Please add finally 1 Bit Tiff (at least export in Photo) Support!

[Rasterized]

Sorry to say, but since the beginning of Serifs efforts to create these products i'm still hoping to use at least two products of you for print producing & graphic design.
I'm not complaining on the lack of proper PDF exports in publisher (take your time  ), but this absolute simple feature still not implementing in Photo is frustrating.
 

[loukash]

1-bit export is already supported as PNG. 
You only need an external app to convert it to TIFF then.

On Mac, simply resaving the 1-bit PNG with Preview.app as TIFF will already do. Takes just a few seconds of extra work.
Or you create a simple Automator Service workflow, then you can always convert the exported PNG via context menu in Finder literally in a second.

Or create a Finder "folder action" to have a "scripted folder" that will automagically convert any image file you throw into it to TIFF…
Every such converted TIFF is being identified by Photoshop as having the Bitmap channel. Which is the desired result, right?

~

That all said, I wouldn't mind having a direct 1-bit TIFF export option in Affinity either. 

[Rasterized]

13 hours ago, loukash said:

1-bit export is already supported as PNG. 
You only need an external app to convert it to TIFF then.

On Mac, simply resaving the 1-bit PNG with Preview.app as TIFF will already do. Takes just a few seconds of extra work.
Or you create a simple Automator Service workflow, then you can always convert the exported PNG via context menu in Finder literally in a second.

Or create a Finder "folder action" to have a "scripted folder" that will automagically convert any image file you throw into it to TIFF…
Every such converted TIFF is being identified by Photoshop as having the Bitmap channel. Which is the desired result, right?

~

That all said, I wouldn't mind having a direct 1-bit TIFF export option in Affinity either. 

loukash, how can i change a grayscale picture to 1 bit or "k only" in affinity photo? 

And yes, no idea why they don't do this for tiff saving....

[fde101]

6 minutes ago, Rasterized said:

how can i change a grayscale picture to 1 bit or "k only" in affinity photo? 

You can't; Serif has already stated in the past that they have no intention of ever supporting 1-bit images within the software.

You can only export it as 1-bit: in the Export window, check the "Palettized" box (you might need to scroll down to see it) and choose "Black & White" as the "Palette".

This option is currently only available for PNG and GIF.

[carl123]

Some options on YouTube

 

[Rasterized]

31 minutes ago, fde101 said:

You can't; Serif has already stated in the past that they have no intention of ever supporting 1-bit images within the software.

You can only export it as 1-bit: in the Export window, check the "Palettized" box (you might need to scroll down to see it) and choose "Black & White" as the "Palette".

This option is currently only available for PNG and GIF.

Ok thank you. I tried it quick. PNG exported as b&w picture, then saved it as b&w tiff in Mac preview. Opened it in Photoshop, it's no Bitmap but plain Grayscale b&w picture. Imported this tiff to indesign. Behaviour is just like its an grayscale tiff. No transparency like it is with a native PS bitmap tiff....
This is a real bummer 😞

 

 

 

[loukash]

1 hour ago, Rasterized said:

how can i change a grayscale picture to 1 bit or "k only" in affinity photo? 

First you may want to add a global Threshold adjustment (plus place other adjustments layers below as you see fit) to fine tune the 1-bit conversion non-destrucively.
Then you can already export as 1-bit PNG:

^ This is a screenshot from v1 export, but the v2 settings are the same.

~~~

If you want to convert an image to fake bitmap mode destructively in place in Photo: 

1. flatten all layers incl. the Threshold
2. Document > Convert Format ICC Profile > Gray/8 > Black & White > Absolute Colorimetric

But internally that's not a true bitmap channel. You need to export to PNG as above.

~~~

To convert a placed image to 1-bit and K Only in place in a Publisher layout, for export to PDF, for example:

1. make sure your document is fully in Pixel mode and everything 100% pixel aligned, i.e. even the bleed must be in integer pixels because that's where the Affinity's "absolute pixel grid" zero point is.
2. place a color image, 100% pixel aligned, adjust with Threshold etc. as you see fit, adjust size to its final value
3. rasterize (a copy of) the image layer
4. convert the pixel layer to Image Resource; do not resize anymore, keep at 100% (it gets more complex if you need e.g. 1200 ppi though…)
5. K Only > apply fill to colorize it
6. double check in Designer persona with View Mode > Pixels that every pixel object is still 100% pixel aligned
7. export as PDF if you want to send it to print

Here a quick example (in Publisher v1 on El Capitan, otherwise I couldn't have used Acrobat to preflight), using a placed random Pixabay photo, fully pixel-aligned, "bitmapped" in place, everything colorized with Pantone spot colors set to overprint, exported as PDF/X-3:

Summed up, the workflow can be literally a pain in the ass, but it is technically possible.

