Pictures not looking as clear as in other programmes

[DebSki]

Hi

When I insert a picture in Publisher, it always looks sort of opaque compared to the same picture in other programmes - I suppose a sort of "satin" finish rather than "gloss" & colours less vibrant - See below - top from APub & bottom from APhoto - both done with snipping tool. Difference not quite so obvious here as it is on my pc.

I generally use the place tool to insert images & I embed the images

Thanks

Deb

 

[GarryP]

Are you using the same colour space (e.g. CMYK versus RGB) and colour profile in both applications?

Can you share two documents, each made with a different application, in which you have placed the same image, in the same way, so we can see the difference?

[firstdefence]

I've just inserted an image into Affinity Publisher v2 and it looks the same as in Affinity Photo v2.

Can you show your layers panel with the layers expanded.

 

[DebSki]

Well, that's a good question!

I've created a new AP document based on a very slightly different version of my template & so far as I can see, all colour settings are the same as on the other document, but the image now looks almost the same. Most bizarre! If I still have issues, I'll come back to you, but it looks like the problem has magically resolved itself

 

[GarryP]

One guess is that, in Publisher, either the bitmap layer or the Picture Frame layer which contained the bitmap Layer, had an Opacity which was different to the bitmap layer in Photo – note the slight difference at the right-hand side where the grey ‘overlaps’ the image.

[DebSki]

Hi

I've just pasted in 2 more pictures (from a Word doc) & again, it looks to me as if they're not as clear as they could be. If I put one of the images half in & half out of the text frame, then there's a definite difference.

When I pasted the images, they appeared in the layers panel as group, with the group grey & then when expanded, ghe pictures as curves, with the picture below again as an image

I really don't understand why it's pasted as a group. I right clicked & copied in Word, then right clicked & pasted in AP

The opacity for both the text frame & picture are 100%. The group has Passthrough next to opacity, but the curve & image both say normal there.

I've then tried saving image & putting in document using Place tool. Picture goes in as jpg, with opacity at 100% & normal, but again, it looks unclear. That's not in text frame, that's grey background of page

Any help much appreciated!

Thanks

[GarryP]

If you can share the actual document with us then it should be fairly easy to find out what’s wrong.
Without the document we’re just making a series of guesses.

[DebSki]

Here you go. Thanks

u3a Newsletter May 2024.afpub

[GarryP]

Thanks for the document.

I believe the problem comes from the Column Guides.

The grey colour of the Column Guides is being drawn over the right-hand side of the image, the left-hand side being away from the Column Guide and thus looking ‘normal’.

You can (temporarily) switch the Columns Guides OFF via menu “View → Show Column Guides” or use the Guides Manager to make them Outline instead of Fill.

[DebSki]

Well, that was an easy fix! Thanks so much. Strange though that the column guide fill makes a difference to the photos when in coloured text frame, but still. Have set to just lines.

Any idea why, when I pasted pictures they went in as group?

[GarryP]

You’re welcome.

4 minutes ago, DebSki said:

Strange though that the column guide fill makes a difference to the photos when in coloured text frame, but still.

I believe the column guides are drawn on top of all of the other layers so, if that is true, I would expect them to ‘mess with’ everything that’s on the page.

4 minutes ago, DebSki said:

when I pasted pictures they went in as group?

I’m not sure what you mean by that. Is it evident in the document you shared?

[DebSki]

Should be. If you look at the picture of people in front of the house, it's in as a group

[GarryP]

That Image layer (if I’m looking at the right one) is inside a Curve layer which itself is inside a Group layer.

I noticed that that image is a TIFF, which I don’t use very much.

TIFF files can contain clipping paths and the Affinity software might have extracted that path (if there is one) and create a curve and group instead, but I couldn’t say without having the original image file.

Or it might not have anything to do with that.

When you copied the image where did you copy it from and how did you copy it?

[DebSki]

It came from a Word doc, that was created from a pdf - which might explain. I've now gone to the pdf & done a snip using snipping tool & can paste it in from there & it goes in as an image.

I'll have to try to get people to send the images to me as images, rather than in Word, pdf, pages etc

 

[Alfred]

5 minutes ago, DebSki said:

It came from a Word doc, that was created from a pdf - which might explain. I've now gone to the pdf & done a snip using snipping tool & can paste it in from there & it goes in as an image.

You shouldn’t have to resort to screenshots! Any half decent PDF viewer will offer an option to export images directly from the file.

[Brian_J]

3 hours ago, DebSki said:

I'll have to try to get people to send the images to me as images, rather than in Word, pdf, pages etc

It would be ideal to receive images in an image file format, but if you receive them in PDF or Word files, you could consider doing the following:

PDF — Open the PDF file in APub and copy/past the image into a new Affinity file.

Word — Right-click the image in the Word file and select Save as Picture from the context menu.

[DebSki]

Indeed so - in fact that's what I normally do if I don't get the original jpg.