Publisher: Image placement problem

[Bonteburg]

Hallo all,

I have a seemingly random problem where I try to place the contents of an image into a custom bezier image frame.

(The idea behind this worflow being to achieve an approximation of a pixel-perfect result without having to resort to an image editor in the idea phase – and even to cut out that middle man completely in some cases).

That's something I adopted in Indesign.

Obviously, in this scenario pasting the contents both exactly in place and into an image frame is critical.

After trying a few approaches on how it could be done in Publisher I ended up with a test document where that approach worked perfectly.

Now, in a new document, it absolutely never works at all and I am at a total loss as to why this could be. I've tried (seemingly) everything – placement options, paste as content, place inside (place within? translation?), image frame attributes (centering, aligned, none at all, etc).

 

The problem presents itsel as one of the following:

- Image gets placed with an offset in relation to the intende frame, despite (apparently) no special placement options checked

- Image doesn't get placed at all

 

So far my best guess is that I am simply dealing with a corrupt file (ie the .afpub file).

Or could I be missing something really painfully obvious?

 

 

[Bonteburg]

OK I did some testing and it positively  didn't work in the document I was working on and as soon as I copy over the offending image frames to a new document it seems to work?

This is simultanously fixed and complicated by the fact that now it does seem to work, and that I can't really share the OG bad file because of some copyright/NDA type stuff 😐

It seems I had to do some copy-between-documents voodoo to make it work (or whatever)

I'm including the file. (the "bad" one, stripped of all work-related images).

 

TEST_BAD.afpub

[thomaso]

54 minutes ago, Bonteburg said:

image into a custom bezier image frame. (...)

I'm including the file. (the "bad" one, stripped of all work-related images).

Your .afpub does not contain any layer, correct?
I am not able to reproduce an anomaly with an an image in a few clipping objects. – Maybe we need your "custom bezier image frame"?

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Your .afpub does not contain any layer, correct?

It certainly does not when I open it.

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Maybe we need your "custom bezier image frame"?

Or at least an example file that has one in it ....

[Bonteburg]

Thanks!

I'm pretty much certain that it is a simple case of a corrupted file.

The problem literally goes away when removing pages or saving under a different name – most probably the former. Maybe even saving the file at all does the trick. I never seem to be able to bug-hunt competently when there are so many moving parts and in an actual work situation.

Just to illustrate what I'm trying to achieve I've attached a file (where, again, it works perfectly).

Test_bad_not_bad.afpub

[thomaso]

It's almost a pity that you upload documents only where the problem does NOT occur.

I wonder whether the conversion of the custom bezier paths into layers of type "(Picture Frame)", respectively your way to use them, might matter for possible issues.

This object type Picture Frame typically shows a special interface which let you move & scale a nested object without the need a.) to select the nested layer or b.) to activate "Lock Children". But in your example some instances don't show this interface. – Also I am not sure whether it matters here that especially those Picture Frames got additional Picture Frames nested.

 

It can be more comfortable to use custom curves as simple clipping objects rather than converting them to Picture Frames first.

Some of your picture frames aren't nested correctly in their parent picture frames, as the latter don't show the mentioned interface (and icon on their nested layer's thumbnail). Note that every Picture Frame layer has "Properties" which influences its nested item in size and position while these options are influenced by the dimensions of the Picture Frame, so a Frame in size of its nested image can show a different result than a frame in e.g. half size but with identical properties set.

Edited September 30, 2022 by thomaso

[Bonteburg]

I would show you the original, unaltered file but it contains some sensitive stuff (no state secrets but I never show unpublished work stuff before publishing as a matter of principle).

Suffice it to say that my workflow started to behave properly as soon as I copied the weird issues over to a new document.

I don't fully understand what you mean by "not nested correctly". If you mean that there's an image in a picture frame in another picture frame, that is necessary to make my method work, as mere "frame-less" images don't respond to "paste inside", whereas picture frames do.

I will look into the clipping path method. It seems like an interesting avenue to explore and sounds like it does a very similar thing, thanks!

[Bonteburg]

Hah! I was able to replicate my issue in the attached document.

I went through the options:

paste an image "inside"* frame with an image into a circular frame on top of the original
Result: nothing pasted
(as opposed to the attached file in my previous post)

paste an image "as content"** frame with an image into a circular frame on top of the original
Result: Image pasted incorrectly

paste the image "inside" sans frame 
Result: nothing pasted

paste the frameless image "as content" 
Result: Image pasted incorrectly

I did the same things (as far as I can tell) in file "Test_bad_not_bad_2 with success.

