For those using Windows scaling other than 100%...

[Alfred_72]

I've been using a trial of Affinity Photo V2 and have noticed that some images are lacking in detail compared to the same image in Photoshop, paint.net and Firefox browser. I don't mean after resizing or exporting, I mean just viewing the image. (And yes, I changed the zoom to 100%) If I hadn't viewed the same image on other programs, I wouldn't have been the wiser and I would have ended up applying sharpness when it wasn't needed.

After spending quite a bit of time troubleshooting, I discovered that the issue is with my Windows scaling set to 125%. Since I have my 32" monitor set to 2560 x 1440, I find the folder names and desktop fonts too small. Changing to 125% fixed this issue. Fortunately, videos, games and images still appear the same. But some images in Affinity Photo do not.

Changing my Windows scaling back to 100% confirmed my suspicion and Affinity images appear fine. So for those who think that only Affinity's GUI is affected, this is not true.

By the way... This only applies to images displayed at 100% zoom. Zooming in, the images appear normal. If you are using a custom Windows scaling, the best way to confirm if your image appears properly in Affinity is to change the zoom to 101%. If the image is sharper then you know it's not being displayed correctly at 100%.

Oddly, some images in Affinity appear fine with Windows 125% scaling. I'm not sure why that would be.

Perhaps it's not unusual for a program to behave this way with Windows scaling changed. I just haven't noticed it elsewhere. (Other than GUI size)

 

[debraspicher]

It's entirely possible. I have issues with Pixel mode in Designer with regards to DPI scaling (my PC's details are in my forum signature). Particularly >=150% DPI. So in my experience as well 125% seems to largely be OK. I included the thread below. You have me tempted to go back down to 100% and start testing Photo for other DPI quirks.

[Alfred_72]

One thing I just wanted to correct above is that I stated it only happens with some images. But it actually happens with all images.

Anyway, I installed Affinity Photo V2 on an older PC of mine which is setup exactly the same (125% Windows Scaling) and with this PC I do not experience this 'bug' at all. Images appear perfectly. So I have no idea what to make of this.

My new PC (i5-12400) has an RX-580. My older one (crappy A10-6800k) has a junky R7 250X. Adrenaline settings are all set to default on both PC's. Windows settings are the same.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with Windows builds. My older PC is running Windows 10 21h2. My new one is 22h2.

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by Alfred_72

[Alfred_72]

Ok, this is getting weirder. I found a work around with the blurry issue. With an image opened, If I hit CTRL and scroll wheel UP, one increment, and then CTRL scroll wheel down back to 100%, the image appears correctly.

No other procedure seems to work. That includes the zoom slider and manual input.

The above procedure seems to continuously work as long as the program stays up. In other words, there is no way to undo it. You can now use the zoom slider and manual input without it going blurry again. 

However... All images return to blurry mode when you open another image or click on another image tab. Procedure has to be redone for each image you are working on. That sucks.

Again, this only applies for certain situations when windows scaling is above 100%. Who knows, maybe I'm the only one with this issue.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Alfred_72

[debraspicher]

Did you try adjusting Retena Rendering at all? "Auto" is sometimes janky and doesn't finish refreshing, but it will look blurry prior to the last pass. Auto loads things in passes and sometimes it does not finish (the earlier results are blurry). I set it to "High" if it glitches. The option is listed in Preferences>Performance. It should effect display immediately:

[Alfred_72]

Firstly, thanks for the responses above. The Retena Rendering does not work for me. However, I did find another workaround which brings up another weird discovery.

Changing the View Quality to Nearest Neighbor fixes the issue. And using a magnifying glass (since only 100% zoom is affected) I can confirm that Nearest Neighbor displays the same as other apps like Photoshop and Paint.net.

I thought Nearest Neighbor might affect other zoom levels but it doesn't. In fact, I can't see any difference between Bilinear and Nearest Neighbor except for 100% zoom. I'm not sure if it's supposed to behave like that or not. (Well, for 100% zoom it isn't)

Now for the weird discovery. I checked my other, older PC (where 100% zoom worked fine) to see what would happen if I selected Nearest Neighbor. Well, it was already set to it. I wasn't even in the performance settings on that PC.

I even uninstalled Affinity (on the older PC) completely, leaving no trace of it, and reinstalled it again. And low and behold, Nearest Neighbor was the default View Quality. I also reset Affinity on both PC's. One PC the default View Quality is Bilinear and the other PC the default is Nearest Neighbor. How odd is that?

At least now I can use the program without having to do the mouse wheel workaround.

 

[Dan C]

Hi @Alfred_72,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

Many thanks for your report and your in-depth information provided, this is certainly helpful!

I can confirm I'm able to replicate this issue here when my scaling percentage is set to 125% and my document is at 100% using Bilinear, so I am logging this as a bug with our developers now for further investigation.

On 3/2/2023 at 4:26 AM, Alfred_72 said:

I even uninstalled Affinity (on the older PC) completely, leaving no trace of it, and reinstalled it again. And low and behold, Nearest Neighbor was the default View Quality. I also reset Affinity on both PC's. One PC the default View Quality is Bilinear and the other PC the default is Nearest Neighbor. How odd is that?

I believe that the Affinity app will auto-set some of the Performance settings based on the hardware the app has access to - as you've mentioned this older PC has lower spec hardware to run the app, and therefore the app is adjusting for this.

In the meantime, I'd recommend using Nearest Neighbour on both machines in order to workaround this issue, as you've mentioned.

I hope this helps!