Masking and 'ghost line' issues

[Aroni]

Sorry in advance if this has been posted before. I suck at internetting.

 

 

Frank behind the sunshine here is just a cog masking an image (of Frank).Very simple.  If you click that picture you can see that Franks hammer isn't quite flush to the edge of the cog. You can see that there is a slight pink edge where his hammer is revealed through the mask. It is especially pronounced where colours contrast.

 

 

You can see here the printer makes damn sure that you clearly see a fault in the design.

 

 

Also when using a guide to snap an object to line up, it should, you know... line up. Let's take the guide away:

 

 

So what I'm asking is... a few things; Is there something I'm doing wrong? If not, is there a kind of practice to follow when designing? (eg. use pixels as measurements and snap, size and move objects by whole pixels?) Is it because I'm designing on a (god forbid) PC? Is it something to do with the aliasing on my graphics card interfering with the program? Is it the zoom?

 

[firstdefence]

Hi @Aroni Just to clarify a few things is Frank an image imported in or a vector drawing done in Affinity Designer? The reason I ask is I've just roughly sketched a Frank in vector and the masking looks clean. I think what's happen there is antialiasing on export.

 

[A_B_C]

From looking at your printout, it seems there is a secondary problem involved, but I am pretty sure you can make the slight pink edges go away by ticking Preferences > Performance > Use Precise Clipping. This is only a view quality setting, however. 

 

[firstdefence]

29 minutes ago, A_B_C said:

From looking at your printout, it seems there is a secondary problem involved, but I am pretty sure you can make the slight pink edges go away by ticking Preferences > Performance > Use Precise Clipping. This is only a view quality setting, however. 

 

This doesn't work if the layer is set to Erase so that it shows the line issue more clearly.

 

PS. I had Precise clipping on so that's why my image looked better, thanks for highlighting that A_B_C

 

Frankesque.afdesign

[firstdefence]

1. Change Frank layer to Blend Mode: Erase, this highlights the red/pink edges.
2. With the Cog layer selected, Click on the Blend Options
3. Click on Coverage Map and Blend the line into the shape shown or to get the thin edges to disappear.
4. Close the Blend Options Window
5. Change the Frank Layer to Blend Mode: Normal.
6. Export to your desired file format and check the image.

 

 

 

[firstdefence]

Re the lining up, make sure you don't have a very small stroke on the red/pink shape.

 

I'm assuming you have a long red/pink rectangle and a narrower yellow rectangle over the top of the re/pink rectangle. Select the Yellow shape layer and use the same technique with Blend Options and the coverage map, only try moving the curve towards the top left corner of the coverage map window.

 

Frankesque with blend options.afdesign

[MEB]

Hi Aroni,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

The first issue should be solved as a_B_C suggested - make sure you have Use Precise Clipping ticked in Preferences, Performance section.

The second issue is probably caused by a misalignment with the pixel grid - check the Y coordinates of the yellow and purple rectangles in the Transform panel - make sure they are both integer values or in this particular case although less probable (since the colour is purple) it may also happen that (depending on you layer structure) both rectangles are being considered as a snapping candidate. If so go to menu View ▸ Snapping Manager and untick Show Snapping Candidates or change the Candidates dropdown to anything other than Candidates List. To lean more about snapping candidates (the purple line) please take a look at this video: Snapping: Candidates.

[Aroni]

Again, amazing response! Solved, solved and sent to the printers. Especially thank you @firstdefence for making such a cute picture of Frank, it made me smile. Thank you @A_B_C for the animated GIF. and again thanks @MEB for always answering everyone's questions - what, are you like 20 people?