Possible transparent bug

[abject39]

I created a document in Affinity Designer. It has several Artboards. 3 of my Artboards  render with backgrounds even though it's a PNG with transparent layers. The 3 Artboards have the transparency tool applied to their "Background" in a gradient fashion, which I can see in Affinity, but when I render the file the transparency becomes a white background instead of fading to nothing. Is this some sort of bug? How can I circumvent this problem?

[R C-R]

Hi @abject39

 

I am unclear about what exactly you are exporting to PNG, or why in your first screenshot there is a black background. When I export the whole document using the PNG-24 preset, I get the following, which preserves the transparent background:

The transparency won't show here, but if you open it in an app that does show transparency (like Preview.app if you are using a Mac) the transparency will be obvious from the same checkered background that Affinity uses as a stand in for transparency:

 

Exporting individual Artboards also works fine for me, preserving transparency for the Artboards that use it. The only bug I found, if it is indeed a bug, is that in the File > Export window when choosing what to export, there is only one item named "DB Meter" in the popup instead of one for each of the several artboards with that name. Giving each of them unique names like DB Meter 1, DB Meter 2, & so on fixes that, or alternately you can use the Layers panel in the Export Persona to create slices for each artboard & choose which one(s) to export from there.

[abject39]

The photo viewer in Windows 10 is black, on a white background you can't see the issue. Or maybe it's specific to Windows 10. On a black background you can see it's fading to white instead of to transparent.

[R C-R]

12 minutes ago, abject39 said:

The photo viewer in Windows 10 is black, on a white background you can't see the issue. Or maybe it's specific to Windows 10. On a black background you can see it's fading to white instead of to transparent.

As I said, not all software apps display transparency. I do not use Windows so I can't say what the Win10 photo viewer does but it may simply be that it does not, so checking the exported file with another app that does may reveal that there really is nothing wrong with the export.

 

All I can say for certain is that viewed in Apple's Preview app on my Mac, as my screenshot shows the transparency is preserved. Apple's Finder & the "Quick Look" function do not show transparency. This has caused more than one forum user to assume incorrectly that there is something wrong with Affinity's PNG export function, so it would not be too surprising if that was what was happening here.

[v_kyr]

You can crosscheck the exported PNG with a tool like IrfanView on Windows 10, in order to see if it may be a general PNG export issue or instead being more related to the Win 10 photo viewer itself.

[abject39]

I've tested it on two different programs. In the screenshot it's a developer program. But the exact same result is on the windows photo viewer. The background is transparent except for where it fades to transparent. 

[abject39]

I've tried recreating the issue and it only seems to happen in the document I sent. There's something about it causing this issue. I assume a bug somewhere. 

[abject39]

8 hours ago, v_kyr said:

You can crosscheck the exported PNG with a tool like IrfanView on Windows 10, in order to see if it may be a general PNG export issue or instead being more related to the Win 10 photo viewer itself.

Just to be sure I downloaded this and it was exactly the same as I said it was. Here's the render straight from the affinity file. You can clearly see it fading to white in those spots instead of fading to transparent. I've attached it for anyone to download and see for themselves.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, abject39 said:

Here's the render straight from the affinity file.

What app are you using to view this with? I drag copied your uploaded Bitmap2.png.0a62a3e7602b5b8e950b448eeb141c2c.png file directly from this web page to the desktop on my Mac & opened it with Preview.app. It shows that the file does have a transparent background, exactly like in the second screenshot in my earlier post.

 

Also, Finder's "Get Info" for the file shows that it has an alpha channel, a pretty good indication that it does include transparency:

[v_kyr]

I took a look on a Mac for this, since I use/have AD just for that one. There it looked Ok to me in an exported PNG for the way the indicated document parts are setup with that degree of transparency. - In order to get more transparency, you might have to alter the settings for those parts accordingly to stronger values.

 

[JimmyJack]

abject39

 

I can confirm that this IS happening, but it's not a bug.... and it's really hard (if not impossible) to see on a white or checkerboard background.

So I changed Preview's background to black and get the same as you.

 

It's happening because there are two "Highlights" layers in each of those artboards introducing fading white (70%-0%) to the color.

 

 

 

 

Also, just as an aside..... on the two lower examples the color blocks' transparency fade midpoints are set to 100 and all the elements, except the text of course, extend way way beyond the artboards (possibly necessary for the highlights, but the color?) . Maybe it's all by design... just pointing it out if not.

 

cheers

 

[abject39]

8 hours ago, JimmyJack said:

abject39

 

I can confirm that this IS happening, but it's not a bug.... and it's really hard (if not impossible) to see on a white or checkerboard background.

So I changed Preview's background to black and get the same as you.

 

It's happening because there are two "Highlights" layers in each of those artboards introducing fading white (70%-0%) to the color.

 

 

 

 

Also, just as an aside..... on the two lower examples the color blocks' transparency fade midpoints are set to 100 and all the elements, except the text of course, extend way way beyond the artboards (possibly necessary for the highlights, but the color?) . Maybe it's all by design... just pointing it out if not.

 

cheers

 

Oooohhhhhh! I see the problem now. I will update the file to reflect this. I started creating this months ago before I was as proficient in Designer so some of the artboards don't have the best implementation lol. These images are part of a synthesizer I've been creating. Thank you. I can now fix this and continue with my project.