Cant get my head round Document Resize?!

[davemike]

Friends, artists, peers, 

I agree that the Affinity team needs to understand our concerns properly, but unfortunately, they are convinced that the approach they took on "Resizing Document" was correct from the outset, and they will not realize that it is fundamentally misconceived. They do not address the users requirements correctly, somehow they must come to understand by example, that the solution provided by Photoshop's correct and that they should aim for the same functionality. The Affinity team is under the misconception that we users are just used to Photoshop by habit, and we should get accept the AP approach. Affinity needs to put together a suitable brainstorming team that will come up with the correct solution by looking outside their own self-made box instead of hammering nails into it, even though this will involve candid modesty and a lot of re-programming. They need to start by properly studying Photoshop's approach and the users' real needs.

I don't know which is the best forum to post this perhaps you can post it where you think it may be read by the most appropriate people

David

[Nazario]

I'd be happy if they just came out and explained the logic behind it. I get the sense that there may even be conflict regarding this within Affinity hence why no one has come forward to address it. I will probably not be purchasing the updates in future because of this.

[R C-R]

15 minutes ago, Nazario said:

Their method seems to actually change the data in the image by adding pixels for increasing resolution and removing pixels to lower it. That in effect is destroying the integrity if the image and should not be happening. All the data that is required is already within the image its just the meta data that needs amending to say its now 'Xmm' x 'Xmm' @ 300 dpi.

If you mean that resampling adds or removes pixels, that is exactly what it does, in Photoshop, Affinity, or whatever app provides that function. But as I said, when the resample box is not ticked, it does not, on my iMac & on many other macs & PC's, change the number of pixels in any way.

I don't know why you are getting different results. It might help us understand why if you could post a screen recording of what happens on one of the Macs you tested my file with, showing the settings you used in the Document Resize dialog box & the result, with the Rulers visible both before & after.

[Nazario]

My problem is I get the same results whether Resample is ticked or not. Which is a bug. What I don't understand is how Affinity are implementing document resize and because of the bug I have on 3 different macs it makes it even harder to grasp their thinking, especially when no one is responding.

[davemike]

Hi Nazario,

Their logic is flawed.

There are workarounds for most issues, the problem is that Affinity "logic" considers workarounds to be designed methodology, we have to compute the solutions ourselves, rather than having the one tool window contain all necessary functions, and of course, the solutions are more time-consuming and imperfect.

I will explain my "workaround" but I will have to perform it again for myself in order to be able to explain it to you - so hang on, I will do it soon.

David

[Nazario]

Thanks. Im thinking of creating a script so Preview can resize stuff. 

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, Nazario said:

My problem is I get the same results whether Resample is ticked or not.

Yes, you made that clear in your earlier post. But I can't reproduce your results on my 2 Macs, & I know that it works the same way on many other Macs & PC's because it is often mentioned in posts in these forums & elsewhere that it does.

That's why I suggested posting a screen recording. If you can't do that, maybe a screenshot of the Resize Document settings you are using & ones of the before & after results with the Ruler showing would help explain why your results are different.

[davemike]

Hi Nazario,

Here is my result - reducing a large low-res photo to small high-res
attached as screenshots.

The resample button does not have a proper function - so I calculated the required size and resolution (in centimeters rather than pixels because I am a graphic designer and need to resize pictures according to the required size of the photo on the page).

[Nazario]

55 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Yes, you made that clear in your earlier post. But I can't reproduce your results on my 2 Macs, & I know that it works the same way on many other Macs & PC's because it is often mentioned in posts in these forums & elsewhere that it does.

That's why I suggested posting a screen recording. If you can't do that, maybe a screenshot of the Resize Document settings you are using & ones of the before & after results with the Ruler showing would help explain why your results are different.

The screenshots at the start of the post show that (minus the rulers) but i'll explain again here for clarity...

This image shows the document at 100mm x 50mm @ 300dpi.

 

In this image all I've done is change the units to pixels to show the pixels at the above 100mm x 50mm @ 300dpi. This is correct.

 

This third image shows what happens after I change the DPI to 150 with resample OFF. The size has stayed the same which is wrong. It should of increased to 200x100mm. Note its actually very slightly DECREASED. Also note the zoom level has changed which also confirms the pixels have changed.

