Working zoomed outside of 100%

[Tombon]

Hello!

At first I thought it was a bug but after contact with affinity they told me that working outside / lower than 100% will , for rendering and performance purposes, not show the exact result of your image when flattened / merged or exported.

As a photoshop user this is very strange because I never work at a 100% level unless I want to check something. Not being able to work zoomed out to get the big picture / overall impression only results in a misscalculated image when exported.

 

Am I missing something or should this be a no brainer? It's almost unworkable for me to like this. Does someone have a solution or tip of

 

[Pšenda]

On 8/31/2022 at 2:02 PM, Tombon said:

not show the exact result

If the zoom is less than 100%, the image is always distorted - you cannot display multiple pixels of the image using one pixel of the monitor. There is simply always a distortion and transformation of multiple pixels into one - which is then displayed on the monitor.

On 8/31/2022 at 2:02 PM, Tombon said:

Not being able to work zoomed out to get the big picture / overall impression only results in a misscalculated image when exported.

Apparently I don't understand how display on the monitor and export should be related - they are two completely independent processes.

[walt.farrell]

30 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Apparently I don't understand how display on the monitor and export should be related - they are two completely independent processes.

I think the point is that filters aren't displayed accurately when the image is zoomed out to less than 100%, due to the application's user if MipMaps. If you zoom out so you can see the complete image, you don't get a realistic view of what will export as the filter results change.

I think there are ways around this, using Merge Visible, or applying/merging the filter.

[Tombon]

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Edited September 4, 2022 by Tombon

[Tombon]

On 9/1/2022 at 2:54 PM, walt.farrell said:

I think the point is that filters aren't displayed accurately when the image is zoomed out to less than 100%, due to the application's user if MipMaps. If you zoom out so you can see the complete image, you don't get a realistic view of what will export as the filter results change.

I think there are ways around this, using Merge Visible, or applying/merging the filter

I guess im surprised that no one has encountered an issue with filters not showing accurately. In Photoshop I do not have to think about what magnification I am at. The software will figure out a way to show me how "much" my filters are affecting my image and I can tweak it to my liking. For example noise and such.

 

In affinity since it is live, i guess, only a 100% magnification is correct and if you export the image thinking it will look the way it did when you worked on it, on lets say 25%, youre going to have an exported image not looking like what you had in front of you at the time. Same thing happens as you merge. So the fix is quite frankly to merge often to see how the effect will look in the end and adjust accordingly it seemd.

 

Still for me this is a deal breaker and I have to experiment a bit to see if there is a way to work with it.

[Pšenda]

On 9/4/2022 at 11:07 PM, Tombon said:

The software will figure out a way to show me how "much" my filters are affecting my image and I can tweak it to my liking. For example noise and such.

Hmm, if you think.
For example:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/add-noise-not-displaying-like-preview-help/td-p/11401353

[NotMyFault]

28 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Hmm, if you think.
For example:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/add-noise-not-displaying-like-preview-help/td-p/11401353

We are comparing apples and oranges.

It is a matter of current available display technology (using pixel), that and 100% accurate preview can only be achieved at 100%. This applies naturally for Adobe and Serif products. Other display technologies are possible of course, e.g. a laser Beamer which can zoom to any zoom level would not be bound to fixed pixel dimensions.

Butt Serif Apps are much more inaccurate beyond this unavoidable factor when zooming in or out, as a consequence of mipmaps and not resampling from a 100% intermediate image.

When zoomed in (<100%), it used bilinear resample and will produce color artifacts, even can show colors who are actually not present at all in the image when viewed 100% or larger. This is a consequence of resampling implementation used, with priority on speed instead of accuracy. Even when using bilinear resample, it could provide correct results if first calculating the image at 100%, and then resampling in a second step. But the usage of mipmaps seems to introduce (avoidable) additional artifacts.

When zoomed out, the major issue is that noise effects and sharpening become much stronger. Again, this is more a consequence of the mipmap performance-oriented implementation. Serif could provide more accurate preview.

It was stated in another post by serif that you would need to „merge all“ to get a more accurate preview. I want an UI button where i can choose to get  the preview more accurate, even when less performant. I don‘t want to manually create „merge visible“ layers and delete them, this breaks the flow during edits. Photo could handle this transparently and automatically.

[Tombon]

2 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

We are comparing apples and oranges.

It is a matter of current available display technology (using pixel), that and 100% accurate preview can only be achieved at 100%. This applies naturally for Adobe and Serif products. Other display technologies are possible of course, e.g. a laser Beamer which can zoom to any zoom level would not be bound to fixed pixel dimensions.

Butt Serif Apps are much more inaccurate beyond this unavoidable factor when zooming in or out, as a consequence of mipmaps and not resampling from a 100% intermediate image.

When zoomed in (<100%), it used bilinear resample and will produce color artifacts, even can show colors who are actually not present at all in the image when viewed 100% or larger. This is a consequence of resampling implementation used, with priority on speed instead of accuracy. Even when using bilinear resample, it could provide correct results if first calculating the image at 100%, and then resampling in a second step. But the usage of mipmaps seems to introduce (avoidable) additional artifacts.

When zoomed out, the major issue is that noise effects and sharpening become much stronger. Again, this is more a consequence of the mipmap performance-oriented implementation. Serif could provide more accurate preview.

It was stated in another post by serif that you would need to „merge all“ to get a more accurate preview. I want an UI button where i can choose to get  the preview more accurate, even when less performant. I don‘t want to manually create „merge visible“ layers and delete them, this breaks the flow during edits. Photo could handle this transparently and automatically.

Thank you!

I was thinking I was the only one... Hope as you say that there will be options added where the real time rendering will be more "quality" oriented rather than "performance". 

In my case it was noise/grain levels and outer glow on a text that was totally off when I merged / exported my image into a final product (almost like I hadn't even applied the effects). Otherwise I have not noticed it being "off" when doing other types of photo work. That it does just fine and acceptable in an otherwise great alternative to adobe.