Flip horizontal and flip vertical tools cause artifacts/distortion in my work: "Affinity Designer" V2 (Newest)

[Angelia]

I have the newest version of Affinity. The flip horizontal and flip vertical cause artifacts on my artwork that looks like tiny screws. This didn't happen before in the older versions, so how can I stop it in the newest version. How do I enjoy the functions of the "flip horizontal" and "flip vertical" without this distortion happening in my artwork?

[walt.farrell]

It would help to know what, in that screenshot, the artifacts are, and what it looked like before you did the Flip operation. Also, it would help to know what OS you use.

The solution to your problem may be to disable Hardware Acceleration in your Performance Settings for the application, but exactly what you do is different between macOS and Windows. 

[Angelia]

Thank you, Walt, for replying, I was referring to the horizontal spikes that you can see in the photo. The floral shapes shouldn't have vertical lines on them. My Hardware Acceleration has been disabled and I use a Windows-based computer. What else could it be?

[walt.farrell]

11 minutes ago, Angelia said:

What is the Hardware Acceleration function, and where is it this located? I have a Windows computer.

Edit > Settings, Performance. You'll find it at the bottom of the list. If it's on, try turning it off, restarting the application, and trying your operation again.

[Angelia]

That's not working Walt because it looks like it has already been disabled.

[walt.farrell]

Ok. I've no other ideas then. 

Can you share your document here, before doing the Flip?

[Angelia]

Before on the right and after the flip on the left.

[walt.farrell]

Can you share an actual .afdesign document?

[Angelia]

 

Fancy head.afdesign

[Old Bruce]

Finally found your problem object. It is about 3 x 2 pixels in size. You also have used the corner tool on some of the  nodes.

In my opinion this ridiculously tiny size is a major part of the problem. 

General area to look at:

[Pšenda]

29 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

You also have used the corner tool on some of the  nodes.

I will just add that this is a very strange and unusual way of using the Corner Tool. This part then causes a problem with Flip, which is a question for Serif - if it is a bug.

 

P.S.  @Angelia Your artwork has many of the same patterns that are just copied and rotated differently. Haven't you thought about using Symbols?

[Angelia]

I guess I can find a tutorial about "symbols", but will it fix this issue?

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Angelia said:

I guess I can find a tutorial about "symbols", but will it fix this issue?

"This issue" is caused by extremely tiny objects (2 x 3 pixels in size) having a stroke with corners curved by the Corner tool. And then being rotated and sheered.

Having said that I too think you may be better served using Symbols instead of copy and paste.

[Angelia]

How do you turn off the corner tool on these small corners and is there a tutorial for the symbols tool and if I use the symbols tool with the tiny objects curved by the corner tool would the issue still persist? Please explain.

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, Angelia said:

but will it fix this issue?

No, but it will help to correct the problem.

As mentioned in the previous posts, the problem is the use of the Corner Tool, in a situation where it should not be used at all - the curve can be drawn using the standard procedure using the Node Tool without unnecessary "complications". If you want to fix it in the current document, you will need to fix all the duplicate shapes. If you were using a Symbol, you would only fix it once, and the fix would be automatically propagated to all other instances of the Symbol.