I wonder my images exported PNGs are pixilated

[Riki Metz]

Hi, I'm Riki.

I bought Affinity Designer 2 as an alternative to Illustrator. I am having fun creating vector based designs, but when I export them as PNGs to Photoshop, they appear pixilated.

I have been using Bicubic, which works for images with straight lines. It does not work with curves.

I do part of the work in Affinity and switch to Photoshop for the rest. When I bring the PNGs back into Affinity, they are pixilated as well.

Exports as EPS look small and blurry.

I have not yet tried exporting in PSD.

The quality is not good enough to print, and the printers want AI files.

It would be nice to share my work and print it.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

The file below is not a complete project, I paused it to show you what I am talking about.

Thank you,

Riki

[Old Bruce]

19 minutes ago, Riki Metz said:

I am having fun creating vector based designs, but when I export them as PNGs to Photoshop, they appear pixilated.

Mostly because PNGs are Pixel based. No way to avoid it. View at 100% magnification instead of zooming in to higher magnifications.

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Mostly because PNGs are Pixel based. No way to avoid it.

... try Pixel View. 

https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/GetStarted/view.html

[Dan C]

Hi @Riki Metz,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

17 hours ago, Riki Metz said:

I bought Affinity Designer 2 as an alternative to Illustrator. I am having fun creating vector based designs, but when I export them as PNGs to Photoshop, they appear pixilated.

I have been using Bicubic, which works for images with straight lines. It does not work with curves.

PNG is a pixel based format, meaning that some pixilation will occur when exporting to this format, regardless of the export settings used.

Can you please confirm for me, what physical pixel size are you exporting the PNG to?

I'd recommend trying the Lanczos 3 Separable  Resample option in the export dialog, as this might provide slightly sharper results, but as above some pixilation is expected.

17 hours ago, Riki Metz said:

the printers want AI files

Unfortunately the Affinity apps are unable to export to the .Ai format, though you may want to try PDF as this will retain objects in Vector format where possible, and most printers will accept .PDF files.

I hope this helps!

[Riki Metz]

Thank you very much for your help, Dan. I will try Lanczos 3 Separable Resample option in the export dialogue.

The size of the document was 5000x5000 pixels. I would like to print the image, PDF will definitely work as far as the printer is concerned, but will the image be crisp?

[Dan C]

No problem at all!

Thanks for confirming that for me, 5000px² is relative large but this also depends on the DPI of the image and the size at which you're looking to print the file.

14 hours ago, Riki Metz said:

I would like to print the image, PDF will definitely work as far as the printer is concerned, but will the image be crisp?

Exporting to PDF will keep (compatible) objects in Vector, meaning they can be infinitely scaled without quality loss.

However at the final print stage, these objects will be rasterised by the printer meaning you still may see some pixilation, though this would likely be less than compared to exporting to PNG and printing this

[Pšenda]

29 minutes ago, Dan C said:

though this would likely be less than compared to exporting to PNG and printing this

If the resolution of the image is set the same as the resulting/required image size and the DPI of the printer, then the pixelation will be identical.

[Riki Metz]

22 hours ago, Dan C said:

No problem at all!

Thanks for confirming that for me, 5000px² is relative large but this also depends on the DPI of the image and the size at which you're looking to print the file.

Exporting to PDF will keep (compatible) objects in Vector, meaning they can be infinitely scaled without quality loss.

However at the final print stage, these objects will be rasterised by the printer meaning you still may see some pixilation, though this would likely be less than compared to exporting to PNG and printing this

Thanks  for your prompt reply. I set the DPI at 300, and the print size will not be as large as the maximum size that the image ca be printed at. I think that a test print on different surfaces will give me the true picture.