Exporting - Affinity Designer - iPad V2

[ToastKitten]

Howdy,

I'm running into an issue when trying to export pixel art. It's blurring even though I'm exporting with the same dimensions as set in the document. Note that this only happens on the iPad. I do not run into this issue when using Affinity Designer 2 for my MacBook. Heres the process:

- Create 8px by 8px document, measured in pixels, with the default view (none of the ipad options)

- draw some pixels with the 1px pixel brush

- select the export option from the menu (not from the export persona)

- Preview for "png"

 

No matter what settings or sampling algorithm I use, the result is the same on the iPad. I found a forum answer for a slightly related question about upscaling pixel art. I tried doubling the export size (in this case to 16px by 16px) and using the "nearest neighbor" algorithm. That worked, but I don't want to have to 2x the scale of my export just to not have blurry pixels.

 

My best guess is that this is a bug since it's just happening to me on the iPad. Any help is appreciated. Thank you! I swear I did my best to comb the FAQ 

[DM1]

33 minutes ago, ToastKitten said:

No matter what settings or sampling algorithm I use, the result is the same on the iPad.

Check Snapping options (found under the Magnet icon). Turn on Force pixel alignment and Move by Whole Pixels. 

[ToastKitten]

That doesn't seem to have an effect. They were also already enabled by default. I tried turning off snapping (like you have in the screenshot you shared) but that didn't change the export preview either.

 

In any case, thanks for the suggestion!

[ToastKitten]

EDIT: I ran a test where I tried exporting a project saved to the cloud from each device. MacBook pro exports as expected. iPad exports with the compression

Bump (with images): 

Edited February 5, 2023 by ToastKitten

[DM1]

On 2/4/2023 at 9:52 AM, ToastKitten said:

That doesn't seem to have an effect

There appears to be a bug in Designer relating to rendering pixels. I will post a bug report in the Desiner forum🙂

[Paul Mudditt]

Isn't Affinity Photo better for pixel art since it has a pixel grid and a pixel brush, seems odd using designer for this?

Anyway, it is a known issue that the PREVIEW option is just a rough and ready check and previews with an odd fixed DPI value, for this application just ignore it and export to file and it will export ok. In Navigator pixel view it will preview as pixels correctly.

[DM1]

19 hours ago, Paul Mudditt said:

for this application just ignore it and export to file and it will export ok

Toastkittens issue is that the exported file appears blurry.

In another post, Lee D has suggested following settings to try: 

I've been doing some tests creating a 100x100 pixel document and then making sure the following are set.

• View Mode is set to Pixel
• Snapping to full pixels is enabled but move by whole pixels is off.
• Pixel based grid and snapping to grid on.
• On the Layer panel, set the Blend Range to Antialiasing, Force Off.

 

[Paul Mudditt]

5 hours ago, DM1 said:

Toastkittens issue is that the exported file appears blurry.

In another post, Lee D has suggested following settings to try: 

I've been doing some tests creating a 100x100 pixel document and then making sure the following are set.

• View Mode is set to Pixel
• Snapping to full pixels is enabled but move by whole pixels is off.
• Pixel based grid and snapping to grid on.
• On the Layer panel, set the Blend Range to Antialiasing, Force Off.

 

I must be missing something, for me it is just preview of the export which is duff, the actual exports seem fine to me, i was creating 8px x 8px docs and exports ok to a folder. Obviously you can’t export to Apple photos without it immediately converting to a jpeg so looks terrible, however if i import back to Affinity from photos the pixels are just fine as Affinity pulls the original image not the Apple photo jpeg. 

[ToastKitten]

It looks like Paul Mudditt is correct. The export worked as expected even though the preview was blurred.

 

Digging a little deeper, my issue with the blurred export was from the export persona and not the export file menu option. I needed to set the export persona to 2x for it to export as 8x8 instead of 4x4. After setting it to 2x, the export persona worked the same way as the export file menu option.

 

Thanks for all the input! And I'll give affinity photo a try in the future for pure pixel art projects. 

[DM1]

21 hours ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Obviously you can’t export to Apple photos without it immediately converting to a jpeg so looks terrible

Aghhh. Is that what Photos is doing. I wasn’t aware of that.😊