Merging layers causing blurring

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, Wosven said:

Instead of "bottom layer", it wiuld be better to use "canvas".

Use for what? The canvas & bottom (or any other) layer are completely different things. The canvas is a container, which when newly created may have no layers in it at all. But as (almost) all of us agree, it has a native document PPI/DPI, which other layers are converted to by rasterizing or merging if they are not already at the native value.

[MasterBooth]

We live in the 21st century where a program meant for a wide range of users is expected to be user friendly and intuitive, meaning that the majority of users should get what they expect by default and with the least amount of clicks. To me the conclusion of this (and other) issues is that Affinity Photo is optimised for a limited group of professionals who reportedly can make good use of the current default behaviours while sacrificing being user friendly and intuitive for the average user. I find this unfortunate and annoying personally but more importantly it doesn't seem to make sense from the view of the success of Affinity Photo either: advanced users wouldn't suffer from a few extra clicks to get what they want or go into their menus to change the default behaviour but thousands of average users do suffer and get disappointed from not getting what they expect, not even understanding why. Most of them never have the time and effort it takes to understand and even if they do it doesn't change the fact that Affinity Photo remains ceremonious and tiring to use because of the extra steps - the program where you're made to click 3 times more to get what you wanted. This is a great program but miles & miles away from being intuitive. Even after using it for years I'm annoyed by the extra steps every time I use it.

[NotMyFault]

I made a feature request.

All who want an improvement can add their vote:

 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, NotMyFault said:

All who want an improvement can add their vote:

Votes won’t sway the developers. We need persuasive arguments.

[Ytiniffa]

A workaround that works for me:

1. Group the layers you want to merge
2. Rasterize the group

I use it when copying a part/s of an original image to a layer/s above, moving the layer/s (force pixel alignment on; move by whole pixels off; no scaling or rotating) and then merging the layer/s. If I just merge down, it will blur the original image.

[JimmyJack]

On 8/19/2021 at 1:55 PM, MEB said:

@JimmyJack,
Do you mind attaching the file shown in the video please? Thanks.

Sure.... and this is under the most stringent of pixel placement/res requirements.
Just the tip of the iceberg if you ask me.

APhoto blurring example (1.10.0.251 - RC2).afphoto

[Old Bruce]

8 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

Sure.... and this is under the most stringent of pixel placement/res requirements.

Odd in that if I first Rasterize and trim each of the Pixel layers no problems occur re: blurring.

Post Script:

Further test shows I have to rasterize and trim only the blue layer. Makes me wonder how that was created.

[carl123]

9 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Further test shows I have to rasterize and trim only the blue layer.

If you take the document into Publisher and do Layer > Convert to Image Resource and then check the properties (shown below) you will see that the blue square is scaled at 99%, if you click the Original Size button then the x, y values of the blue square shifts and are no longer whole integer values.

I therefore conclude, that I have no clue as to what that means or if it is in any way relevant to the problem 

 

[NotMyFault]

35 minutes ago, carl123 said:

I therefore conclude, that I have no clue as to what that means or if it is in any way relevant to the problem 

Really? I thought we discussed this in multiple threads. So i beg your pardon if i missed some irony here, and explain well known facts.

A non-matching DPI caused by resizing of a pixel layer is one of the primary causes of blurriness when merging down.

Take the extreme example: Merge down to a layer that has exactly 1 DPI, and the document and upper layer has 10 DPI (and 10“ canvas size).

Now all 10x10 pixels get squeezed into 1 pixel (average color of 100 pixels). Result: maximum blurriness.

The minimum you get is a blur by resampling over 4 pixel, as all merged pixels will be resampled from  at least 2 pixels in x and 2 pixel in y direction.

For more detailed explanation and test images, see 

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by NotMyFault

[Fixx]

3 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Now all 10x10 pixels get squeezed into 1 pixel (average color of 100 pixels). Result: maximum blurriness.

 

So you say merge operations rasterizes to upper layer dpi, not to document dpi?

I generally do not merge layers until in export which I think produces acceptable output (but I am not sure does it really uses selected resample algorithm as base document is not resized).

[LukeWatts85]

I agree entirely this blurring thing is an issue, and not a desired effect in any scenario.

