Affinity Photo document appearance changes when placed in Publisher

[bbc.]

On MacBook Pro 16" Intel, macOS 11.6.7, Affinity Photo and Publisher 1.10.5 with Apple Cinema Display 30" (notebook screen closed)

In Preferences I've changed Performance Settings for Hardware Acceleration, Display and Rendering but situation is not affected.

 

Attaching the documents did not work in this form, so I have uploaded then here for you to download:

https://www.gidman.ch/downloads/support/affinity_support_220615.zip

 

01

When I place the document created in Photo into Designer the appearance changes; it gets more contrast and is darker.

See Screenshot: 01_affinity_photo_document_placed_in_publisher_is_darker.jpg

 

02

If I quit the programs and reopen the Publisher document, the Photo document image is displaying at a much lower resolution.

Occasionally I can get it to display with higher resolution if I right click over the image, while the image layer is not selected, and wait a moment.

See screenshot: 02_publisher_low_res_display_of_affinity_photo_document.jpg

 

Your assistance is appreciated, kind regards

 

PS:

I was not able to use my Affinity Store account here in the forum, is this normal?

[NathanC]

Hi @bbc. welcome to the forums,

Regarding your issue with the Photo document appearing at a low resolution when placed into Publisher, this may be caused by a linked image layer within the .afphoto file (Castle Wall Photo) having to re-link to the file location on your Mac every time.

When I place the .afphoto file into Publisher, this requires me to re-link your Castle Wall resource back to the correct folder on my Mac which corrects the blurriness immediately (see attached Video).

To completely avoid having to wait for Affinity to re-link your image or it missing it completely, you could set the image resource as embedded or alternatively rasterise it to avoid this problem.

---

Regarding your contrast issue,  I didn't encounter this when placing the document into Publisher as it appeared identically (after re-linking the image) to Photo. This shouldn't particularly matter since the colour space of the linked resource is retained but are both the image and Publisher file set to the same colour space?

---

The Forums and Affinity Store accounts are separate from one another, this is normal.

 

[bbc.]

Thank you Nathan for your response

I recreated the documents. Both Photo and Publisher – starting out with Press Ready A4 size, same CMYK color and embedding images.

Publisher now shows the placed Photo document in high resolution. This seems to confirm there is a bug related to linked images.

However the color remains changed; see attached screenshot: 03_01_affinity_photo_document_placed_in_publisher_is_darker.jpg

What could be the problem here?

Even though I didn't choose to embed the Castle Wall jpg image in my request earlier today, the Publisher and Photo document file sizes are 14 and 11 MB. Shouldn't they be much smaller if the document or image is just linked?

The Bridge - background embedded.afphoto The Bridge - background embedded.afpub

[NathanC]

Strange, after i've opened both your documents both Publisher and Photo appear identical when it comes to contrast (see below)

This might relate to your display, instead of using the external cinema display, if you were to use the standard Macbook display does the image appear identical across the apps?

Generally files which contain embedded resources are larger than if they are linked due to the image data being stored within the file, though since the image itself isn't particularly large it will make a negligible difference.

[bbc.]

I shut down my Mac and disconnected the external screen.

On the internal screen the situation is identical.

The placed Photo document in Publisher is displayed a lot darker than how I edited and saved it in Photo.

I zoomed in to 100% on both programs, see attached screenshot: 04_affinity_photo_document_placed_in_publisher_is_darker.png  

 

[NathanC]

Thanks, unfortunately I still can't replicate this as they appear identical on my Mac when comparing both apps.

In Photo, if you were to rasterise the content (Layer > Merge Visible) and hide the original layers, then place it into Publisher, does this make any difference?

[bbc.]

Yes the difference is huge. See attached screenshot: 05_affinity_photo_document_placed_in_publisher_is_darker_vs_rasterised.jpg

On an M1 MacBook Pro 13" with macOS 11.6.5 and same Affinity program versions, the non rasterized version of the Photo document placed in Publisher looks like what I would expect. See attached screenshot: 06_affinity_photo_document_placed_in_publisher_is_darker_M1_11.6.5.png

The workaround to embed all images is not viable for larger Publisher documents, and having to create a raster version of the layers in a Photo document is very error prone and dangerous and greatly defeats the Affinity integration.

What can be done next?

 

[bbc.]

This seems like a bug that needs to be looked into.

 

If I place a pixel layer filled with plain white color on the bottom of the layers in Photo and save the document,

the placed Photo document in Publisher does not change appearance. Same if I flatten all layers in Photo and

then place the document in Publisher. Or also if I export from Photo as a TIFF file for instance.

Looks like something with the Blend Mode, Adjustment Layer, Opacity or Mask I'm using in Photo does not translate

to Publisher properly.

 

[Old Bruce]

26 minutes ago, bbc. said:

If I place a pixel layer filled with plain white color on the bottom of the layers in Photo and save the document,

the placed Photo document in Publisher does not change appearance.

