Vector for dummies

[Wilfred Hildonen]

I am not very into vector and AD was like a magic wand to me. All of a sudden I knew how to create vectorised artwork on the fly, so to speak. 

I thought. 

Then I was asked to work on a project which would have to be vector. I imported a logo I had made earlier and exported as an eps-file. All vector. I made an elegant brush which I thought was vector.

And when it all looked as I wanted it to in AD, I exported it as .eps and sent it to the print shop - and was asked why I sent them a bitmap when they wanted vector. 

After lots of tearing my hair out accompanied by swearing in multiple languages, I finally learnt what was wrong. 

If you import an image into your artwork, using the tool for that, it is being transformed into a bitmap image, no matter what it was earlier.
You need to open up the vector-file in AD as an individual file and then copy it and then paste it into your artwork. Then it remains a vector-file with all layers and info intact. 

And the brushes you create in AD are not vector, not even when you create it in Vector Persona. It is bitmap.
The solution here was to export it and having it traced, something a very kind user helped me out with, since I don't have programmes with such a feature - a feature I hope will be added to AD soon. 

 

So, my question is whether it shouldn't come up a warning to us vector-dummies? I know, it might be annoying for the true pros to see pop ups notifying about such as they consider self-evident, but there are solutions to that. Either being able to turn that off or on in the preferences or having an option in the message: Don't show this message again. 

 

Just a thought. It would have saved me for a lot of frustration. And probably helped a lot of others as well. 

[MEB]

Hi Wilfred Hildonen,

This is not exclusive to Affinity Designer. Every time you bring raster based content into a vector based program it will remain as bitmap/raster unless you vectorise it using a tracing tool. Even so due to the nature of vectors it's not always possible to translate an image with millions of colours into something usable as vectors without ending with a "posterisation" effect.

There's also a few operations/features that will convert even simple vector objects into raster images: for example all layers effects, certain Blend modes or transparency (depending on the format you are exporting) etc or brushes based on bitmap textures as you discovered already. I believe we will have a system in place later to warn the user about problematic objects like those, but for now your best bet is to test the file in a PDF viewer or similar before sending it to the printer.

[MikeW]

And it should be said that there is nothing wrong with bitmap effects as regards the printing process. It all gets rasterized during the RIP process anyway.

 

I would have sent the design as a PDF to the print service. I would never send an EPS. That said, AD improperly rasterizes the stroke in comparision to the other vector applications I use.

 

With these other vector applications, if I rasterize the stroke so it is comparable to AD's EPS export, only the stroke is a bitmap (transparent CMYK tiff, actually) with an EPS export. However, with AD, even if I convert the stroke to a bitmap, the EPS export re-reasterizes it along with the vector circle and some of the text. This is incorrect/unnecessary when exporting an EPS.

 

If I first rasterize the stroke in AD, I should be able to choose to rasterize nothing under the More... button and have a correct EPS export. But I do not. Instead, while it leaves the stroke alone, it rasterizes the bounding box for the stroke that has already turned into an image manually. This too is incorrect behavior.

 

Mike

[Fixx]

And it should be said that there is nothing wrong with bitmap effects as regards the printing process. It all gets rasterized during the RIP process anyway.

Well, there are raster and then there are halftone. You always lose sharpness if you convert to halftones, vectors stay razorsharp, even when in output they are all just device pixels.

 

Anyway, it really seems AD unnecessarily converts too many objects to bitmap when really there are just a few elements that need to be bitmap in file.

[Dave Harris]

If you import an image into your artwork, using the tool for that, it is being transformed into a bitmap image, no matter what it was earlier.

 

It becomes an embedded document. It is stored as vector, but in version 1.4 it always exports as a bitmap. This should be fixed in 1.5. I believe it is working in the current beta, if you want to try that just for export. It's available from the beta forum.

[MikeW]

Dave, it outputs as an image in the Windows beta. Between my above post and the discussion below

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/23617-transparent-eps-goes-white/

 

The file is in the thread.

[Kuttyjoe]

I am not very into vector and AD was like a magic wand to me. All of a sudden I knew how to create vectorised artwork on the fly, so to speak. 

I thought. 

Then I was asked to work on a project which would have to be vector. I imported a logo I had made earlier and exported as an eps-file. All vector. I made an elegant brush which I thought was vector.

And when it all looked as I wanted it to in AD, I exported it as .eps and sent it to the print shop - and was asked why I sent them a bitmap when they wanted vector. 

After lots of tearing my hair out accompanied by swearing in multiple languages, I finally learnt what was wrong. 

If you import an image into your artwork, using the tool for that, it is being transformed into a bitmap image, no matter what it was earlier.

You need to open up the vector-file in AD as an individual file and then copy it and then paste it into your artwork. Then it remains a vector-file with all layers and info intact. 

 

And the brushes you create in AD are not vector, not even when you create it in Vector Persona. It is bitmap.

The solution here was to export it and having it traced, something a very kind user helped me out with, since I don't have programmes with such a feature - a feature I hope will be added to AD soon. 

 

So, my question is whether it shouldn't come up a warning to us vector-dummies? I know, it might be annoying for the true pros to see pop ups notifying about such as they consider self-evident, but there are solutions to that. Either being able to turn that off or on in the preferences or having an option in the message: Don't show this message again. 

 

Just a thought. It would have saved me for a lot of frustration. And probably helped a lot of others as well. 

No, you're not wrong about this.  This is not something vector experts would simply know.  Every program is different, even if they do much of the same things.  They go about them in different ways.  There's a steep learning curve no matter what program you're learning.  Even with decades of experience, I still have to think carefully about what exactly is AD doing, and what kind of results it may yield.  For me it's meant a lot of testing.  I've imported and exported lots of art, with different content to see how well it can manage this, and what the results look like.  This way, I don't end up with surprises.