[fde101]

6 minutes ago, loukash said:

Then you can already export as 1-bit PNG:

Actually, I just did a test of this, and @Rasterized is correct: this does NOT produce a 1-bit PNG.

It actually writes an 8-bit grayscale PNG in which only two gray levels are actually used.

[loukash]

20 minutes ago, Rasterized said:

No transparency like it is with a native PS bitmap tiff

Native true PS bitmap channel has no alpha either. At least not my PS CS5.1.
If you need the alpha channel, export the PNG like this:

Note that for true 1-bit export, Matte must be white.
Whereas for 1-bit with alpha, Matte is transparent.

[loukash]

5 minutes ago, fde101 said:

this does NOT produce a 1-bit PNG

It works.
But as I said, the whole workflow is a p.i.t.a.: Miss just one small step and everything goes havoc… 

[Rasterized]

6 minutes ago, loukash said:

Native true PS bitmap channel has no alpha either. At least not my PS CS5.1.
If you need the alpha channel, export the PNG like this:

Note that for true 1-bit export, Matte must be white.
Whereas for 1-bit with alpha, Matte is transparent.

Thank you for your effort, but fde101 is right - this will NOT produce a 1 Bit Bitmap.
No offense, but maybe not all understand what's the benefit of this file format really is in (offset)printing.

Just in very short words:

If you send a PDF to the imagesetter (by now a CTP-machine for almost 100%), your data will be seperated and rasterized.
CMYK and Grayscale will be rasterized in around 300 dpi max for each channel.
The CTP machine will impose with a max resolution of 1200-2400 dpi.
So Vectors and Text (which is a sort of vector) will be imposed at max imagesetter resolution (at least 1200 dpi). Images and rasterized text, Forms etc get 300 dpi.
This causes the sharp look of Text / vectors compared to e.g. Text produced in Photoshop etc.
If you send a 1200dpi Bitmap picture of lineart to the CTP Machine, it will be imposed as sharp as text or vectors....

That's it.

And you need this format, since vector tracing will never achieve the same detailed result. There are always errors.

[Rasterized]

17 minutes ago, loukash said:

Native true PS bitmap channel has no alpha either. At least not my PS CS5.1.

Transparency in the Indesign workflow.

[fde101]

I have tried several times, matching the screenshots above as closely as I could, making sure that the "matte" is set to white, etc., but I cannot get the Affinity products to produce a "true" 1-bit PNG under any conditions.

They always come out as 8-bit grayscale images with 2 palette entries used:

% magick identify test4.png
test4.png PNG 1920x1080 1920x1080+0+0 8-bit Gray 2c 9109B 0.000u 0:00.000

 

The resulting TIFF from Preview is then similarly 8-bit:

% magick identify test4a.tiff
test4a.tiff TIFF 1920x1080 1920x1080+0+0 8-bit Grayscale Gray 2078470B 0.000u 0:00.000

 

ImageMagick, on the other hand, can convert them to true 1-bit images:

% convert -monochrome test4.png test5.tiff 
% magick identify test5.tiff
test5.tiff TIFF 1920x1080 1920x1080+0+0 1-bit Bilevel Gray 259422B 0.010u 0:00.000

 

[loukash]

1 hour ago, Rasterized said:

If you send a PDF to the imagesetter […]

I admit that I haven't have to use bitmap images in layouts literally in decades. When I received one from a client, I traced it in Illustrator. They were never that complex that it wouldn't be possible, even though AI CS5 would usually take its time to make all those calculations, and some manual cleanup was usually also necessary.

Also frankly, I don't work at a print company. All I can do now is to preflight the PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 that I'm usually sending to the print guys, and hope they will be able to work with it.  If not, they would give me feedback. And from what I can see in Acrobat, my above "Jazz" example should apparently work as intended.

1 hour ago, Rasterized said:

this will NOT produce a 1 Bit Bitmap

So, I just opened the 1-bit Affinity non-alpha-PNG-converted-to-bitmap-TIFF-via-MacOS in PS:

And then I opened the original RGB JPEG in PS and converted it to Bitmap:

No alpha channel either because the Bitmap mode requires flattening to Background layer. (The threshold adjustment value * was likely not the same, hence the image looks slightly different.)

The only difference is that saving from PS saves space because you can choose LZW or ZIP compression, whereas the MacOS conversion from 1-bit PNG to TIFF via Automator is uncompressed.

*) As a side note: Why the heck is the Affinity Threshold adjustment value in %?! Why not 0 to 255?! WTF?

