Text not showing when importing PSD

[hugaud]

Hi,

I am new to Affinity photo and having difficulty with some PSD files imported into Affinity.

 

I can see the text layers are all showing in the layers menu, I can read the content and the layers are ticked to display but they do not appear on the image.

 

Can you help please ?

 

Example file attached as a jpg to show how it should appear and the PSD so you can see what's missing: there should be white text on the top red background and blue text on the bottom where the small icons are.

 

Thanks in advance

Hugues

MPS Battery Banner-01.psd

[MEB]

Hi hugaud,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

The text is there but it's being placed outside the canvas due to a bug in the PSD importer. I'm logging this issue to be looked at.

Meanwhile to work around this, if you can select the text object(s) in the Layers panel and do a copy/paste. The text object will be placed in the middle of the canvas. You can then delete the original.

[hugaud]

Thank you. That works.

Please let me know when a fix has been issued.

Cheers

[Ben]

Can I ask - was your original PSD file created by Illustrator CC?

 

We've seen a few of these PSD files with 'broken' text positions.  I know where the data is broken, but still haven't figured out the secret to fixing it.  I've also never managed to create a broken one in Photoshop to create some test cases, so I assumed it is not Photoshop that is the origin of these broken text objects.

 

Incidentally, I've tried these broken PSD files in a load of other apps (Pixelmator, Sketch, Graphic, Gimp, etc) and no one else can handle them either.

[leeharding]

Can I ask - was your original PSD file created by Illustrator CC?

 

We've seen a few of these PSD files with 'broken' text positions.  I know where the data is broken, but still haven't figured out the secret to fixing it.  I've also never managed to create a broken one in Photoshop to create some test cases, so I assumed it is not Photoshop that is the origin of these broken text objects.

 

Incidentally, I've tried these broken PSD files in a load of other apps (Pixelmator, Sketch, Graphic, Gimp, etc) and no one else can handle them either.

 

 

I came here to find an answer to this question - and I'm having this issue with PSD files created in AI and exported to PSD.

[bgarrant]

Has there been any progress on this issue?  All the PSD files that I exported from PNG files open with the text off-canvas.  Cant seem to find a fix.

[MEB]

Hi bgarrant,

Can you upload two of those PNG's and the respective exported PSD's (zip them first) using this link please so i can check them out?

Thanks.

[bgarrant]

I opened a new ticket on this to keep it clean at https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/30104-text-not-showing-when-importing-psd-in-affinity-designer/?hl=%2Btext+%2Bbox

[Dudemeister]

Having the exact same issue with PSDs that came from Illustrator CC, making "Photo" completely useless for me. The copy/paste suggestion most definitely is not an option and obviously completely unprofessional. Very unfortunate.

 

Never mind that the text in general, any text, looks absolutely horrible in Photo in comparison as well, even if it's "only" in the canvas and not the final export.

[MEB]

Hi Dudemeister,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Can you please upload one of the PSD's coming from Illustrator so i can take look/add to our log? You can use this link to upload it.

The copy/paste suggestion was a workaround to help to get access to the misplaced text objects inside Affinity after opening/importing PSD's displaying the misplaced text issue, not a solution by itself.

In Affinity Photo text and other vector objects are displayed/rendered as pixels (not as vectors as in Affinity Designer) so they will look increasingly pixelated if you zoom them (similar to how Adobe Fireworks would render them). This is by design.

[Dudemeister]

Seriously? <_<

 

Well, I just uploaded a random "TEXT.psd" for the hell of it, but do you guys not have Illustrator? Because all you need to do is make any random Illustrator file containing text and save it as a PSD and you can have all the test-files you want! Because this is not some sort of exception, it's the rule.

 

Interestingly, in this particular file, for the first time, at least one of two lines of text make it over, but… only because it was rasterized! What the &%??… why would this happen?? That defeats any and all purpose of exchanging files with editable text (which it is and stays in Photoshop)!

 

Like I said, more than unfortunate and plain disappointing. Until this is resolved there is no way that I can use Photo, nor recommend it to anyone. Especially since you've known about this for at least 10 months. 

 

And text should most definitely not be rasterized before it's exported. Again, as in Photoshop. At least not if you expect to lure even the most basic Photoshop user to Photo.

