Photo Export how to make preview image bigger?

[Markee]

I'm trying to export a photo for web use, using the Photo Export. I want to be able to preview different quality settings. There is a preview of the image, but it is very small, 14%. How can I see it at 100% size?

Edited December 22, 2023 by Markee

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Markee

From the application Help:

[Markee]

I'm using a Mac.

Holding the Option key and scrolling zooms in and out.

But pressing 'Control' and '1' keys, or 'Option' and '1', or Command and '1' doesn't do anything

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, Markee said:

But pressing 'Control' and '1' keys, or 'Option' and '1', or Command and '1' doesn't do anything

There is a long-standing bug in the Export Window, you need to ensure none of the text entry fields have focus before using the keyboard shortcuts. If you click in the Quality setting text entry field and then Tab out of the field you should find that Cmd 0, Cmd 2, Cmd 3 etc., then work as expected.

[Markee]

Yes, that now works. I've only been( re)looking at Affinity Photo for a few minutes. This is the first thing I've tried and there is already a bug...

[lacerto]

There also seems to be (at least on Windows) either a bug, or oddly behaving feature, related to preview of PDF exports, where the above mentioned keys (e.g. for zooming) do not work. The preview image is basically always scaled to fit the preview window width (though there seems to be max width), and cannot be changed while the window is opened (so the preview image does not rescale if the window is made wider or narrower). The last used window width however is remembered so the next time the preview image will be scale up to the same width.

[Hangman]

Hi @lacerto,

Serif have stated that this is by Design for Vector file formats…

Personally I don’t understand the logic for the decision but it is still possible to zoom PDF previews on macOS (unsure about Windows) only not with the keyboard shortcuts…

[lacerto]

3 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Personally I don’t understand the logic for the decision but it is still possible to zoom PDF previews on macOS (unsure about Windows) only not with the keyboard shortcuts…

Do you mean system zoom (basically an accessibility feature)? If so, then on Windows invoking Magnifier does the same thing. I have disabled the feature on both operating systems so I cannot have any kind of zoom in preview for PDF exports (or then just cannot access the feature 🙂.

[Hangman]

20 minutes ago, lacerto said:

Do you mean system zoom (basically an accessibility feature)?

No, on Mac, Alt Mouse Zoom should still work though I’ve not tested with v2.3…

[lacerto]

Ok, for me (on Sonoma and 2.3) the only zoom that would work like this within Affinity apps (and with PDF export) is this accessibility feature (which below is just temporarily enabled; the feature IS enabled by default on Mac, and I spent some time to find out how to disable it):

[Hangman]

I’ll recheck when I’m back in the office as I can’t recall what works and what doesn’t from memory but I do know it’s possible to zoom PDF files without using the Accessibility feature, or at least it was pre v2.3 and I’d be surprised if that’s changed.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Hangman said:

No, on Mac, Alt Mouse Zoom should still work though I’ve not tested with v2.3…

On my Mac running Catalina, in V2.3 Alt Mouse Zoom does not work for PDF, PSD, SVG, or EPS export previews. It does work for JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, EXR,HDR, TGA, WEBP, & JPEG XL previews. So basically, for raster formats it does, for vector ones it does not.

Additionally, as a sort of workaround, if I resize the Export window to make it larger, I can get PDF at al previews to effectively zoom to fit the preview window area if after resizing I reselect any of those presets. But as mentioned below, there are better workarounds to get the CMD shortcuts to work.

7 hours ago, Hangman said:

There is a long-standing bug in the Export Window, you need to ensure none of the text entry fields have focus before using the keyboard shortcuts. If you click in the Quality setting text entry field and then Tab out of the field you should find that Cmd 0, Cmd 2, Cmd 3 etc., then work as expected.

For me that does not work for PDF exports if the Downsample Images option is enabled -- if it is, tabbing just goes to the Above: text field. What works reliably for me is to make sure the File Settings > Raster DPI: text field has the focus & then click the File Settings disclosure triangle to temporarily hide those settings. At that point, no text field has the focus so the CMD view size shortcuts will work.

[Hangman]

15 hours ago, R C-R said:

On my Mac running Catalina, in V2.3 Alt Mouse Zoom does not work for PDF, PSD, SVG, or EPS export previews. It does work for JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, EXR,HDR, TGA, WEBP, & JPEG XL previews. So basically, for raster formats it does, for vector ones it does not.