But I have an alternative method that does not cause any blurring:

1. Group all the layers you want to merge
2. Rasterize the group

I made the shortcut for Rasterize Ctrl+E instead of Merge Down in Keyboard shortcuts (because I'm never going to use Merge until this is fixed) so Ctrl+G then Ctrl + E.

But yes, please fix this.. Photoshop does not do this, and 95% people are looking to Affinity Photo as their alternative to PS, so this is going to annoy most users

Edited November 28, 2021 by LukeWatts85

[NotMyFault]

On 11/23/2021 at 11:10 AM, Fixx said:

So you say merge operations rasterizes to upper layer dpi, not to document dpi?

I generally do not merge layers until in export which I think produces acceptable output (but I am not sure does it really uses selected resample algorithm as base document is not resized).

Close, but different: in case of „merge down“, it uses the DPI (and rotation) of the lower layer - without rasterizing it. In the pure sense of the words, it merges everything from the upper layer  into the lower layer. If you rotate the lower layer by 45 degree before merge, this rotation is preserved during the process. Same with different DPI in x/y direction. This can be utilized for interesting artistic effects.

it intentionally does not rasterize at all. But all issues raised by the OP can be solved by simply manually rasterize the lower layer just before merge down. You could record a small macro and assign a shortcut:

• Select layer below
• rasterize & trim layer
• select layer above
• merge down

Its that simple. 

 

[LukeWatts85]

On 11/28/2021 at 9:32 AM, NotMyFault said:

Close, but different: in case of „merge down“, it uses the DPI (and rotation) of the lower layer - without rasterizing it. In the pure sense of the words, it merges everything from the upper layer  into the lower layer. If you rotate the lower layer by 45 degree before merge, this rotation is preserved during the process. Same with different DPI in x/y direction. This can be utilized for interesting artistic effects.

it intentionally does not rasterize at all. But all issues raised by the OP can be solved by simply manually rasterize the lower layer just before merge down. You could record a small macro and assign a shortcut:

• Select layer below
• rasterize & trim layer
• select layer above
• merge down

Its that simple. 

 

Unfortunately, you still can't assign shortcuts to Macros in Affinity Photo, as far as I'm aware. But when they add that feature, this is probably the way to go. Or Serif could just add a "Rasterize and Merge Down" command and people could just use that instead. Or make the standard Merge Down behave like we want, and then make a "Merge Down & Blur" that does what it Merge Down currently does....and people can just not ever use that

[Stokestack]

On 11/28/2021 at 1:32 AM, NotMyFault said:

it intentionally does not rasterize at all. But all issues raised by the OP can be solved by simply manually rasterize the lower layer just before merge down...

Its that simple. 

I love the condescension of declaring that a ridiculous and laboriously-discovered workaround to a defect is "simple," as if we all should have anticipated that this application would degrade our compositions like no other... and then remember to undertake it every damned time we need to merge a component in our work. And if we get through five layers and then think, "oh shit, did I remember to RASTERIZE that second one," we get to go back and do it all over?

Nah.

[NotMyFault]

6 hours ago, Stokestack said:

I love the condescension of declaring that a ridiculous and laboriously-discovered workaround to a defect is "simple," as if we all should have anticipated that this application would degrade our compositions like no other... and then remember to undertake it every damned time we need to merge a component in our work. And if we get through five layers and then think, "oh shit, did I remember to RASTERIZE that second one," we get to go back and do it all over?

Nah.

Neither did i say that, nor did i want to express that. 
Simple is used to express that there is a simple explanation of the current behavior. I started a feature request to offer a functionality more in line with user expectations (including the rasterization step).

BTW, Did you already add your vote? 
And as you might noticed, even if this thread started as “question”, it got a apl-770 tag from mods, letting us hope that Affinity is already working on improvements.