 

*"innerhalb einfügen"
** "als Inhalt einfügen"

 

 

Test_neu.afpub

[thomaso]

51 minutes ago, Bonteburg said:

what you mean by "not nested correctly"

just what I explained in the 2nd part of this sentence. (… concerning "interface" and "thumbnail")

53 minutes ago, Bonteburg said:

necessary to make my method work, as mere "frame-less" images don't respond to "paste inside", whereas picture frames do.

You can "paste inside" almost every object type. I never experienced that it did not work with images layers (in case you mean those by "frame-less images"). The screenshot in my first post shows this situation: image inside custom bezier path, while the image layer was simply dragged into the curves layer. If pasting or placing from the clipboard there are also the 3 insert buttons in the Toolbar, offering "behind", "on top" and "inside" which you can activate before an insert action. – One more sample with image inside a simple Curve, no Picture Frame:

[Bonteburg]

New developement:

If, in my latest example, I select the circular frame in the example in the bottom right corner and click "fit content to frame", it creates an elliptical frame containing all of the image, far away to the right of the artboard.

[thomaso]

10 minutes ago, Bonteburg said:

"fit content to frame" … far away to the right of the artboard.

not to me. (I guess you mean rather the opposite: fit frame to content, correct?) In this case, here the elliptical frame retains the position of its object centre on the page.

[Bonteburg]

Yes - true frame to content.

Well, then, sadly I think we must be dealing with some error in my very specific Affinity version and computer.

(it also created random image frames on the next page just now, during my efforts to get to the bottom of it).

I have a Lenovo Yogabook WIndows 10 Home build 19043.2006

Lastest 1.X version of Affinity.

BUT: Thanks for all the help! 🤗

[Bonteburg]

To kind of wrap this up:

It appears the problem occurs only with imported images that were then converted to frames.

If that is the case, as I hope, the solution is to simply create an image frame first and import an image into that.

Once screwed up, the "bad" image needs to be erased from the document and imported in the proper way.
Simply deleting the image frames etc on the page and reimporting it the proper way does not solve the issue.

Certainly one for the bug report but entirely workable.
Keep your fingers crossed because that is something I do literally 100s of times on a given day depending on the job.

 

[Bonteburg]

Thanks!
That also looks interesting.

A bit further up the thread Thomaso pointed out a clipping path tool to me that might also do something similar.

So it appears that in between my quick fixes and a few possible alternative approaches I won't be out of options here...

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, Bonteburg said:

New developement:

If, in my latest example, I select the circular frame in the example in the bottom right corner and click "fit content to frame", it creates an elliptical frame containing all of the image, far away to the right of the artboard.

Sure bottom right, not left?

This .afpub contains two circular Picture Frames (both left) which have no image in their layer thumbnail and got their nested child image placed right of the page. I see this without clicking "fit frame to content".

Of course, when the images in these frames get replaced by any other or same file the properties of this frame does not change ans thus also the other frame content is positioned right of the page. And also a copy of such a picture frame is expected to behave the same way if it gets newly populated with an image, just since the frame copy has the same properties set. To maintain the current property setting is the wanted behaviour for Picture Frames.

3 hours ago, Bonteburg said:

It appears the problem occurs only with imported images that were then converted to frames.

I can't reproduce any image offset this way in your document, neither with an existing image nor with a newly loaded one. Currently I wonder if the confusion you experience might be a consequence of using several copies of images respectively these images within picture frames which maybe placed into picture frames again that the procedure in certain moments got hard to follow. A matter of concentration with other words (compare "fit content" or "right"), or maybe too fast clicks + decisions (as in my case with the bottom right frame without noticing the 'empty' layer thumbnails before).

To understand what is really going on you could record a screencast video of such a complete procedure of 1. loading an image + 2. converting it to a picture frame while the layers panel is visible, and ideally on a page that doesn't contain any further object .

[Bonteburg]

Wow you really go all in!

I'll try and record a screencast tomorrow. I'm pretty sure it's the difference between placing an image and converting one to a frame but who knows – we'll see.

And yes – bottom left! 🙄 Not on my best form today, apparently.

[Bonteburg]

After 6 minutes of doing a screencast trying to repicate the issue it consistently fails to materialize. Even though I like the way it works the problem itself remains frustrating, because it did  happen time and time again and as recent as today.

I amended mypost in the bug report section and gave a little theory as to what the cause, however elusive, might be.

I'm keeping you posted.