1bit / bitmap mode colour format?

[potrandrei]

Goood afternoon.

   In my company i work with pictures that has 112295X13294. So there are very big files.For the moment i working with this kind of documents in Photoshop. After working a document i change it in Bitmap mode and save it in TIFF compressed file.The final size is 11 Mb files with very best quality.Thet are black&white files.

For the moment with Affinity photo i am in tested mode.And i simply can't save my final files less then 100 Mb Tiff file.

 

I am not and expert user in images but Photohop has the best results for this type of files.

I am impress of what can do Affinity and is doing the same thing that i do in Photoshop but exporting the files is th only thing for the moment that i couldn't not purchase the application.

If there is other things that i miss here in Affinity please give me feedback.

 

Thank you.

[JET_Affinity]

1-bit rasters are not just for particular repro methods, either. Colorizing a 1-bit diffusion dither is a great low-overhead way to achieve "grainy" textures in any vector illustration style, regardless of printing method.

 

JET

[Fixx]

Bitmap mode and save it in TIFF compressed file.The final size is 11 Mb files with very best quality. Thet are black&white files.

For the moment with Affinity photo i am in tested mode.And i simply can't save my final files less then 100 Mb Tiff file.

 

Problem is that AP cannot save 1-bit TIFFs. That is why size is 10 fold. AP is not suitable for 1-bit work now as there is no 1-bit work space.

[peterdanckwerts]

I work in book publishing and 1-bit TIFF files are essential. If you have a greyscale image, the printer's software will automatically apply a halftone screen, which degrades the image. This is really a sine qua non of a serious graphics program. PNG and GIF images are often rejected by printers. 

[Alfred]

11 minutes ago, peterdanckwerts said:

If you have a greyscale image, the printer's software will automatically apply a halftone screen, which degrades the image. 

 

How does a halftone screen degrade a pure black image? 

[peterdanckwerts]

Believe me it does. I don't pretend to know how these rasterising programs work but they seem to work on the assumption that there is no such thing as pure black or pure white in a greyscale image (a reasonable assumption). In any case, a high halftone screen resolution might be 200 dpi (many digital presses use less), a fraction of the resolution of the raster engine (or a typical 600dpi 1-bit image), so you'd end up with what was effectively a very low resolution image with jagged edges. Indeed, if you applied a screen to the text, it would look terrible.

 

There might also be cases where you are reproducing an existing halftone (say from an old book). There are two ways to avoid screen clash (the moiré pattern when two screens have been applied to an image): (1) soften the image to remove the visible screen (which will inevitable reduce image quality); or (2) reproduce dot-for-dot, where you maintain the original screen pattern. This can only be done with a 1-bit image.

[peterdanckwerts]

I should have added, that the halftone screen will inevitably be lower resolution than the maximum resolution of the raster engine because halftone dots are of variable size, so evey dot is made up of several scan lines. By the way, I see that Graphic Converter, which I have, can convert to 1-bit.

[JET_Affinity]

Quote

How does a halftone screen degrade a pure black image?

Halftoning effectively blurs the edges of line art.

A printer (imagesetter) has a fixed resolution. All it actually print is printer spots of the same size. Printer spots are the actual hardware resolution of the imagesetter (typically 3000 or more spots per inch).

Halftone dots are made up of printer spots..Each dot in a halftone is a collection of printer spots, trying to simulate a circle..The number of different circle sizes possible is therefore determined by the number of printer spots available to simulate them. Divide the number of available printer spots (SPI) by the halftone ruling (LPI), and that's the theoretical number of different-size halftone dots (levels of grey) the device can print. That's why you always get more banding from, say, a 600 SPI laser printer than you do from a 3000 SPI imagesetter.

Everything in a greyscale image gets halftoned. That means the raster is printed as halftone dots, at the line ruling of the halftone screen (typically 150 lines per inch). It also becomes effectively anti-aliased by the halftoning.process.That's why black text that is part of a raster image looks fuzzy compared to black vector text stacked in front of a raster image.

