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File growing in size on save without apparent reason


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As part of a workflow I worked on 1200x1200 and 1250x687 images, all RGB/8 images, single layer. My experiments have proved that on each saving the Affinity Photo is adding like 2-3 new MB to the file size, whatever I do.

For example, my last 1250x687 RGB/8, only one background layer - file is now 43.9M which is more than ridiculous, Rasterize & Trim action makes no difference.

The history saving is turned off.

I'm pretty sure this is a bug and the file is full of garbage data.

 

Even more info in the post thread here.

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Try save as (new file) instead of save, or copy / paste the single layer into a new file. 
Affinity's file format is optimized for speed, not for storage efficiency.

it would help to analyze the issue if you can upload the file. Document may contain large areas outside the visible canvas, document>flatten could be more effective than rasterize & trim.

Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080

LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5

iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589

Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

 

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Save As is what I've been doing all the time and that's how I noticed in the first place.

1250x687x RGB/8 with flatten out, rasterized and trimmed single layer should not comprise more than 2.5MB, especially not on a new save. I'm now getting anything from 18 to 53+ MB. It is ridiculous. I don't think "speed" can justify it out. I'm also pretty sure 1.8 didn't produce such big files.

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18 minutes ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

1250x687x RGB/8 with flatten out, rasterized and trimmed single layer should not comprise more than 2.5MB, especially not on a new save.

It will be more, because the file is not simply that pixel layer. There is additional overhead to describe the layer structure, etc. But it shouldn't be as much as you say you have.

Another thing you're ignoring is the initial Snapshot, which will probably be as big as the initial document size. You can go into the Snapshots panel and delete it, and then do your Save and see how much difference that makes.

Edit: Also, what are you starting with in your workflow? A JPG/PNG/TIFF, or a RAW file?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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1 hour ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

As part of a workflow I worked on 1200x1200 and 1250x687 images, all RGB/8 images, single layer.

Sometime in the last year there was a file that was quite small in physical dimensions and dpi. Similar in size to yours if not smaller. The file size on the disk was massive. There were several megabytes of metadata in the file from lord only knows where. 

Also where are the files from in the first place? 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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24 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It will be more, because the file is not simply that pixel layer. There is additional overhead to describe the layer structure, etc. But it shouldn't be as much as you say you have.

Another thing you're ignoring is the initial Snapshot, which will probably be as big as the initial document size. You can go into the Snapshots panel and delete it, and then do your Save and see how much difference that makes.

Edit: Also, what are you starting with in your workflow? A JPG/PNG/TIFF, or a RAW file?

So, the initial files were JPG CMYK which I converted immediately to RGB8 since I need it for the web purposes. Normally, I'd like to keep all the original sizes, and the adjustment layers, but since the file keeps getting bigger by 2-3MB on each save, I've trimmed and rasterized everything just to keep track of the sizes.

Just tried "deleting snapshot". And it is not helping at all. There are basically no further snapshot except the first one. Then, deleting this one, and saving it, the file still keeps getting bigger.

Anyhow, to underline the simple procedure I used: (1) take the file, (2) crop to 1250x687, (3) rasterize, trim, remove CMYK, (4) maybe simple adjustment layer, (5) save it.

I'm pretty sure something is not right there on saving. The size and procedure simply does not add up to a file size. Luckily I don't really need those .afphoto files due to simple steps taken, but still - imagine having several hundred of such files.

 

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45 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Try save as (new file) instead of save, or copy / paste the single layer into a new file.

Interesting. I just tried to copy/paste the layer onto a fresh empty document, as opposed to [Save As] which didn't do anything.

The file size has dropped to expected 2.53MB.

I still don't see this as solution, though.

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28 minutes ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

Just tried "deleting snapshot". And it is not helping at all. There are basically no further snapshot except the first one. Then, deleting this one, and saving it, the file still keeps getting bigger.

For smallest size, you need to use Save As, and a new file name. Otherwise the file will grow until the application decides to "compress" it to remove the wasted space.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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We still need the actual Affinity file to check. Without all evidence allowing others to reproduce the issue, no fix is possible.

Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080

LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5

iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589

Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

 

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10 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

We still need the actual Affinity file to check. Without all evidence allowing others to reproduce the issue, no fix is possible.

I'd gladly post the file to the developers, no problem there. I'm just not sure if they are reading this thread?

 

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I have some difficulties to understand the exact circumstances. 

  • single layer file? 
  • or single bitmap layer and cascade of adjustment / filter layers (everyone having their own mask layer)
  • when you rasterize, you rasterize only the bitmap layer, but keep the other layers unchanged?

There are some issues if you paste adjustments layers from other documents or assets, possibly of different resolution or dpi. Do you utilize the inherent mask of adjustment layers? Otherwise try channels panel, layer alpha, fill to get rid of unneeded inherent masks. 

Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080

LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5

iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589

Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

 

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I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Do this:

  1. Open the attached file (55.8 MB) - single layer with nothing else - no adjustments, no filters, no masks, no history (supposedly) - as simple as possible
  2. Try [Save As] - it cuts down size to 48.1 MB
  3. Paste that layer to a brand new 1250x687 template, save it - the size is now correct 2.53 MB

If I were a developer, this course of action would tell me there was something with the saving procedure.

I understand the photo editing tool's files need to be bigger in size due to speed or composition or history or whatever, but this case has nothing to do with that.

 

FileThatKeepsGrowing.afphoto

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A quick check and I get what’s in my attached image (on Windows 10).

FileThatKeepsGrowing.afphoto = original file (includes Background snapshot which doesn’t seem to affect things much)
FileThatKeepsGrowing2.afphoto = after Save As
FileThatKeepsGrowing3.afphoto = after Copy / New from Clipboard (note that Camera Data has been removed)

I don’t know if this helps with any diagnosis or not.

image.png.95a59973a613366c35ee7a48d59d2358.png

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1 hour ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

If I were a developer, this course of action would tell me there was something with the saving procedure.

In this case it's a problem with deleting the snapshot which has been documented before

Do this...

Open your attached file
Delete the snapshot
Save the file
Close the document
Reopen the document
Save as... to new file name

File size is now 2.53MB
 

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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1 hour ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Do this:

  1. Open the attached file (55.8 MB) - single layer with nothing else - no adjustments, no filters, no masks, no history (supposedly) - as simple as possible
  2. Try [Save As] - it cuts down size to 48.1 MB
  3. Paste that layer to a brand new 1250x687 template, save it - the size is now correct 2.53 MB

If I were a developer, this course of action would tell me there was something with the saving procedure.

I understand the photo editing tool's files need to be bigger in size due to speed or composition or history or whatever, but this case has nothing to do with that.

 

FileThatKeepsGrowing.afphoto

At some point I'm assuming there was more information than just this one image layer within this file. Its quite likely that any old layer thumbnail previews etc are currently still stored in the file and the app has yet to flush them out. It does this periodically but it can be forced using the methods described above :)

Thanks
C

Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP.

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10 minutes ago, Callum said:

At some point I'm assuming there was more information than just this one image layer within this file. Its quite likely that any old layer thumbnail previews etc are currently still stored in the file and the app has yet to flush them out. It does this periodically but it can be forced using the methods described above :)

I got bunch of large CMYK JPGs i needed to adjust. My workflow in 90% of the cases went like this:

  1. Crop down to 1250x687
  2. Convert color profile down to RGB/8
  3. Adjust colors if necessary using adjustments layers
  4. Export back to jpg
  5. [Save As] the adopted file

Couldn't be easier, but it adds like 18-45 MB, unjustified, per file.

I hope the most of us can agree that copy/paste method could be a workaround, but not a real solution to this issue. Affinity Photo should take care of the garbage prior to saving the file. Imagine having 100 of files like that wasting 2-4 GB of disk space, cloud space etc.

 

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3 minutes ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

I got bunch of large CMYK JPGs i needed to adjust. My workflow in 90% of the cases went like this:

  1. Crop down to 1250x687
  2. Convert color profile down to RGB/8
  3. Adjust colors if necessary using adjustments layers
  4. Export back to jpg
  5. [Save As] the adopted file

Couldn't be easier, but it adds like 18-45 MB, unjustified, per file.

