The Export option is extremely slow

[Linslusen]

Hi,

tried yesterday to export an .af file to a jpeg format by using the Export option on the menu. It failed a hundred times. Nothing happened other than the cooling fan in the pc  started at full speed. When I cancelled there was a message ...an error occurred.. Today I tried the same procedure, but also opened the pc Activity monitor to see what was going on. The cpu usage was on 98-100% for about four minutes, fan on full blast and then finally a jpeg was produced. New HP pc, windows10, bilinear, 85%. Please enlighten me!

[Callum]

Hi linslusen,

Welcome to the forums

If possible could you tell me the full specifications of your computer?

If you create a new file and add one quick shape to it does it take just as long to export?

Thanks

C

[Linslusen]

Hi,

the computer is a HP Pavilion Power Laptop 15, Intel i7, 2,8 GHz, 8 GHz RAM, 64 bits with windows 10 home, version 1803.

When I created a new file and placed a jpeg and then exported it there was no problem. I tried several different methods and they all worked. The only thing that does not seem to work (or to take extremely long time) is opening an existing jpeg, edit it and then save by exporting. Strange.

[Callum]

If possible could you provide a copy of one of the problem jpegs?

[Linslusen]

Hi Callum,

Maybe there is a problem with the .af file itself.  The resulting jpeg did not want to take part in any upload to this site and the original .af file is too large to be accepted. I created a smaller version of the jpeg and that worked ok (enclosed). Is there any way in which I could send you the original 23,1 mb file to look at?

I also tried to create jpegs from other .af files and that seems to work ok, so possibly it boils down to one corrupt file. The original .af file looks, however, quite ok when I upload it to Affinity and continue working with it and also saving it in .af format.

Best regards,

Dennis

[Callum]

Hi Linslusen,

Thank you for the file I have just texted the export here on my computer and it took roughly 6 seconds how long does it take for you?

C

[Linslusen]

Hi Callum,

I mixed them up, sorry! This is the original one. As the file limit seems to have been changed, I'm attaching it here.

Dennis

_DSC2217.afphoto

[Callum]

hmm this file took a few minutes which is odd how long does it take for you roughly?

Thanks

Callum

[Linslusen]

 

Several minutes. It took so long that the first times I thought it had stopped and I therefore aborted the procedure by hitting cancel. As I test other files everything seems to work reasonably smoothly. Something probably happened to this file. It might be some kind of general file failure, or, which is more interesting in this case, some of the functions in Affinity, when used together, can maybe cause conflicts. As it looks now, the only feature not working prperly is the Export option.

Dennis

[carl123]

The main "problem" is with your Depth of Field live filter layer which takes a lot of cpu time to compute when exporting.  If you are happy with this adjustment you can access it's dialogue box and click the Merge button to "bake" it into the image (takes a few seconds).

Once done your exports will be a lot quicker.

PS You can always take a Snapshot of your work before doing this in case you want to go back and adjust it in the future.

PPS In the same Depth of Field filter dialogue box you have not selected Preserve Alpha which is causing some transparent pixels around the edges of your image.  Selecting Preserve Alpha will cure this.

[Linslusen]

Very good! Thanks a lot to both of you for your help.

/Dennis

[Linslusen]

In addition to the in principle closed discussion I would anyway like to make two comments

- how are you as a user supposed to know that the depth of field filter adds an eternity of time when exporting. I was actually really scared I had gotten some virus into the pic files and virus scanned my disc several times.

- is this not an issue that the programmers should look into? Five minutes to export a pic file is something nobody could be very proud of?

/Dennis

[hifred]

On 9/20/2018 at 6:39 PM, Linslusen said:

- how are you as a user supposed to know that the depth of field filter adds an eternity of time when exporting. 

Yeah, I've seen this several times now – also stated by Affinity employees.

‹‹You have built a a complex composition with many layers and several live filters and your file takes long to export?
Well, that is totally expected! Just bake everything which made your file re-editable into Layers – now saving /exporting will work much quicker.››

I don't want to critisize Carl123 here, yet...
Advice like this may help in exceptional cases as a workaround – but hardly can serve as a satisfying answer for anyone.
My goodness – we are talking about some pixel data here not freakin Gigabytes of CT data or 3D scan data...

I have not heard anyone ever having to simplify any file in Photoshop in order to save before midnight.

[Linslusen]

5 hours ago, hifred said:

Yeah, I've seen this several times now – also stated by Affinity employees.

‹‹You have built a a complex composition with many layers several live filters and your file takes long to export?
Well, that is totally expected! Just bake everything which made your file re-editable into Layers – now saving /exporting will work much quicker.››

I don't want to critisize Carl123 here, yet...
Advice like this may help in exceptional cases as a workaround – but hardly can serve as a satisfying answer for anyone.
My goodness – we are talking about some pixel data here not freakin Gigabytes of CT data or 3D scan data here...

I have not heard anyone ever having to simplify any file in Photoshop in order to save before midnight.

Yeah, this is really what I meant, but as a rather unexperienced user I didn't dare to put it as bluntly. But in principle I agree, this shouldn't happen!