1 bit raster objects do not get halftoned at all. They are simply "filled in" with tiny printer spots. So it's common practice to, for example, create or scan line art (think of the inking of a comic book illustration) as 1-bit rasters at something like 1200 PPI, which overlay grayscale or full color raster images. The color artwork prints as 1/150th inch halftone dots. But the 1-bit raster actually prints as 1/1200th-inch squares, giving a crisp, sharp-edged, aliased (not anti-aliased) appearance.

You can sort of think of 1-bit color depth as the "vector" version of raster imaging in that exactly what you've "drawn" simply gets "filled in" with the tiniest printer spots of the given output device. Take a look at this PDF: Zoom into it as far as you can. Tell me if you think it is raster image or a vector line.

JET

[Alfred]

 

On 22/07/2017 at 2:19 PM, JET_Affinity said:

Quote

How does a halftone screen degrade a pure black image?

Halftoning effectively blurs the edges of line art.

A printer (imagesetter) has a fixed resolution. All it actually print is printer spots of the same size. Printer spots are the actual hardware resolution of the imagesetter (typically 3000 or more spots per inch).

Halftone dots are made up of printer spots..Each dot in a halftone is a collection of printer spots, trying to simulate a circle..The number of different circle sizes possible is therefore determined by the number of printer spots available to simulate them. Divide the number of available printer spots (SPI) by the halftone ruling (LPI), and that's the theoretical number of different-size halftone dots (levels of grey) the device can print. That's why you always get more banding from, say, a 600 SPI laser printer than you do from a 3000 SPI imagesetter.

Everything in a greyscale image gets halftoned. That means the raster is printed as halftone dots, at the line ruling of the halftone screen (typically 150 lines per inch). It also becomes effectively anti-aliased by the halftoning.process.That's why black text that is part of a raster image looks fuzzy compared to black vector text stacked in front of a raster image.

1 bit raster objects do not get halftoned at all. They are simply "filled in" with tiny printer spots. So it's common practice to, for example, create or scan line art (think of the inking of a comic book illustration) as 1-bit rasters at something like 1200 PPI, which overlay grayscale or full color raster images. The color artwork prints as 1/150th inch halftone dots. But the 1-bit raster actually prints as 1/1200th-inch squares, giving a crisp, sharp-edged, aliased (not anti-aliased) appearance.

JET

 

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, JET! 

[midsummer]

I often need to design CD packaging, including barcodes and silkscreened CD labels. 1-bit bitmap images are crucial for design jobs like these. I very much hope that the bitmap color mode will find its way to Affinity Photo in some future update. I already bought the program and I'd very much like to switch over from Photoshop, and right now it's only the bitmap issue that's holding me back.

[Medical Officer Bones]

I encountered this limitation too. I prepare comics work for print, and for that 1bit black and white high resolution 800ppi-1200ppi images must be created.

While Photoshop has the option to work in 1bit image mode, most of the functionality is deactivated: layers do not work for example. And to composite the line art with the colour plate, InDesign is required to produce a PDF.

After some trial and error I discovered that, as far as I could find, only one non-Adobe workflow option exists. This assumes the line art is inked in B&W at a minimum of 800ppi or scanned at that minimum resolution. I tried a combination of Gimp, Scribus, but while Scribus supports export to PDFx/4 with 1bit transparent images, I couldn't create a good transparent 1200ppi 1bit image in Gimp.

So I do my prepwork in PhotoLine now, which supports 1bit image layers, and these can be combined in the same layer stack with the 300ppi colour work. First I open the 300ppi colour work, then import the 1bit 1200ppi line art, activate transparency for this layer, and remove the white background. Then I add the vector text balloons and other vector elements, and export a PDFx/3 document. PhotoLine miraculously seems to understand that I want a layered 300ppi PDF with a 1bit B&W1200ppi layer printed on top, which was unexpected when I first tried it a year ago. The result is a nice layered PDF which prints the page's colours at 300ppi, the line art superimposed at a crisp 1200ppi, and the vectors at the image setters max res.

