Artistic text + perspective looks pixelated upon export

[will_barbo]

I noticed that when exporting a project that has text with perspective applied to it, even though the text stays as text and is not rasterized, it will look pixelated upon export (way more than in my Affinity project). The main reason seems to be because the text was kinda small to begin with, but I made it "bigger" with the perspective tool. It's as though exporting the project takes the initial text size and stretches it (as if it was "rasterized" at that size before applying the perspective tool).

I figured I could mitigate that by making the text way bigger before applying perspective to it. But shouldn't it not do that? Like if it stays as vector "editable artistic text", should it be exported as "cleanly" as possible?

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @will_barbo,

How are you applying the perspective function to the art text object? If you're in Photo 2 and use the Perspective tool, this automatically rasterises the art text as it's a destructive Pixel filter. If you opt to use the non-destructive Perspective Live filter, this won't immediately rasterise your art text layer as it's a live filter, but if you export out to a vector format such as PDF or SVG, it will automatically rasterise the text on export since it has a filter applied, you can check this by re-importing the PDF file back in to the app or using a PDF viewer to inspect the object, it will be a raster image type layer.

If you wanted to apply a perspective warp to art text you would need to use the Warp Group > Perspective function available in Designer 2, on export this will convert the art text to curves, losing text editability but will preserve it's vector properties.

Vector warp info: https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/warp.html

 

 

[will_barbo]

23 minutes ago, NathanC said:

Welcome to the forums @will_barbo,

How are you applying the perspective function to the art text object? If you're in Photo 2 and use the Perspective tool, this automatically rasterises the art text as it's a destructive Pixel filter. If you opt to use the non-destructive Perspective Live filter, this won't immediately rasterise your art text layer as it's a live filter, but if you export out to a vector format such as PDF or SVG, it will automatically rasterise the text on export since it has a filter applied, you can check this by re-importing the PDF file back in to the app or using a PDF viewer to inspect the object, it will be a raster image type layer.

If you wanted to apply a perspective warp to art text you would need to use the Warp Group > Perspective function available in Designer 2, on export this will convert the art text to curves, losing text editability but will preserve it's vector properties.

Vector warp info: https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/pages/ObjectControl/warp.html

 

 

I applied the perspective filter from the "live filter" menu, which means the art text layer is still editable afterwards, even though I applied the perspective filter.

When I export it as PNG it's as though before applying the perspective filter (when exporting) it rasterizes the small text and "stretches" it. I get that it all gets rasterized during export, but I'd think it would "render" the whole thing at full resolution before exporting.

[chillywilly]

I have found that I get much better results if I flatten my artwork before exporting. I'll attach an example. Both versions were made from a 3000 pixel file that was reduced to 400px in the export window and saved as a JPG format using Bicubic and 70% quality.

Dear Affinity Developers — A simple improvement you can make is to automatically flatten artwork before compressing to export formats that don't support vector layers. This would easily improve the resolution of the curves, such as with fonts. The user should not be forced to flatten the .afphoto file before exporting to JPG in order to get the best results. It should be done by the software as it creates the JPG. 

[Bit Disappointed]

1 hour ago, chillywilly said:

I have found that I get much better results if I flatten my artwork before exporting. I'll attach an example. Both versions were made from a 3000 pixel file that was reduced to 400px in the export window and saved as a JPG format using Bicubic and 70% quality.

Dear Affinity Developers — A simple improvement you can make is to automatically flatten artwork before compressing to export formats that don't support vector layers. This would easily improve the resolution of the curves, such as with fonts. The user should not be forced to flatten the .afphoto file before exporting to JPG in order to get the best results. It should be done by the software as it creates the JPG. 

Can you make a small demonstration file and share it with us so we can verify we're seeing the same thing/issue?

Both for troubleshooting but really also to check if I am affected and should and can do something about the quality of my exports, it is easiest if I have just seen an easy to verify example first.

But I agree, of course such tricks and knowledge shouldn't be necessary when exporting.