1 hour ago, Rasterized said:

Transparency in the Indesign workflow.

I know, it's much easier to work with. Also separation preview, overprint preview, overprint as an object attribute, yada yada. Been working primarily with ID from 2003 until 2020.
We all desperately want to have that in Affinity as well!
Nobody is trying to excuse Serif that those features are not needed. But if needed, it's possibe to work around the limitations to a certain degree.

[fde101]

2 minutes ago, loukash said:

Why the heck is the Affinity Threshold adjustment value in %?! Why not 0 to 255?!

The range of 0 to 255 is from the days of 8-bit values.  It does not account for 16-bit-per-channel images.  Percentage values are independent of the bit depth.

I would assume it has something to do with that.

[loukash]

Just now, fde101 said:

Percentage values are independent of the bit depth.

But Threshold accepts only integer %
You can move the slider pixel per pixel without the % value being changed but still seeing a difference on canvas, but… Uh.

[loukash]

10 minutes ago, fde101 said:

The resulting TIFF from Preview

Could it be that Preview removed 1-bit support from recent MacOS versions? I remember reading somewhere that there were some changes and some formats are no more available. As noted, currently I'm logged in El Capitan, but I can reboot to Catalina in a minute. I have no Mac that can run Big Sur or higher.

(Speaking of which, I actually wanted to check out how Affinity 2 on iPad can handle all this, but currently my wife is at the iPad, so I'll have to wait… )

[Rasterized]

So - long story short - Affinity is still not able to create and handle 1 Bit Tiffs.

Ah, and just for the Serif-crew and others who sometimes mention this format is not relevant anymore:
If you send your super duper Layout, created with the most modern and fancy file formats within, packed as an PDF to the printer, every spreadsheet will separated in 4 (if cmyk) b&w images for halftoning. Guess which file format is used to get this transfered to each printing plate? Yes, it's 1Bit TIFF in 1200 or 2400 dpi - according to the imagesetter resolution....   (Better said "TIFF G4" which is a lossless variation for big formats)

Some helpful reading i found too:
http://businessofillustration.com/save-line-art-1200-dpi-bitmap-tiff-files/

 

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by Rasterized

[François R]

2 hours ago, Rasterized said:

No offense, but maybe not all understand what's the benefit of this file format really is in (offset)printing.

I think it's pretty obvious they don't know.

[lepr]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

But Threshold accepts only integer %

Threshold accepts and uses non-integer values, but the field misleadingly displays only integers.

The same has been true of percentages throughout the Affinity apps.

[loukash]

50 minutes ago, ,,, said:

Threshold accepts and uses non-integer values, but the field misleadingly displays only integers.

The same has been true of percentages throughout the Affinity apps.

Ah, right, now I remember that it has been mentioned on the forum before.

[Rasterized]

4 hours ago, François R said:

I think it's pretty obvious they don't know.

I really hoped some years ago this will get a real replacement to cc. But i have admit to myself that 2023 will be a next year fully in CC world.
Too many small but important things miss for professional work in Photo & Designer - and Publisher is still years away. Biggest problem here is the somewhat simple PDF export which is not sufficient for delicate jobs.

[François R]

Quote

I think it's pretty obvious they don't know.

I just remembered this one:

48 minutes ago, Rasterized said:

I really hoped some years ago this will get a real replacement to cc. But i have admit to myself that 2023 will be a next year fully in CC world.
Too many small but important things miss for professional work in Photo & Designer - and Publisher is still years away. Biggest problem here is the somewhat simple PDF export which is not sufficient for delicate jobs.

Well, don't get addicted to hopium. 

Many cheap programs lack features, where I naturally think "Of course it doesn't support these professional features", but Affinity is a mess, where suddenly something elementary is missing literally up and down a good and professional feature - and then it makes the program totally unusable. And then you can think what you want about the program; you can't use it anyway.

[Medical Officer Bones]

It really is a shame, and the lack of proper 1bit image support is one of the primary reasons why I am unable to use either Photo or Publisher for the comic publishing and technical documentation that I work on.

Publisher only needs to respect 1bit images during PDF export. But it doesn't. That alone prevents me from using Publisher. It is such a basic requirement, but alas!

While the inexpensive PhotoLine (which doesn't even focus on DTP) will allow me to work with 1bit images in layers (unheard of in any other image editor, including Photoshop!) and freely combine with CMYK/RGB layers to output a multi-page PDF/X 1~4 compliant PDF file with the correct separations. I even use it to check PDFs for separation issues at times when I do not have access to Acrobat.

Of course, for more intricate publishing jobs I still need InDesign.

[loukash]

2 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

the inexpensive PhotoLine

That looks interesting!