That is indeed the case:

• Raster based file formats can be zoomed using Alt Mouse Scroll and Cmd +, Cmd -, Cmd 0 through 9
• Vector based file formats can only be zoomed using Cmd +, Cmd - and Cmd 0 through 9

The keyboard zoom options reply on overcoming the bug, i.e., they only work when none of the text entry fields have focus...

Raster Zoom (JPEG) using Alt Mouse Scroll and Keyborad Commands

 

Vector Zoom (PDF) using Keyboard Commands Only

[lacerto]

IMO this appears to be more a kind of accidentally available feature, considering that there is no such prerequisite for using the same keys for zooming when viewing raster images (you can have text cursor left in a text box that has keyboard focus). The vector preview also gets rasterized (becoming jagged) at some zoom stage. Considering that in v1 apps preview was available only for raster images, it seems that preview of vector formats is simply just left in a kind of an alpha stage. [UPDATE: I tried now and zoom is not similarly available on Windows. Additionally, it seems the limitation applies to all "document" formats, including PSD, which in version 1 of Photo did not have preview, either.]

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, lacerto said:

IMO this appears to be more a kind of accidentally available feature,

I think there is a bug, in part because with the focus on a text field, it simply ignores that CMD is part of the keyboard input, so for instance CMD+0 just enters a 0 in the text field.

I'm not sure but I think this was also acknowledged as a bug by the staff.

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

I'm not sure but I think this was also acknowledged as a bug by the staff.

It was indeed back in April under PD-612 and AFB-7673.

The official position (as mentioned above) from Serif is that "The expected behaviour for the Export preview window is that only Raster Formats should be zoomable."

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

The official position (as mentioned above) from Serif is that "The expected behaviour for the Export preview window is that only Raster Formats should be zoomable."

According to what @EmT here, this is "due to how the Vector previews are generated, it is quite a complex feature as vectors can draw differently dependent on their intended final use" but that doesn't make sense to me since there are at least 2 ways that do seemingly work well to change the zoom factor of vector previews. It is as if the bug that does not recognize that the CMD key is part of the keyboard input miraculously enables the preview to handle this complexity.

Moreover, export file types PDF, SVG, & EPS each have an Advanced Rasterize option to rasterize everything or just unsupported properties, so previews including the rasterization could be is quite useful (& it wroks).

Besides, if nothing else, why shouldn't at the least zoom to fit & zoom to width preview functions be available for all export types? 

Finally, have they ever acknowledged that the CMD key not being recognized in Export text fields is also bug, separate & apart from everything else?

Edited December 23, 2023 by R C-R

[Hangman]

5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Finally, have they ever acknowledged that the CMD key not being recognized in Export text fields is also bug, separate & apart from everything else?

If you're referring to the text entry field being incorrectly selected when using the Cmd key to Zoom then I believe this is logged as PD-611.

[R C-R]

43 minutes ago, Hangman said:

If you're referring to the text entry field being incorrectly selected when using the Cmd key to Zoom then I believe this is logged as PD-611.

No, what I mean is that in the Export window when a text field has the focus the CMD modifier key is ignored, so for example typing a zero with the CMD key held down is treated the same as just typing a zero.

Compare that to for example giving the width or height text field the focus in the Transform panel & typing CMD-0. That doesn't enter anything because CMD-0 is not a valid input. The same should be true for the Export text fields, thus hopefully making the CMD modifier available for zooming functions without having to resort to the workaround of removing the focus from all of the Export text fields.

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

No, what I mean is that in the Export window when a text field has the focus the CMD modifier key is ignored, so for example typing a zero with the CMD key held down is treated the same as just typing a zero.

Ah, okay... I think the issue/bug is simply the fact that the text entry fields are acknowledged at all when using the keyboard shortcuts...

I've just been looking at how this behaves in v1 and to be honest the 'bug' exists there as well, but the simple workaround for raster file format in v1 (as I'm sure someone mentioned earlier) is to click the preview window itself as it removes the focus from all the export settings but that doesn't work in v2 because the export preview is part of the same dialog window so clicking it doesn't remove focus from the respective text entry boxes, unlike v1...

Anyway, it's all a bit of a mess but hopefully, this can be sorted out in a future release...

[R C-R]

27 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I think the issue/bug is simply the fact that the text entry fields are acknowledged at all when using the keyboard shortcuts...

Maybe so, but if they just considered that the only logical context for the CMD key in a keypress in the Export window would be for the zoom functions, then this bug could be turned into a quite useful feature.

[user_0815]

The only way I got the zoom to work reliably is by using pinch-to-zoom via the trackpad on my MacBook.