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What happens when a document is flattened?


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Still trying to work out a worklow that suits me in Affinity. One frustration I have is my preferred way of adding an equal border alround a canvas does not work if I have already made crops to the image (see issue below):

It occurs to me that maybe the best workflow would be to crop the image in develop persona, then develop, then in photo persona immediately flatten the image before making any non destructive layer based edits. 

What is the downside if I do this? is there any image quality loss?

I don't understand why once a photo in Develop Persona is developped and moved into phot persona it isn't flattened at the same time, so there must be some downaside to it.

 

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13 hours ago, Alan Mark said:

I don't understand why once a photo in Develop Persona is developped and moved into phot persona it isn't flattened at the same time, so there must be some downaside to it.

In V1, the image was automatically flattened. The image was Developed from RAW to Pixel. In V2 they added the ability of a complete non-destructive workflow. You could develop RAW files, then choose to Develop to RAW Layer (Embedded), RAW Layer (Linked), or PIXEL

Choosing the first two, you can then jump back into the Develop Persona if you want to make changes to your RAW edit. The adjustments are maintained for them. However if you choose PIXEL, then the Develop Persona adjustments are baked into the image. While you can use the Develop Persona with Pixel Layer images, any initial changes made on a RAW image, will not be there, and any subsequent changes will not be.

So it's quite easy to do what you're wanting, to flatten the image. Just select Pixel Layer, in the drop-down menu, located to the left of the context toolbar.

developOptions.jpg

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Terminology matters.

what may help for you is merge visible, which is very similar to flatten, but keeps the original edits untouched so you have a chance to re-edit from there.

Develop dos not flatten the image. It just rasterizes the images, but does not cut away areas outside the canvas which could occur if you use crop, rotate, lens correction etc.

 

flatten: rasterizes, and trims at document edges, removes all layer structure.

rasterize: converts selected layers to a bitmap layer in document dpi, does not trim. Replaces (deletes) selected layers. Layer FX need special consideration. You may need to group layers before using rasterize to get the desired result.

rasterize and trim: combines rasterize and trim functionality.

merge visible: similar to flatten, but adds the result as new layer on top and keeps existing layers below.

in export UI, the term flatten is used occasionally with a totally different meaning of matting: filling all transparencies with a chosen color to get a fully opaque export. 
 

Develop: creates a bitmap layer in V1, more choices in V2. Does not destructively trim any excess areas.

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Posted (edited)

Thanks for two excellent explantions. I am going to give NotMyFault's suggestion a try and see how it goes.

Update:

I can confirm that merge visible works a treat.

One further question when merge visible rasterises is there any impact on quality compared to the raw version?

Edited by Alan Mark
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2 hours ago, Alan Mark said:

One further question when merge visible rasterises is there any impact on quality compared to the raw version?

Short: no

long: try it yourself. Do the exact same edits, but once using develop to bitmap, and another using merge visible.

compare the final exports by „new stack“ from both exports, set mode to outlier or variance. Total black means no difference.

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My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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I did as you suggested and created a new stack containing a file with "merge visible" and one from the exact same file developed from raw. Both files have a range of different layer adjustments made (both the same). I now have the stack but cannot see where I change the mode.

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Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080

LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5

iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589

Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

My posts focus on technical aspects and leave out most of social grease like „maybe“, „in my opinion“, „I might be wrong“ etc. just add copy/paste all these softeners from this signature to make reading more comfortable for you. Otherwise I’m a fine person which respects you and everyone and wants to be respected.

 

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