, time and time and time..... and time again we have been told not to trust what we see on the screen unless it's at 100% or multiples.

I guess exporting at a multiple, would be okay simply because all would be treated equally keeping the playing field level. It's just adding another layer on top of the issue at hand, as Bicubic, lanczos etc etc yield very different results. But changes nonetheless. Looking at a result that has been altered further would confuse the perception and therefore the experiment (imho).

In order to get up close to the differences, (I think) this is the way to go. But I'm all ears....