If you need to prepare 1bit images, just get PhotoLine for this. Work in Affinity Photo, and convert to 1bit with PhotoLine, and output. I use PhotoLine as a InDesign replacement for this type of work. It's an inexpensive solution to a very particular workflow requirement.

One caveat with both Affinity Photo and PhotoLine: neither one supports an 8bit (or less) indexed image mode. For this I use Pro Motion NG - which is kinda the industry standard for indexed pixel art anyway. If I need to work on indexed images, I open the art or photo in PM, and it converts it nicely to an indexed image. And PM being a specialized indexed image editor, I get the best indexed image tools in the business. Good for textile print prep too, to get remove those anti-aliased edges :-)

So three apps: Affinity Photo, PhotoLine, and Pro Motion NG combine to achieve an even more powerful workflow with indexed and 1bit images compared to Adobe. Not bad.

[fannypack]

I am currently using GIMP to edit indexed color and it is very frustrating when a paid image editing program is unable to do it.

[kjjo]

To publish comics, one needs a layer of 300dpi for colors and a layer of 1200dpi lineart, bitmap. There mustn't occur gray pixels. 

[Luc(as)]

2 more reasons why 1bit is needed:

- some type design applications only accept 1-bit clipboard content to be pasted (in the background for tracing).

- I design/produce pixel fonts and symbols for consumer products: very often in 1-bit space.

The Paint Brush and the Pixel tools should get special behavior in 1-bit mode: when starting to paint on a black pixel it should work as an eraser.

And I wish the would be a way to make straight diagonal lines drawn with these tool snap live to grid-friendly angles.

(1:1 (45 degree), 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:6, 1:6) so that diagonal bitmap lines get perfect patters.

[bighache]

I haven't done print work in a bit, but now that I'm working in it again I could absolutely use 1-bit TIFF in my workflow, and the absence of this is missed.

If this is seen by the devs as low-priority, I would argue additional export formats/options are pretty key to image editing software, even more important than "cool" features.

[PhilipPeake]

Another vote for one bit images. I don't like having to fire up my old Photoshop just to do this.

[longstreth]

I'm a cartoonist looking for an alternative to Photoshop and was bummed to find out (after purchase) that Affinity Photo does not have a bitmap mode, which is essential to my practice. As stated above, the printing process for comics uses black and white bitmap 1200dpi TIF files for the lineart, which is overprinted above the CMY plates. Until this feature is incorporated I'll have to search elsewhere for a workaround (Clip Studio Paint, etc.)

[Bruno B.]

 

Hi, I work for a french comic book publishing company and the only missing feature for us is this mode 1 bit / bitmap mode.

Another vote for one bit images. :)

[Andy Somerfield]

I'll be honest here - we will never implement 1bit document support..

However, we would be happy to implement support for *exporting* 1bit TIFF etc. - would that be enough?

Thanks,

A

[Medical Officer Bones]

Hi Andy,

I am a bit shell-shocked after reading this, although I do appreciate the honesty. It does mean I can't use Photo for a very important part of my work. Simple as that. I also think it is somewhat short-sighted, since 1bit bitmaps are used in the printing industry for all sorts of jobs.

I noticed the other day that Publisher now retains placed 1bit high resolution tiffs in the exported PDF, which is great. But when switching to Photo, any high resolution 1bit image is converted to a greyscale version. That just won't do, I am afraid. But at least Photo keeps the 1bit information intact when switching back to Publisher.

Reading between the lines, I think the reason for the lack of 1bit (and 8bit indexed) support is that the core of the software would have to be adjusted, and that this would be far too fickle and too much work. Which I understand.

Like I said, it means I just can't use Photo for my comics work without jumping through hoops. For anyone looking to edit 1bit files and looking to migrate away from Photoshop, have a look at PhotoLine, which supports 1bit bitmap editing with layer support (something even Photoshop doesn't support).

