Issues with pixelation when printing image directly from Affinity

[Alexandra Péchabadens]

Hello,

l have issues with printing my images, which are made at the highest scan 600dpi or 300dpi, when l print directly from Affininty. 

The images are pixelated, yet when l use the scanner and my printer directly without the software, the prints are not pixelated. 

l used to use Photoshop years ago and never had this pixelation issue. Since purchasing Affinity, l have never had a good print come out of it. 

Can you please help me adjust this? l am not very knowledgeable so can you please be descriptive so l can understand, thank you

[Hangman]

Hi @Alexandra Péchabadens and welcome to the forums,

Without seeing one of the images in question it's difficult to comment, are you able to upload one of your images so we can take a look. Could you also let us know which printer you are printing to?

I print directly from Affinity Software to an Epson SureColor P600 without issue and with zero pixelation so my initial thought is that the issue isn't with the Affinity software but a look at one of your files will hopefully help in understanding where the issue may lie.

[Alexandra Péchabadens]

 

Thank you for your reply.

I have been thinking about it and did some prints tests from various places using different settings.

I have taken photographs of the prints, and have arrived at this conclusion: the image in Affinity is not as good quality as when l do a direct photocopy with my scanner printer.

I use Windows Fax and Scan program to scan and save the pictures l then print from affinity.

Those scans with that program are not as good regardless of the setting l choose.

I use colour scanning setting on Windows Fax and Scan because black and white scanning makes more black dots happen all over the page.

 

As you will be able to see in one of the pictures, the print from affinity is worse quality as the print from the same scan with 300dpi colour, printed from Windows Fax and Scan.

Now this is where it didn't make sense to me, l have done nothing on Affinity, just opened it, and it adds lots of grey which doesn't show in the Windows scan and Print program.

 

I have had this problem a long time, and someone who rarely visits once took my document which was showing pixels when printed in Affinity, and opened it using another program, maybe something like Words which I don't understand how how to use, and he managed to get the prints with less pixels showing, smoother pictures.

 

As I said, l never used to have this occasion issue with Photoshop, ( even though Photoshop is worse to use for light users like me, Affinity is slightly easier to understand and work with, shame it hasn't its own scanner option like Photoshop had).

It works be nice to sort it, if you recommend to use another scanner program rather than this Windows Scan and Fax, one to experiment with, fell free to tell me and I will try to download it and scan with it.

Close-up of Affinity print without doing anything to it


Close-up of the Windows and Fax scanner, 300 DPI, in colour setting


Prints from the fax Windows program, using both 600DPI scanning and 300 DPI, both in colour.

Prints from Afinity (nothing done to it, just opened) and on the right the direct photocopy scan which is the most perfect.


Printed from both Affinity and Windows Scanner, after scanning using the black and white option: it is full of added dots.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Alexandra Péchabadens
clarification

[Alexandra Péchabadens]

l will try to scan those results as the photo from the camera isn't very good, but of course the scan of this will be messed up with the Window Scanner and Fax program, so will show worse than it really is. 

Those images are too small and not good enough to show the details.

[Alexandra Péchabadens]

This is the scans of the printed pictures done as a TIFF instead of JPG, at 600 DPI. 
They still show greyness but oddly the direct scan/photocopy  which was the best before, has now got grey added on the top of the picture (it is the first time it gets scanned from a copy)

You can see in the picture from Affinity how grey it is around the menu at the top. 

So those are copies of copies, in case you can't manage to see in the phone camera photos. It is hard to show you all this..without them being tinkered by the equipment!

Print examples Tiff instead of jpg.tiff

[Alexandra Péchabadens]

So, no answer from Afinity knowledgeable persons? 
Maybe my problem is too difficult

[Dan C]

Hi Alexandra,

How did you transfer the scanned image into Affinity Photo and in what format?

Lee

[Alexandra Péchabadens]

Hello Lee,

l used Windows Scan and FaX software to scan the picture and saved it into my computer documents as a JPG, then opened that JPG into Affinity. 

[Dan C]

Could you try printing that resulting document directly through Windows Photo/Preview app and compare the difference?

Lee

[Alexandra Péchabadens]

l have already done that, the print straight from the Windows scan and fax ap is worse than the scan that is done as a photocopy, and it is even worse when saved and opened on Affinity and printed there.