wujm Posted February 23 Posted February 23 (edited) I want a feature that can create lines and shapes without antialias to make pixel art. Edited February 23 by wujm Quote
GarryP Posted February 23 Posted February 23 (edited) Welcome to the forums @wujm You can do that now by setting the layer's Blend Option setting for Anti-aliasing to “Force Off”. If you want to make this happen for multiple layers then Group them and follow the instruction above but apply it to the Group. Edit: You need to be in Pixels View Mode, or Pixels (Retina) View Mode, to be able to see the result properly. Otherwise you will see vector layers drawn at their ‘best resolution’ rather than how you want to see them in relation to the document’s pixel grid. See attached image. Edited February 24 by GarryP Added note. GRAFKOM, _Th, wujm and 1 other 4 Quote
AffinityMakesMeWonder Posted February 23 Posted February 23 Garry, thanks from me too - despite many many years with Affinity Suite, I’ve never thought of this! Quote Happy guy playing around with the Affinity Suite - really love typographic, photographing, Color & forms, AND, old Synthesizers from the 1980-1990’s… Macbook Pro 16” M1 2021 connected to an 32” curved 5K external display, iPad Pro 12.9” M1 2021, iPad Pro 10.5” A10X 2017, iMac 27” 5K/i7 late 2015 - also an Lenovo iMac i7 clone with 24” touch screen and Windows 10…
GarryP Posted February 23 Posted February 23 You’re welcome. I don’t think a lot of users are aware that the Blend Option dialog exists, never mind the Anti-aliasing setting that’s in it. I haven’t used this much myself so I don’t know how well it will work in practice in all circumstances. Quote
MikeTO Posted February 23 Posted February 23 Great tip! I didn't know about this either. Quote Download a free PDF manual for Affinity Publisher 2.6 Download a quick reference chart for Affinity's Special Characters Affinity 2.6 for macOS Sequoia 15.5, MacBook Pro (M4 Pro) and iPad Air (M2)
Ldina Posted February 23 Posted February 23 3 minutes ago, anto said: This does not work in 2.6 It works fine for me with v2.6 on Mac. Quote 2024 MacBook Pro M4 Max, 48GB, 1TB SSD, Sequoia OS, Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher v1 & v2, Adobe CS6 Extended, LightRoom v6, Blender, InkScape, Dell 30" Monitor, Canon PRO-100 Printer, i1 Spectrophotometer, i1Publish, Wacom Intuos 4 PTK-640 graphics tablet, 2TB OWC SSD USB external hard drive.
Alfred Posted February 23 Posted February 23 49 minutes ago, anto said: This does not work in 2.6 What do you mean? I see no evidence of antialiasing in your screenshot. Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.5.1 (iPad 7th gen)
Pšenda Posted February 23 Posted February 23 5 hours ago, Alfred said: What do you mean? I see no evidence of antialiasing in your screenshot. Perhaps it is necessary to explain what antialiasing actually means. Such an image would be useful in the Help, for a more detailed explanation of the Antialiasing settings. https://affinity.help/photo2/English.lproj/pages/Layers/layerBlendRanges.html Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.7.2948 (Retail) Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.