I hope the most of us can agree that copy/paste method could be a workaround, but not a real solution to this issue. Affinity Photo should take care of the garbage prior to saving the file. Imagine having 100 of files like that wasting 2-4 GB of disk space, cloud space etc.

 

As I mentioned this information is something the app will eventually throwaway if you continue to work on the file but this will only happen using File > Save As and not File > Save as has been previously mentioned in this thread. 

Thanks
C

Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP.

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1 minute ago, Callum said:

As I mentioned this information is something the app will eventually throwaway if you continue to work on the file but this will only happen using File > Save As and not File > Save as has been previously mentioned in this thread. 

@Callum I appreciate your comment, however, as you could see above:

  1. If I used [Save As] it only dropped from 55.8 to 48.1 MB (still too large)
  2. If I copy-pasted over to a new templated it dropped from 55.8 to 2.5 MB (perfect)

In addition to that, any extra addition to a file and then [Save], would add new 2-3 MB to a file. So, with like 50 saves the file would have been over 100 MBs.

So, you may or may not agree if this be a bug, but if it would be me, I would consider it as a matter to look into, at least.

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57 minutes ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

however, as you could see above:

  1. If I used [Save As] it only dropped from 55.8 to 48.1 MB (still too large)
  2. If I copy-pasted over to a new templated it dropped from 55.8 to 2.5 MB (perfect)

If you look at @carl123's post above, he confirms that deleting the Snapshot also gets you the reduced size. You apparently have a lot of information in that initial snapshot, which is taking most of the space. 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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12 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

If you look at @carl123's post above, he confirms that deleting the Snapshot also gets you the reduced size. You apparently have a lot of information in that initial snapshot, which is taking most of the space. 

Yes, I've seen his post. He has confirmed what's already been said - a workaround to the said problem.

This is a bug to be dealt with.

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2 minutes ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

This is a bug to be dealt with.

Having and keeping, the initial Snapshot is not a bug. (In my opinion, of course.)

If your workflow requires the smaller file sizes, and if you have huge initial Snapshots due to your workflow, you can simply delete that Snapshot if it's not useful to you.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Having and keeping, the initial Snapshot is not a bug. (In my opinion, of course.)

I would have agreed with you if deleting the snapshot and then saving the file would have made the things work. As the conducted tests are proving, this is not the case.

(I don't want to go into solicitation of the initial snapshot, let's leave it as this is the way the app is designed).

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3 minutes ago, Dalibor Puljiz said:

I would have agreed with you if deleting the snapshot and then saving the file would have made the things work. As the conducted tests are proving, this is not the case.

Again, you need to use Save As to a new name to force reclamation of unused space earlier than the application would do it automatically. Also a designed behavior, as previously mentioned.

Though, once you delete the Snapshot, it is suspicious if the next Save doesn't reclaim the space automatically. If I remember correctly Serif have said that should happen on a Save once it could recover 25% of the space.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Again, you need to use Save As to a new name to force reclamation of unused space earlier than the application would do it automatically. Also a designed behavior, as previously mentioned.

Though, once you delete the Snapshot, it is suspicious if the next Save doesn't reclaim the space automatically. If I remember correctly Serif have said that should happen on a Save once it could recover 25% of the space.

We're running in circles. I have attached the file above, so you may check for yourself. The number of us have already confirmed that it's not the way it's supposed to be, and that there is indeed a problem.

So - I still think there is a bug in the software that should be addressed. As for myself, I can live with the workarounds, but denying the issue won't help anyone.

I'm now resting my case.

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2 hours ago, Callum said:

As I mentioned this information is something the app will eventually throwaway if you continue to work on the file but this will only happen using File > Save As and not File > Save as has been previously mentioned in this thread. 

Thanks
C

I'm a little confused.

Does the above mean you do not consider there to be a bug and as such it won't be logged as one or is "something" to be logged as a bug?

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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