Designer PDF starkly darker APub

[Jim Monson]

Having tried various exports from Affinity Designer (AD) to import into APub, I have found that a PNG keeps the AD export color and tone best. The TIF export is very problematic in terms of tone. The PDF is beautiful when exporting from AD beta but when importing into APub it becomes very dark in tone. I can alter the opacity but in doing that I lose much of what I worked so hard to achieve in APhoto. I've tried replacing the imported PDF and the result is the same. Is this a known problem? 

Here are part of the PDF as it came out of AD and as it looks when imported into APub.

PDF Export from AD

 

PDF Export as it a ppears in APub

 

[Jim Monson]

Another problem, either with the AD export or the APub import, is that the color of the PDF "blocks" varies in APub.  In order to compensate for the dark APub color in my post above I tried cutting the AD tiff opacity to 60%. The result is below (detail first snap), a snap from APub after I imported the tif I had made at 60%. I understand that dealing with PDF is problematic in this context but I need the PDF in order to keep all of my map graphics vector in APub (graphics drawn in AD layers above the tif). I hope this helps isolate the problem for you. How you deal with all of these variables is amazing.

Compare the darker top right relief with the rest of the PDF, appearing this way *only after* the PDF was placed in A Pub. The export from AD was perfect.

I'll add a small snap of the entire map to show the area in which the opacity apparently was not completed in A Pub. Note that the opacity on the left and on very bottom does not continue into the rest of the map.

 

[Jim Monson]

More experimenting here. In AD I find that changing the opacity on the actual pencil-drawn map tif (the on in my first post) rather than on the layer in which it resides may be what may be causing the PDF problem (noted in my first post). In order to make my AD layers sensible (there are many vector layer above the tif map), I usually have a top TIF layer with the name of the tif on which I am working. The first sublayer under this top layer in AD is the the bounding box (frame). The actual map tif is in a sub-sublayer under the frame in order to hide the non-tif part of the drawn map. I have a totally different result (much better result) when exporting a PDF when I stopped adjusting the opacity of the actual tif and adjust the top layer.

I then added a pen and ink line drawing of the same map (a PNG with zero opacity in the background) in a separate top layer above the pencil-drawn map tif and adjusted the opacity of this PNG. This almost obliterated the entire map when exporting a PDF.

Then I put the PNG below the pencil-drawn map tif and adjusted the two top layers to what I desired. I used the Hard Mix  blending mode. This worked far better, as the snap below shows---and the map was consistent throughout. This is the same area of the map as I showed in my first post above. I'm saying all of this simply to relate how these various positions impacted my result. There must be a good reason for the differences, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out.

In this close-up snap you can see the two tifs, but when the entire map is seen on the map the effect is quite striking.