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PDF imported into Designer and Photo becomes pixelated


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I have Affinity Designer and Photo for Mac desktop, and I'm a newbie to both. I tried importing a PDF (attached) that I need to edit into both Designer and Photo. In both programs the PDF is layered, which is great since that means I can edit it easily. However, the topographic map layer becomes very pixelated. If I do my edits and then export as a PDF or PNG (or any file type that I've tried), the topographic map layer remains pixelated. This layer looks smooth when I open the PDF in a viewer. It is also smooth and not pixelated when I open the PDF using Photoshop (I don't have Illustrator). However, in Photoshop the PDF doesn't open with layers. 

Years ago I know that my partner managed to do some basic edits to this PDF without any pixelation, I believe with Inkscape, so it should be possible. Can someone let me know what I'm doing wrong in Affinity?

Thanks!! 

Test.pdf

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Hi A_M,

Welcome to the forums.

The same is happening for me, the map layer is being pixelated on import. If you open the file in Preview or Adobe Acrobat the map layer remains clear. I'm going to log this with the developers to look into further, in the mean time I've managed to create a new file where the map layer remains clear in Affinity Designer, I'll PM you the file.

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  • 3 years later...
19 hours ago, Jeremy Sal said:

I'm having the same issue. Any advice fo this one. Did any one find a fix?

You might have a different issue, but I had a look on the PDF in the original post (already from the year 2018), and noticed that the problem with that was related to Affinity apps not being able to expand an object group that has been applied some effect (probably in Illustrator).

The file in the original post can be opened without losing vectors e.g. in Inkscape, Xara Designer Pro, Adobe Illustrator, and VectorStyler. In latter two the object that gets rasterized in Affinity apps needs to be "expanded" (first the "Appearance" and then the actual vector map) to be able to access it.

In the attached PDF the topographic map of the PDF of the original post has been copied onto Clipboard using VectorStyler (Style > Expand Appearance + Style > Expand Pattern Tiles) and then pasted in Designer and clipped into the yellow rectangle, demonstrating how well these two apps work together. The only other object that got rasterized on import to Designer (the yellow gradient covering the left part of the topographic map) has also been replaced with a vector gradient.

I experienced miscellaneous problems with all mentioned apps when trying to edit and re-export OP's test file so I could not have used any of them alone (excepting AI) to make a successful fix to the file. But Designer and VectorStyler together make an excellent tool capable of making these kinds of fixes and still produce press-quality output. I used Windows versions of these apps.

One further issue with Designer is that it does not recognize the two more artboards that were included in the PDF -- VectorStyler and Illustrator do.

Hopefully these tips help you resolve your particular problem -- but you might need helping hand from aother vector graphics app (perhaps Inkscape will do).

Test_fixed.pdf

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Thank you so much for your advice @Lagarto.

In my case it's a little different as the PDF doc is more of an A4 magazine advert.

So I'm more dealing with text and rasterised images as apposed to vector images. So when I open the PDF in Affinity Photo the images are fine but some times the text will come out corrupted from the original font. 

Rather than edit the pdf I just want to flatten the doc as it is and re-save it to use in a .afpub doc.

What I currently do as a work-around is open and flatten the doc in another program and re-open in Affinity Photo.

Would be great to find out why the pdf files are coming in to with corrupted looking text and if there's a way to fix it?

Thanks again

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11 minutes ago, Jeremy Sal said:

So when I open the PDF in Affinity Photo the images are fine but some times the text will come out corrupted from the original font. 

Rather than edit the pdf I just want to flatten the doc as it is and re-save it to use in a .afpub doc.

Why are you Opening it in Photo first if you intend to use it in Publisher? In any case, the text corruption is probably because you don't have the fonts installed. You get around that with the Affinity applications by Placing the file, not Opening it.

So, perhaps you should simply Place the file in your Publisher document, and choose the Passthrough mode so you don't need to have the fonts.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4

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You're welcome.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4

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19 minutes ago, Jeremy Sal said:

Placing them as opposed to opening works fine.

Please note, though, that Affinity apps have "compatibility" rules as for passing through placed PDFs (there are no such limitations when you work with Adobe apps): you need to export using at least the same PDF version number, and basically need to avoid PDF/X based methods, so using the "PDF (press ready)" with PDF version 1.7 is the best choice. If the compatibility rules are "violated", the text will be rasterized at export time (using the document DPI). As a work around, you could flatten the fonts (= convert text to outlines) within the advertisements using Ghostscript or Adobe Acrobat Pro, or some other app that can do it.

There are instructions for using Ghostscript in another recent thread on this forum:

 

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