fde101 Posted February 24 Posted February 24 16 hours ago, anto said: This does not work in 2.6 Your shape is a vector object and by default Designer renders vector objects independently of the pixel grid. To get a pixelated view you need to turn on Pixel View mode (it is an icon on the main toolbar by default - the leftmost in the set of yellow blocks with the handles around them - or View -> View Mode -> Pixels in the menu bar). I can see from your screenshot that is not turned on. Enabling that tells Designer you want a preview of what the shape will look like in a rasterized rendering, rather than in its infinitely scalable vector form. 19 hours ago, GarryP said: I haven’t used this much myself so I don’t know how well it will work in practice in all circumstances. It doesn't seem to work when rasterizing the object in the Layers panel, only when viewing vector objects in Pixel View mode. Haven't checked to see how it impacts exports. Even if you are in pixel view mode, if you rasterize the object, aliasing is applied in spite of that option. Smells like a bug to me. Quote
GarryP Posted February 24 Posted February 24 11 minutes ago, fde101 said: To get a pixelated view you need to turn on Pixel View mode That was something which I forgot to add to my earlier post, thanks for mentioning it; I’ve fixed my earlier post now. fde101 1 Quote
fde101 Posted February 24 Posted February 24 I wasn't able to find a bug report for that rasterization issue so I opened one: Quote
GarryP Posted February 24 Posted February 24 26 minutes ago, fde101 said: It doesn't seem to work when rasterizing the object in the Layers panel That’s interesting, and not something I was expecting. Whether the view mode is Pixels or not, the layer seems to always rasterise with anti-aliasing ON. And, without rasterising, exporting to PDF [PDF (digital – small size) Preset] shows the anti-aliasing, but exporting to PNG/JPEG doesn’t. Maybe someone else can shed some light on this. Quote
fde101 Posted February 24 Posted February 24 Just now, GarryP said: exporting to PDF [PDF (digital – small size) Preset] shows the anti-aliasing PDF is a vector format, and the object is a vector object, so this doesn't surprise me. The PDF format probably doesn't have a concept of a pixel grid as it was always intended as a "digital paper" format independent of raster resolution. 1 minute ago, GarryP said: exporting to PNG/JPEG doesn’t That is good to know, as these are raster formats, so the setting is evidently being applied to raster exports, matching the apparent intended function of Pixel View (to preview an export to those formats). Quote
GarryP Posted February 24 Posted February 24 16 minutes ago, fde101 said: PDF is a vector format, and the object is a vector object, so this doesn't surprise me. Yeah, I get your point on that one; it just seemed a little odd at the time without putting much thought into it. However, I’m still not entirely sure why, if there’s no pixel grid in a PDF, anti-aliasing would have an effect on vector layers. To put that another way, if there are no pixels, where do the ‘transition pixels’ come from? Maybe my brain hasn’t properly lurched into first gear yet. Quote
Pšenda Posted February 24 Posted February 24 1 hour ago, fde101 said: Your shape is a vector object and by default Designer renders vector objects independently of the pixel grid. Disabling antialiasing is obvious even in vector view, there is no need to switch to Pixel View mode. Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.7.2948 (Retail) Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.
Petar Petrenko Posted March 17 Posted March 17 On 2/24/2025 at 10:40 AM, fde101 said: PDF is a vector format PDF is not format at all. It is just a container that keeps the files together to be easily viewed or printed on different computers and OS's. All objects are in their native formats (vectors, bitmaps). Quote All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows. 15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 ● Windows 10 x64 Pro ● Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) ● 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) ● NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 ● 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD ● UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display 32” LG 32UN650-W display ● 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 ● Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated ● 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort 13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) ● Ventura 13.6 ● Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) ● 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 ● Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB ● 500 GB SSD ● Retina Display (3360 x 2100)
Pšenda Posted March 17 Posted March 17 11 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said: PDF is not format at all. Interesting statement 🙂 Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.7.2948 (Retail) Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.
Petar Petrenko Posted March 17 Posted March 17 14 minutes ago, Pšenda said: Interesting statement 🙂 PDF is neither vector format like AI, SVG, CDR..., nor bitmap format like TIF, JPG... because it deals with all of them. Quote All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows. 15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 ● Windows 10 x64 Pro ● Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) ● 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) ● NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 ● 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD ● UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display 32” LG 32UN650-W display ● 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 ● Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated ● 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort 13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) ● Ventura 13.6 ● Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) ● 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 ● Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB ● 500 GB SSD ● Retina Display (3360 x 2100)
Pšenda Posted March 17 Posted March 17 5 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said: PDF is neither vector format like AI, SVG, CDR..., nor bitmap format like TIF, JPG... because it deals with all of them. Yes, PDF is not a format specifically designed for only one type of data, but is used to store many types of data - it is a container-type format (it can store, for example, vector data, raster/image data, audio data, video data, texts,...). But that doesn't mean that it is not a "format", as you wrote. Quote Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.7.2948 (Retail) Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605. Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.
fde101 Posted March 17 Posted March 17 PDF is no more a container format than a Word document is. Word documents can also have embedded files of various kinds, but that does not make .docx a container format. Quote
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