The good news is that I discovered today that Publisher does now support 1bit high resolution images in its PDF export: I layered one of my 1200ppi 1bit files on top of a 300ppi colour file, and it retains these fine when I viewed the PDF output. So that is great.

Now, I don't want to shut Photo's door entirely behind me for 1bit editing. Andy, perhaps you could implement a layer limitation which enforces the use of only 1 colour? Or perhaps a live layer effect that automatically converts to indexed/1bit?

This idea is based on this Krita developer's work as seen here (see attachment for example):

Which would solve the lack of an indexed mode as well. Allow your users to add a live layer effect to convert the layer automatically to 8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1 bit, with a control palette.

[MarkkuM]

This is a very large bummer. I need a bitmap mode with editing because I need to regularly touch up 20000 — 14000px size 1-bit 1200dpi line art files. Mostly it is just taking off a scrap that was in the original, and using an external software for that takes a lot away from Affinity's great concept of having everything instantly on hand in one screen.

I think opening a 1-bit .tiff received from the scanner, converting it into a grayscale document and editing it, for example, with a soft eraser, will give too many chances for weird things to happen on export (even if 1-bit export is possible). However, the above-mentioned colour enforcing layer limitation with 1-bit tiff export could work, if the .tiff's file size stays in the same class as in import (this is important, hundreds of pages stack up a lot of space if the size multiplies).

I think if this is documented well, and the output is reasonable, I think at least the comic-making workflow wouldn't suffer too much, even if this "cheats" a bit. Hopefully it will not break anything. The fact that Publisher retains 1-bit .tiff files is a small silver lining, I can at least lay out my pages with it.

[Andy Somerfield]

If you need a 1bit preview, you can add a posterise adjustment to a greyscale document and set the value to 2. This works for 2,3,4 bit etc too (just by setting the posterise number appropriately).

Thanks,

A

[Medical Officer Bones]

The posterize effect will not work properly with transparency in Photo.

- create a 1200ppi greyscale document at A4 format (9921x14032 pixels)

- paint with a black soft brush

- add posterize adjustment

Result: the soft edges remain.

Not a solution, unfortunately.

[Medical Officer Bones]

8 hours ago, MarkkuM said:

 The fact that Publisher retains 1-bit .tiff files is a small silver lining, I can at least lay out my pages with it.

I checked the PDFs today in a PDF editor, and it seems Publisher will convert those 1bit tiffs to four channel CMYK high resolution images in the PDF, unfortunately. I am unsure if that will print correctly, because the image setter software will probably just sample down the line art to 300 or 400ppi.

Will investigate further tomorrow. I really hope there's a setting in Publisher that will leave the 1bit tiffs untouched during PDF export.

[Fixx]

I can live with Photo which does not do 1-bit graphics (as there are other tools which can), but seriously Publisher needs to be able to handle hi-res 1-bit graphics! I am a bit worried as Affinity document model seems to demand only one document dpi to which everything is conformed but certainly there are ways around this? (You cannot set separate dpi values for contone images and 1-bit lineart for example, which is rather telling detail.. but I suppose you can keep original dpi's... which is also not best possible solution.)

On 6/24/2019 at 10:30 AM, Medical Officer Bones said:

Will investigate further tomorrow.

Please do!

On 6/23/2019 at 8:31 PM, Andy Somerfield said:

we would be happy to implement support for *exporting* 1bit TIFF etc. - would that be enough?

I would help some. We could imitate 1-bit in Photo with Threshold command and export the result to 1-bit. This does not though go all the way, heavy users would use other tools.

Currently it is possible to export 1-bit gif and png, but unfortunately export engine always dithers the output. Please add at least dither [on/off] option. Also it seems output is not "clean b&w" 1-bit but some other 1-bit flavour, possibly you could check this too.

Of course you can sell us option to import our former 1-bit linearts to Designer/Publisher and vectorise them to resolution independent vector graphics... for many of us it would be good and give some extra too. Now you had some ideas how vectorising should work...?