[MEB]

Hi Dudemeister,

Thank you for the file. It's not a question of creating the files ourselves. We certainly can do so. It's just so we get a real project file with the same settings/configs/file&layer structure as the user. I agree it may seem a little irrelevant here and I'm sorry for the trouble it may have caused you but as yourself pointed out, your last try seem to have produced a different result - probably because something/condition/setting was different from your original file. That's the reason a user's file is preferable than trying to recreate the issue ourselves. We may miss something.

 

Regarding the issue at hand, we are aware of the misplaced text problems and are investigating them from reports/files provided by users (this also seems to happen with PSD's generated from a few other apps besides Illustrator). To import PSD text as editable text into Affinity Designer you must check Import PSD text as text rather than bitmap in Affinity Preferences, General section, otherwise it will be rasterised on import. Currently we don't export PSD text as editable text. This will be implemented in a future version, as it's a complex task and the PSD format is poorly documented.

[Dudemeister]

To import PSD text as editable text into Affinity Designer you must check Import PSD text as text rather than bitmap in Affinity Preferences, General section, otherwise it will be rasterised on import.

 

Which is ironic, since that's exactly the setting I have, but still the second text in the example file came in rasterized. That was my point. Well, I certainly hope you get the whole thing straightened out soon!

[Ben]

@Dudemeister

 

Text in PSD files is something we have been trying to resolve for some time, and with some considerable effort.  There are a number of issues.

 

Firstly, even though the PSD format is supposed to be publicly documented, there are parts which are still a black box. Text is one of these. Without knowing how Photoshop handles its text internally, all we can do is guess.  This, I hope you can appreciate is a very time consuming thing.

 

Illustrator creates different text data to Photoshop. This is also undocumented.  The positioning data that Illustrator generates is foxing us.  As yet we cannot figure out the pattern.

 

Exporting editable text back to PSD is even harder than importing.  Again, as this is not documented, we have to use trial and error to ensure that what we write out is acceptable to Photoshop.  An even bigger undertaking.  If a PSD file just reports as "failed to open" or forms the text incorrectly we have little to go on.

 

Most importantly, we have to be able to guarantee that the import/export roundtrip for PSD files has as little distorting effect on the visual result as possible.  The easiest way is to export as curves or as rasterised, but this is then obviously not editable.  If we can't offer close to 100% accuracy for exported editable text then we are worse off than not offering it at all.

 

I can guarantee that no other third party apps are even close to doing any kind of round trip import/export of PSD files while maintaining fully editable text - and without changing the text in some way.  My testing with a number of leading third party apps, I've not found one that can do it correctly.

[MEB]

Hi Dudemeister,

Which Affinity app and OS are you using? When i open your file both text objects are being imported as native text. The sentence "Where is my text?" however (text frame tool) has the leading set to 0 when we open the file making it hard to edit since the letters are overlapping. If you go to the Paragraph Leading dropdown in the context toolbar and change it to the default the text doesn't overlap anymore.

If you are opening the file in Affinity Photo the text may look rasterised because you are not seeing it at 100% zoom and we rasterise vector objects/text for rendering on screen (similar to how Adobe Fireworks displays them). If you set the zoom to 100% the text will look as intended. Only Affinity Designer renders text/vector objects as vectors on screen.

 

I'm adding your file to our log/report since the other sentence is misplaced (out of the canvas) which is the issue we are already aware of and are trying to fix. Unfortunately due to poor PSD documentation this is not as easy as it could be. Thanks for your help and support.

 

[EDIT] Ben already replied while i was checking your file/replying to this thread.

[Dudemeister]

I can guarantee that no other third party apps are even close to doing any kind of round trip import/export of PSD files while maintaining fully editable text - and without changing the text in some way.

 

Hate to disappoint you there, but I just tried the same file with Pixelmator… without issue. But yes, with other files it has similar problems, so I'd say that half true at best.

 

And yes, I'm sure that it's not easy and even more sure that Adobe of all people are far from interested in helping. They're just interested in keeping your work for ran$om.

 

Unfortunately that deplorable and (otherwise) unacceptable approach seems to have worked it's magic, since, as I've said, an issue like this makes Photo — at least for THIS — a complete no-go. And honestly makes me quite nervous with other things as well! I deal with getting things such as lower thirds from clients as templates that need to be edited for context on a daily basis. Clearly not something I can hope to do with Photo at this point.

 

@MEB The leading in the original file was not changed the least bit i.e. is and was the exact same as the first. Cheers.

[MEB]

@MEB The leading in the original file was not changed the least bit i.e. is and was the exact same as the first. Cheers.