 

[Andrea Andrea]

Now that we have V2, is there any kind soul who can test it out? 😂

[JulianB]

On 11/9/2022 at 8:15 AM, Andrea Andrea said:

Now that we have V2, is there any kind soul who can test it out? 😂

New version, still the same blurry merge down. Here's to another 5 years everybody💀

[Jen Robinson]

On 11/9/2022 at 2:15 PM, Andrea Andrea said:

Now that we have V2, is there any kind soul who can test it out? 😂

I'm having this problem. It doesn't always happen but it does sometimes. If I use 'Merge Visible' it works fine, but if I use 'Merge Selected' or 'Merge down' the result adds a bleed round the original squares that are placed side by side. I'm putting 4 squares 1000 px wide together to create a 2000 px square, but it even changes the coordinates of the middle point once merged, maybe because the blurr on the edges isn't even. I have checked all sizes, coordinates, crisp edges etc. The snapping buttons can be on, off, or in any combination and nothing changes the blurring and bleed with the 'merge selected' and 'merge down options'. I even changed the decimal places of the pixels to 6 in case there was a tiny problem there-no. I increased the size of the canvas a few pixels to see if the bleed was off the edge and therefore hidden in 'Merge Visible' but no, there's no bleed and no blurring. If the 'merge visible' works then it can't be a problem of alighnment, snapping of any sort, or incorrect starting size.

[walt.farrell]

39 minutes ago, Jen Robinson said:

I have checked all sizes, coordinates, crisp edges etc.

In your lower screenshot, you can clearly see that the Y coordinate is not a whole number, and the W and H values are not whole numbers. Those fractional pixels will be the source of your problem.

[Jen Robinson]

28 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In your lower screenshot, you can clearly see that the Y coordinate is not a whole number, and the W and H values are not whole numbers. Those fractional pixels will be the source of your problem.

They are the result of the problem, not the source. The upper image is with 'Merge Visible, which works correctly, the lower image is the result of 'Merge Selected'. Both operations done on exactly the same four squares. In the layers panel on the upper image, the selected layer is the new layer created by 'Merge Visible'. The four layers below are the layers that were merged. The bottom image is those same four merged via 'Merge Visible', which doesn't create a new layer, just combines them.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Jen Robinson
more precision

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, Jen Robinson said:

he bottom image is those same four merged via 'Merge Visible', which doesn't create a new layer, just combines them.

Merge Visible does create a new layer, so I'm not sure what you mean by that.

7 minutes ago, Jen Robinson said:

In the layers panel on the upper image, the selected layer is the new layer created by 'Merge Visible'.

From that screenshot, the selected layer is the pixel layer below the layer named Merge Visible.

---

We would need to see the Transform panel for each of the 4 layers you're merging, before you do the merge.

[Jen Robinson]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Merge Visible does create a new layer, so I'm not sure what you mean by that.

From that screenshot, the selected layer is the pixel layer below the layer named Merge Visible.

---

We would need to see the Transform panel for each of the 4 layers you're merging, before you do the merge.

Sorry, for the bottom image I meant to put 'Merge Selected'. I'll go and repeat the process with the next layer up and screenshot all four layers transform boxes. I did of course check them minutely, though since then I've put the number of decimal places for pixels back to default instead of six (they were all perfect). Attached are the screenshots of the whole new process. As you can see, the 'Merge Visible' worked perfectly again. This time, with 'Merge Selected', the added bleed is more regular and therefore the middle point has stayed at W=1000px, H=1000px, whereas last time it moved.

[walt.farrell]

54 minutes ago, Jen Robinson said:

I did of course check them minutely, though since then I've put the number of decimal places for pixels back to default instead of six (they were all perfect).

Sorry, and nothing personal, but I've done customer support long enough that I would need to see that myself. When trying to explain odd happenings I don't trust anything I can't see myself. Or, as an alternative, a sample Affinity document would be nice. 

The other thing that can cause problems like this is resizing a pixel layer, such that its DPI no longer matches the document's DPI.

[Jen Robinson]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Sorry, and nothing personal, but I've done customer support long enough that I would need to see that myself. When trying to explain odd happenings I don't trust anything I can't see myself. Or, as an alternative, a sample Affinity document would be nice. 

The other thing that can cause problems like this is resizing a pixel layer, such that its DPI no longer matches the document's DPI.

How do you check the dpi of a specific layer?

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Jen Robinson said:

How do you check the dpi of a specific layer?

If you have done any resizing of those pixel layers they could easily have the wrong DPI (until you Rasterize them) or be misaligned to the document's pixel grid (again, until you Rasterize them). But I don't know of any way to check except in Publisher.

In Publisher, select the pixel layer you want to know about and Layer > Convert to Image Resource, and look at the Context Toolbar.