Preview for export persona

[Medical Officer Bones]

This has been requested many times before I realize, but I am going to reiterate it one more time.

As it stands, the export persona is pretty much useless, because it doesn't allow for a real-time preview of the rendered asset(s) to check the quality before export. Therefore, I don't use Photo's export option, and instead export a full quality PNG and optimize in external software.

There are a number of other issues with the export (jpeg quality<->file size, inability to set >256 colour PNG output, lack of dithering options and resample options), but this is really the major one. I don't understand why this wasn't implemented in the first place, but hopefully it will be at some point.

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

inability to set >256 colour PNG output

Just use the PNG-24 preset, or in the PNG-8 preset use More... and turn off Palettized (which gives you the same as PNG-24).

[Medical Officer Bones]

8 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Just use the PNG-24 preset, or in the PNG-8 preset use More... and turn off Palettized (which gives you the same as PNG-24).

Sorry, my mistake: what I meant was palettized PNG-24 beyond the 2-256 range. For example, restrict the palette to 512 colours.

But without the ability to preview the effect of settings while these are changed really makes it a moot point.

[Kai]

hi there,

having no quality preview before exporting (for web in my case) is still the dealbreaker for me. as long as this is not possible i am stuck with ps :(

will you add this feature? and if, when? i also requested this a couple of times before.

thanks a lot! kai

[TomM1]

“save for web” in AP is so cumbersome I still use PS.

[Guest]

I've just canceled my subscription to Creative Cloud and bought Affinity Photo and Designer. I assumed that the Export Persona would preview the image quality / compression – but it doesn't. This is a deal breaker.

I wish I could go back to Photoshop and continue to use the Save for Web Legacy function.

[Old Bruce]

I am (still) amazed that the exported file size is not available.

[Paul Ingraham]

They have been promising export preview since the earliest days, their own roadmap, not just wishful thinking on my part.  For users like me (webdev), it was "late" a year or two ago, by any reasonable definition of the word "late."  And now?  Now it's still missing from the betas for 1.7, in late 2018.

"Betrayal" is emotional language, maybe inappropriate for this purpose... but darned if I do not feel it!  I got on the Affinity Bandwagon early, to support it, long before the feature set was really ready to replace PS or Fireworks.  Export preview was a critical missing piece from the earliest days, and I stayed on the bandwagon BECAUSE export preview and some other things were on the roadmap.  I continued to use (and evangelize) the apps because of that promise.  I gave Affinity my money and a LOT of my time, not for features I HOPED they would build, but for features they actually promised.

And now here we are and still no export preview.  I give up.  I am getting off the bandwagon.  I will now go crawling back to Adobe.  Instead of telling colleagues how cool the Affinity apps are, I will now be telling them how disappointed I am. So yeah… "betrayed" doesn't actually feel too hyperbolic.  No doubt Affinity Photo is a replacement for Photoshop for some people, but it really is not for webdevs, and I now suspect that it never will be.

[k_au]

Please add me to the list of users who wish for / need an export preview.

I've often used Photoshop's 2- and 4-up export preview to see what kind of result suits me best. Sometimes it's about web / mobile content where you still want to save bandwidth but deliver a decent quality image. Other times I've used the effects of the restricted GIF/PNG colour palettes as an artistic decision: Some images just look even cooler with 8 colours and some dithering... But I want to see the outcome of changing the colour depth or dithering method or JPG compression strength *before* saving.

Thanks to the team for all the good work!

[Psmeg]

I'll add my frustration for this lacking (vital) feature to the above comments.

As a web dev, I was excited to start working with the Affinity products, but not having any way to see your optimised images BEFORE saving them renders the Expert Persona a pretty useless 'feature'.

You can't make an intelligent guess at the quality of the files you're working with and to be expected to move over to another piece of software to do a fundamental task like modify compression while previewing the changes, seems to be totally counter-intuitive IMHO.

Please add this feature in, so many of us are no longer reliant on the likes of Photoshop to work with web graphics.

[mallow]

I am missing this feature as well. Crucial for exporting images for the web.

[MCFC_4Heatons]

+1 for this - the export persona looks so good until you realise there's no live preview which in effect cripples it.

[k_au]

(Push)

[stratboy2]

Me too here, to the app developers: what the hell are you doing guys? Still no preview???

[CC Hogan]

I just ran into this as well.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! 

Preview on both the export persona and on FILE > Export (and on iPad as well) is not just useful, it is a productivity issue that can speed things up immensely. The lack of it will stop people migrating fully. It is one of those things that will attract users.

[Philippe Bonneau]

Must have for web developer. Such a basic feature. Need multiple setting comparison and resizing too.

[pmi]

+ 1 for this

[big smile]

+1. An essential feature. 

 

Export Persona should also have a button to save directly from the persona, instead of having to click on Export and then re-select the desired format. 

It should also list the file size within Export Persona. 

[Timespider]

+1

I need this too. I have always used Fireworks image preview but have just run across this too in AP.

Back to Fireworks again.

[Tom dz]

Cancelled CC but now coming back crying for my mommy. I tried to complete couple very simple processes with very simple file and every single operation turned into a tooth pulling.

Sooo disappointed 

[J-MGK]

 

I bought affinity photo and affinity designer yesterday, but I can't believe I can't preview the image before saving it. This is urgent for all web designers and content managers. A solution please.

Edited November 27, 2019 by J-MGK

[Efe Coşan]

Add me to the list of frustrated users. I really can't believe that I can't preview how will my saved file look like. I'm in trial period and I don't plan to buy without save for web preview feature.

[mackavi]

+1 for this feature.

 

I have just brought AP and it's excellent.  I decided to try the software for our latest e-learning project instead of an older version of PS that we normally use.  I was seriously impressed with AD for handling our SVGs and had high hopes for this program.  The inability to see what I was exporting was a major brick wall.  Our e-learning SCORM modules are about 30 - 40 pages and most have images that need optimising to help keep the final Content Package size down.   Finding the balance between quality and file size for the images is a core part of this process.

Rather than throw in the towel, I decided to see how AP handled all the other image editing tasks that would normally be required when building our modules.   It took a little getting used too, but there was lots of brilliant YouTube tutorials and help on this forum and soon I was able to do everything I needed to - easily.  Except see what I was saving.   That step required saving as a high quality JPEG which was loaded into PS and then saved as web so I could see the best file size / quality. 

Obviously, this is not a sensible or long-term solution - so I started to look around to see if the PS step could be omitted or simplified.  I found two pieces of software that have been really useful and may help others.  The first is Pingo - https://css-ig.net/pingo and then second is ImBatch -  https://www.highmotionsoftware.com/products/imbatch

By using AP as the tool to handle image manipulation and export a new ' master' image at the highest quality format every time,  I simple use one of the tools above as the final step to optimise all the images when the project is ready.

Yes, ideally, AP will have a better export for web developers but the functionality of the software for everything I need is perfect and the very reasonable price makes it difficult to get to upset about a feature that it might not yet have.

 

[Niall123492]

+1
I was just looking for this feature today. As a web designer i'm trying to find the balance between image quality and file size. I need this feature!

[Psmeg]

I'm thinking the lack of feedback from Affinity and the fact this post is over 2 years old means it's not looking promising that we'll be seeing this feature added anytime soon.

It's a shame as they Affinity tools are pretty awesome, but this is one area that is sadly lacking right now.