Pixel Anti-Aliasing When Drag/Drop Image Files to Canvas to Create New Layers

[mlow76]

I'm using the drag and drop interface to drop pixel art files (.bmp) from Windows Explorer to work with into a large master file, but when I paste (drop) them the layers depixelate and anti-aliasing appears.  I can't tell whether the layers actual contents have been changed or if it is a UI effect but either way, I wish to turn this off.

 

I performed a cursory search of the forums and the Internet but was unable to find anything for Affinity Photo.  

 

Here is approximately what's going on:

 

If I copy and paste a range of pixels, the type of layer created is of type "Pixel", but when I drag and drop a file from an explorer window onto a canvas, it creates a layer of type "Image" instead.  How do I make new layers made by drag/drop appear as pristine original pixels (like copy-paste) rather than a blurry anti-aliased version of themselves?

 

I don't see a way to change this in the layer settings or in the Preferences window.

[MEB]

Hi mlow76,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

Check the X,Y coordinates of the dropped images (layers) in the Layers panel (the Move Tool must be selected for this). They are probably not aligned with the pixel grid (their coordinates are non-integer values). Go to menu View ▸ Snapping Manager... tick the Force Pixel Alignment option (and untick Move By Whole Pixels if it's enabled) then move/adjust the position of those layers in the canvas a little to force them to adjust to the pixel grid (that is, force them to re-adjust the X, Y coordinates to integer values).

 

Image layers are a special layer type that retains all the original image data - you can think of them as embedded images -. They are created when you use the Place Image Tool, the File ▸ Place command or when you simply drag them from the Finder (Mac) or File Explorer (Windows) to the canvas of an opened document. They can be transformed globally (rotated, skewed etc) without losing quality but they cannot be edited/manipulated at a pixel level. To convert a image layer to a pixel layer right-click the image layer on the Layers panel and select Rasterise....

[mlow76]

That didn't work.  They're still exactly as fuzzy as before.  I also tried removing all of the layers and re-adding them with the Place... feature which positions them at 0,0 I believe.

 

Rasterizing does not fix it either.

 

Below, I have made a new canvas using the settings shown.  See what happens when I use Place and position the layer at the origin...  Then I opened both the screen shot and the same canvas as below and did a Select All > Copy > Paste and got a much better result.

And then finally, I show both of the layers together on one image...  What appears to happen is that when you drag an image or use paste, the application selects an arbitrary size for the layer instead of making the layer the size of its actual contents.  As you can see, the pixel copy/paste is many times larger than the image I dropped in with "Place...".

 

Is there a way to make them drop in at their original resolution?

 

 

 

[lepr]

.

 

[mlow76]

Thank you!  That fixed it.  I checked the DPI of the files I was pasting (96) and then changed the canvas to match.  Now when I paste (at least in Pixel Work mode), there is no anti-aliasing.