Relinking images - Different extension

[kristkos]

Hello,

Decided to compress some of my images from .png to .webp, however, now resource manager, is asking me to relink. Problem is it only links one at a time. Some help is needed as I do have ~600 images.

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, kristkos said:

Some help is needed as I do have ~600 images.

Assuming that Affinity detects the file type/format by content, not by its extension (needs to be tested), try changing the file extension from *.webp to *.png.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Assuming that Affinity detects the file type/format by content, not by its extension (needs to be tested), try changing the file extension from *.webp to *.png.

While a renamed file extension doesn't seem to matter to the macOS Preview.app, Affinity immediately recognizes the renamed file as the missing one, but then doesn't accept it and can't read such a file. – Example with png & tiff: Linked png, -> tiff renamed to png -> "File type not supported".

[thomaso]

9 hours ago, kristkos said:

from .png to .webp

If you have file size in mind possibly a tool to recompress the PNG might help.

For instance "Image Optim" (macOS only), quality settings 40-100%, reduces an exported Affinity .PNG, 500 kB down to 250 – 70 kB (100 – 40% quality).

apub icon png versions.zip

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Example with png & tiff:

In Windows - rename webp file to png works, tiff to png no.

Edit:
- PNG header 
- WEBP header 
- TIFF header is maybe problematic/ambiguous 

Edited January 13 by Pšenda

[thomaso]

51 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

rename webp file to png works, tiff to png no.

Aha, png -> webp works in mac/V1 too! – Interestingly, the Resource Manager notices & reports the changed file type:

Accordingly, it is a pity (should be 'easy' to implement) that the dirty, risky workaround of renaming may be necessary, since Affinity's "Relink" feature does not offer any way to ignore the file extension and thus, for example, replace a folder with low-resolution JPGs with their higher-resolution TIFs.

[kristkos]

6 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Aha, png -> webp works in mac/V1 too! – Interestingly, the Resource Manager notices & reports the changed file type:

Accordingly, it is a pity (should be 'easy' to implement) that the dirty, risky workaround of renaming may be necessary, since Affinity's "Relink" feature does not offer any way to ignore the file extension and thus, for example, replace a folder with low-resolution JPGs with their higher-resolution TIFs.

Thank you guys so much. Yeah that seemed to work only by bulk changing file extensions. It's a bit dirty indeed, but will revert them back when I am done with the file.

 

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[thomaso]

4 minutes ago, Circulus said:

gradienttool(??) by clicking the right image in the assets panel

@Circulus, wrong thread for your response?

 

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[Pšenda]

38 minutes ago, Circulus said:

Drag/drop the replacement images to an open category, see video.

So I wouldn't want to do this 600 times 🙂 
Won't this increase the file size? - two images are placed on top of each other. And the image placed using the Gradient tool will probably not be linked, but embedded.

[thomaso]

50 minutes ago, Circulus said:

No to an extend.

Sorry, I don't understand this expression. – However, assuming that the OP wants to save disk space by replacing PNG with WEBP, your suggestion to replace linked images with bitmap fills seems counterproductive in various ways (embedded, less compression, larger Affinity document) and rather useless in view of the 600 images mentioned.

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[Pšenda]

16 minutes ago, Circulus said:

You can drag/drop as many as you wish in one go.

Place image from Assets via Gradient tool? all 600 images at once?

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[kristkos]

17 minutes ago, Circulus said:

You quoted me about the drag/drop option and not about the placing/adding the images with the gradient tool.(see image)
And still the OP mentioned some images and not the 600 he/she has in total but again this should be handled with the pictureframes which would also require one click per image as does the resourcemanager and also my alternative way.
You can only replace multiple files that are the same file re-used throughout the document.

Heya there,

Thank you for the alternative unfortunately, I only have publisher, and can't really test it. I am unsure if I can use the Personas. The exact number was 711 and I needed to do it for all. But I feel that will be useful for future people who will have the same issues.

Gonna leave the following link for posterity for bulk rename without windows being finicky:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13382638/how-can-i-bulk-rename-files-in-powershell

[thomaso]

25 minutes ago, Circulus said:

(…) convert to image resource to make it embedded or linked again.
To alternatively compress the image. OP could edit in photo persona>resample the file>save and have a smaller file without going to another extension at all.
Or just resize down the image>rasterize>resize up again>convert to image resource>link

You seem to make it more complex than required. If the OP wants to replace various linked images, what advantage do you see in the steps of 1. bitmap fill and 2. rasterize and 3. convert to image? Especially if you consider that a pixel layer converted to image becomes a TIFF file, which additionally sounds counterproductive (still assuming saving disk space is the goal). Not to mention the various additional steps in this workflow, for instance the process of creating bitmap fills and 4. the need to custom name each of the converted images for 5. saving them on disk. <–> Compared to these multiple steps, wouldn't it obviously be more efficient with just two steps: 1. press the "Replace" button and 2. select the wanted resource? (…while the OP already wants to get rid of this two steps because of multiple required replacements).

Also resampling via Affinity sounds like unnecessary extra steps if resampling isn't explicitly wanted (the OP did not request resampling yet).

Finally your suggestion of downsizing -> rasterizing -> upsizing sounds odd because this reduces the image resolution (total number of pixels), as the re-/downsampling.

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[thomaso]

40 minutes ago, Circulus said:

just an alternative option, nothing more.

I must have misunderstood your initial post in this tread, starting with "Better use the (…) or (…)".

44 minutes ago, Circulus said:

As for resampling my guess is that OP wants an web version of the pdf file.

Would images need to be replaced for this – or wouldn't it be sufficient and more efficient to use appropriate export settings, especially if PDF does not use .WEBP encoding?

In addition to appropriate PDF export settings, exported Affinity PDF files can be optimized to achieve a smaller file size, either with Acrobat (if desired without resampling/recompression) or with one of the various (free) online tools.

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[Pšenda]

6 hours ago, Circulus said:

You quoted me about the drag/drop option and not about the placing/adding the images with the gradient tool.(see image)

Yes, I could only quote what was stated in your post, because the use of the Gradient Tool, which was only in the video, could not be quoted. But I assumed that it was absolutely clear that it was the entire operation, not just the insignificant part. 

 

6 hours ago, Circulus said:

And still the OP mentioned some images and not the 600

Sorry, but it's quite obvious to me from the sentence "Some help is needed as I do have ~600 images." that the OP needs to relink all 600 images.

[kristkos]

2 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Sorry, but it's quite obvious to me from the sentence "Some help is needed as I do have ~600 images." that the OP needs to relink all 600 images.

Hello guys, 
To clear some things, the end product would be an PDF ~ close to 800mb in size if the down sampling is to be believed. Not for web-use as some other comments state above.
If it were for only let's say 50~100 images. I would had powered trough in relinking them with no issues manually. I have a TTRPG(Think D&D books) with multiple artworks of different sizes, and in total that specific artwork by itself was about 12gb(hence the conversion), as storage has started to be an issue.
At the end as Powershell did let me know how many files were changed were 711. Now looking back, temporarily revert the conversion to .png(can be done easily and automatically), to be able to relink. Or rename as that seemed to work for me. I needed a bulk conversion or alternative.