This is by nature a result of Embedded documents in Publisher having no link back to the original Photo document which you have just altered.

[bbc.]

Thanks Old Bruce

Not sure I understand your comment. Perhaps you are not full in on the situation I'm encountering.

I have a Photos document with just a few layers and when I place this document into a Publisher document the color of the Photos image is darker and has more contrast. With the other mentioned workarounds (flattening, rasterising and exporting as TIFF file) the placed file's color does not change in Publisher. I discovered that when I add a solid color pixel layer at the bottom of the other layers in Photos, I can place the file in Publisher without needing to get rid of all layers (flattening, TIFF etc. and no color change is visible). This is on an Intel MacBook Pro. The M1 MacBook Pro I tested does not have this issue.

[Old Bruce]

The two files you uploaded here, "The Bridge - background embedded.aphoto" and "The Bridge - background embedded.afpub" look exactly alike to me and my crude measuring. It may be that there was some change made to the embedded image on the intel Mac's Publisher file or to the intel Mac's Photo file.

The purple gradient you have applied to the pixel layer doesn't help with simple visual comparison.

[bbc.]

If I turn off the purple gradient, the placed file is still displayed darker in Publisher than it is in Photo.

Looks like the Adjustment Layer is causing the problem on the Intel Mac.

[bbc.]

In a new User account on the Intel MacBook Pro I checked to see if the behaviour was different.

Unfortunately I encounter the same display miss match between Photo and Publisher here too.

Is there a way to pass this situation on to developers?

[NathanC]

Hi @bbc.,

Issues logged here are passed on to the developers by us (Serif Staff) if the issue can be replicated. Your original issue with linked layers going missing has already been raised. However, I'll need to see if your issue with mis-matching visuals with the apps can be reproduced in order to log it otherwise it will likely be down to environmental factors, so far both apps have been visually identical on my Intel Mac, the same for other members of the team.

Could you send me a screenshot of your Performance Preferences of both Photo and Publisher?

[bbc.]

First one is Photo, second one Publisher

As stated in my first post, I've tried several settings here without any change in outcome

What macOS version are you using?

 

[NathanC]

11 minutes ago, bbc. said:

What macOS version are you using?

I'm using 12.4 Monterey, I'll see if I can replicate this on Big Sur.

[bbc.]

Installed a fresh copy of macOS Monterey 12.4 on a separate partition on the Intel MacBook Pro.

Downloaded the three Affinity Apps from the Mac App Store.

Unfortunately the placed Photo document is still displayed darker and with more contrast in Publisher.

See attached screenshot: 07_affinity_photo_document_placed_in_publisher_is_darker_12.4.png

What am I doing wrong, what is causing this malfunction?

[NathanC]

In your screenshot it shows that you're viewing the placed .afphoto file in Publisher, if you were to double click on the embedded document layer in Publisher to open the edit view and then compare against Photo, does it then appear darker?

[bbc.]

(I'm back on 11.6.7 here.)

Yes it remains consistently darker in Publisher in edit view when comparing to how Photo displays the same file.

I see no obvious difference in the normal document view and edit view when I switch the tabs in Publisher.

[NathanC]

This might be related to your Mac Display Colour Profile, if you go into Mac System Preferences > Display > Colour and set your colour profile to sRGB does this better match between the apps?

[bbc.]

No. There is no change.

See attached screenshot from macOS 12.4 using just the internal screen and the display profile sRGB.

08_affinity_photo_document_placed_in_publisher_is_darker_12.4_srgb_dp.png

 

The way I understand display profiles is that they work globally, system-wide for all programs equally.
The Photo document and Publisher document are set up with the identical CMYK color space.

If the display profile played a role, the color shift should be noticeable in the same way when I place a flattened or rasterised file.

An exported PDF from Publisher is also darker in the PDF reader (Preview, Adobe Reader, PDF Expert), so it is not just a display error.

Publisher seems to be treating the layers (Threshold Adjustment?) in the Photos document differently.

 

The Monterey setup is absolutely clean. Internal Apple screen. No extra software, fonts, profiles etc.

 

I ask you to pass this on to the development team and give me an estimate time-frame for a fix, as it stands now I have to implement multiple workarounds for the planed project at hand.

Regards

[NathanC]

We've been able to replicate your issue on an M1 Mac Mini, it appears that Hardware Acceleration is causing a rendering issue which shouldn't occur, when we turned this off in both apps this then caused both to render identically.

Could you try turning it off in Photo and Publisher and restarting both when prompted to, then compare.

[bbc.]

Thanks for getting back

For Publisher the setting had no affect on display.

Photo now displays the image like Publisher does.

This is on macOS 11.6.7 on the Intel MacBook Pro.

 

[NathanC]

1 minute ago, bbc. said:

Thanks for getting back

For Publisher the setting had no affect on display.

Thanks for confirming, since we've been able to replicate the issue we'll get this logged with the developers.