 

Yes, i know. What i meant is that the file is being imported with leading set to 0 as well. Since the text inside the text frame doesn't fit on one line, it ends up overlapping the initial letters of the sentence, making it hard to edit. This is logged too but the text is editable (not rasterised, other than for screen rewndering).

[Ben]

@Dudemeister

 

I have a sample file from you that MEB forwarded, and it does not open the editable text in Pixelmator correctly - it only shows the rasterised layer for the text.

 

You try it - Pixelmator imports two copies of each text later - a rasterised one (which is what you see, in the correct position) and a hidden "editable" one.  Try making the editable one visible and select it.  You will see that Pixelmator also positions it as Affinity does - miles off the canvas.  I'm looking at the "This is pretty rediculous" layer in particular, which Pixelmator has imported as "This is pretty ridiculous Preview" - hide the "Preview" one and you'll see the editable version appears way off the top left of the canvas.

 

So, no, Pixelmator have not figured it out either.

 

In a PSD saved with "Compatibility enhanced" turn on, there is alway a raster version of each layer.  In this case Pixelmator pulls out the rasterised layer and shows you that, but hides the real editable layer which they also cannot position correctly.

[R C-R]

Firstly, even though the PSD format is supposed to be publicly documented, there are parts which are still a black box.

This made me curious enough to search the web for this public documentation, just to see what it was like. I found this, which I assume is what Ben is talking about.

 

What I discovered is it is insanely convoluted & difficult to understand, mostly because so much of it is devoted to supporting legacy baggage, some of it dating back to when it was an app that ran only on the old, pre-OS X version of the Mac OS. My impression is that Adobe has been adding things to the spec for close to 20 years, resulting in a huge amount of file bloat, much of which no modern OS will ever use, & requiring a lot of resource-eating overhead at the application level to wade through it all.

 

It makes me appreciate more than ever the merits of Affinity's "clean slate" approach, & why they decided to take on the formidable task of creating a native file format to work seamlessly across all the Affinity apps.

[Ben]

Yes, that is indeed the "official" PSD specification.

 

It is incredibly complicated, and there are numerous omissions and errors in the spec, or parts of the spec that are not genuinely followed correctly by certain apps, for which we have to make allowances.  Padding, alignment, offsets and random extra undocumented bytes are a number of other pitfalls, plus the need to support certain features in both legacy and current data forms (which often don't relate directly to each other).  Then there is the issue of byte-ordering - big or little endian, depending upon whether the data written is in PSD or TIFF form.

 

There are also large sections which relate to proprietary internal behaviour which we can only guess at.  It's one thing being told the size of the data values to expect, it's another thing working out what they mean logically (and in conjunction with other values).

 

The biggest omissions relate to anything that says "Variable - Descriptor", which basically equates to large undocumented sections of the specification.  That covers lots of areas - gradients, layer effects, adjustment layers, etc, etc, etc.  Very little of the newly added features are added as old school binary data - they mostly utilitise undocumented Descriptors (something similar to XML).

 

Text also makes use of a number of different bits of data - some in raw binary, some as Descriptors, and some using PDF text specification.  Between the three you have to try and figure out how to position things.  The best line in the spec describes the text data as "Variable - Raw bytes for text engine".  That's all you get.

 

Having spent considerable months/years of my life trying to figure it all out - it is no small thing that we are trying to do.  It is also not us "being lazy" in not implementing fully editable import/export of text from PSD.

[R C-R]

The biggest omissions relate to anything that says "Variable - Descriptor", which basically equates to large undocumented sections of the specification.

I do not pretend to understand the spec at more than a superficial level, but one thing I noticed about the Descriptor stuff is there are many references in it that say "See See Descriptor structure for types" with a hyperlink that just scrolls the document to the Image Data Section, which seems to have little to nothing to do with describing their structure. In fact, quite a few of the hyperlinks scroll to that section, as if a large part of the documentation is missing.

 

I also noticed the spec says that "for interoperability with other Macintosh applications," some information is duplicated in resources stored in the resource fork of the file. Ten or fifteen years ago, that fork might still have been included in some psd files created on a Mac, but I do not think I have a single app that reads anything from a resource fork, or more than 3 or 4 psd files old enough that Photoshop still created one. So some of the info in the spec is either badly out of date or irrelevant.

 

I do not doubt in the slightest that you have spent years trying to figure it out, or that you are being lazy about that -- maybe a bit masochistic even to try, but certainly not lazy!  ;)