Unwanted lines surrounding text on imported pdf

[loudness]

I hired a designer to create a book cover design and was given the .pdf file. When I import a .pdf from a design into Affinity Photo 2, each letter has a gray line surrounding it. The lines are actually on the shadow that is beneath each letter. (see screenshot) When I hide the shadow, the lines go away. The lines, however, are not on the original .pdf.

Any idea what would cause this and how to get rid of it when I export?

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, loudness said:

each letter has a gray line surrounding it.

What "grey lines" do you mean? The shadows on the letters look normal to me.

[Alfred]

6 hours ago, loudness said:

each letter has a gray line surrounding it

I see grey lines running through (rather than surrounding) the T and the letters above and to the left and right of the T. Please post a screenshot with the shadows hidden so that we can see exactly which lines we should be looking at.

[loudness]

I've added three more screenshots.
The one that shows "HER" is the original .pdf, which is the way it should be. With no gray lines around the text.

The other two screenshots show with the mask that is the shadow beneath the R. Then also with that shadow hidden, which removes the line around the R.

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, loudness said:

With no gray lines around the text.

This is "outline".

2 hours ago, loudness said:

Then also with that shadow hidden, which removes the line around the R.

Apparently it's the second screenshot - but even after "turning off the shadow" the shadow is visible on it (and I think it's almost the same as the original). The outline around the letters seems to create some effect to highlight/intensify the shadow.
Perhaps it is the effect of rasterization, when the dark part of the shadow must be drawn as a dark outline of the letters - try to open the pdf vectorially in ADesigner.

[Dan C]

Hi @loudness,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums & sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Are you able to please provide a copy of this PDF file, so I can investigate this further?

If you'd like a private upload link for this document, please don't hesitate to ask

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Apparently it's the second screenshot - but even after "turning off the shadow" the shadow is visible on it (and I think it's almost the same as the original). The outline around the letters seems to create some effect to highlight/intensify the shadow.

In that second screenshot the ‘R’ not only has a paler shadow but also a paler yellow fill. In the third screenshot there’s a horizontal grey line extending across the top of the ‘(AN)OTHER’ text, but in the paler version that line stops before the ‘R’.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

In that second screenshot the ‘R’ not only has a paler shadow but also a paler yellow fill.

I think the “paler” fill may be an optical illusion!

It strikes me as rather odd that the shadow has been created by using a copy of the letter to mask a grey rectangle instead of simply giving the letter a grey fill, but perhaps it was done that way to overcome some technical limitation that I’m unaware of.

[Pšenda]

56 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I think the “paler” fill may be an optical illusion!

Yes - fill color is same.

[loudness]

I'm not talking about the actual shadow or outline. I'm talking about the gray rectangles. They aren't supposed to be there.

[loudness]

Nevermind. Got it fixed. Thanks

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, loudness said:

Nevermind. Got it fixed. Thanks

Please tell us what the cause of the problem was, and how you fixed it.

[loudness]

I didn't actually fix it. The designer just gave me a flattened version of the pdf instead.