 

The final image shows the same situation as image 3 but I've selected pixels to show what the pixels have changed to. They should be 1181x590 not what it shows here. Only the print size should change not the pixels. The fact that the pixels get treated the same as the print units in Affinity UI is part of the confusion. They should be treated and shown separately.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, davemike said:

The resample button does not have a proper function - so I calculated the required size and resolution (in centimeters rather than pixels because I am a graphic designer and need to resize pictures according to the required size of the photo on the page).

I think @Nazario is talking about a different issue, that being what happens when the Resample box is not ticked (so the two size fields & the resample options are greyed out) & the DPI value is changed. The issue you are talking about is an old, still unresolved one.

BTW, your two screenshots don't seem to show the before & after results, just the settings you are using -- note that the ruler has not changed. I also noticed that you have the same weird 1.7 issue many others have reported, that being two snapping magnet icons on the toolbar instead of the single multi-icon snapping group. That can be fixed by resetting the toolbar to the defaults in the Customize Toolbar dialog.

[Nazario]

13 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think @Nazario is talking about a different issue, that being what happens when the Resample box is not ticked (so the two size fields & the resample options are greyed out) & the DPI value is changed. The issue you are talking about is an old, still unresolved one.

BTW, your two screenshots don't seem to show the before & after results, just the settings you are using -- note that the ruler has not changed. I also noticed that you have the same weird 1.7 issue many others have reported, that being two snapping magnet icons on the toolbar instead of the single multi-icon snapping group. That can be fixed by resetting the toolbar to the defaults in the Customize Toolbar dialog.

He was showing me his way of achieving what i wanted.  Basically calculate everything yourself which is not how it should be but it is a work around.

[davemike]

Hi R-CR,

I was demonstrating my workaround because the resample button is flawed (does not work).
I devised a solution where you do resample, (instead of the correct method of leaving it unticked) -
but I have to decide on and calculate my required resolution and centimeter size.
The before and after result are completely different in size and resolution -
I changed the original 67x43cm at 72dpi to 10x6cm at 300 dpi (look carefully at the numbers).

David

 

[Petar Petrenko]

I reported this resizing problem long time ago, but they didn't took me seriously. They use to say: "this is by design". If they "transport" the PS's version of document "Image Size" the problem will be solved. There won't be any {c} issue.

[davemike]

The ruler size did not change because I made the screenshot before applying the change - I will do it again

[davemike]

Screenshot made after implementing resize.

[davemike]

Petar,

You are absolutely right.

We all know that the Affinity approach to resizing is flawed and lacking essential options, but the Affinity team is adamant that this is by design -
It reminds me of Chernobyl.

David

[Nazario]

Here is the video where Affinity themselves say DPI is a physical measurement (50 seconds in) but they don't treat it as such. I feel this video does not explain anything very well and newbies will end up more confused after watching this.

 

[Nazario]

Forgive me if Im wrong but i believe this is how it should work with resample OFF and that the pixel dimensions and the print dimensions, while linked, should be treated separately.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Nazario said:

This third image shows what happens after I change the DPI to 150 with resample OFF. The size has stayed the same which is wrong. It should of increased to 200x100mm.

Yes, you are correct. That is wrong & what I get ...now. What is weird is yesterday I was getting different results, the expected ones, from exactly the same file. I have no idea why. I didn't change anything in any of my Affinity Photo 1.7.0 settings. 

[Nazario]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Yes, you are correct. That is wrong & what I get ...now. What is weird is yesterday I was getting different results, the expected ones from exactly the same file. I have no idea why. I didn't change anything in any of my Affinity Photo 1.7.0 settings. 

Ive told them its a bug but i see posts whereby they state its 'by design' as Petar has said. If its 'by design' i want to know their logic. I've shown mine above.

[HVDB Photography]

39 minutes ago, R C-R said:

What is weird is yesterday I was getting different results, the expected ones, from exactly the same file. I have no idea why. I didn't change anything in any of my Affinity Photo 1.7.0 settings.

Same here ...  It happens randomly, for a moment it runs fine and then later on is it going wrong.

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, HVDB Photography said:

Same here ...  It happens randomly, for a moment it runs fine and then later on is it going wrong.

And you are on Windows, so this is not just a Mac thing. I admit my memory is somewhat fuzzier than it once was, but I am almost certain that it always worked as I expected it to in the Mac 1.6.x versions, so I suspect this is a new bug introduced sometime during the 1.7 development process.

Also, as I remember it, the staff have several times referred to a different, long standing & never fixed bug that has to do with values not updating in the Resize Document dialog or reflecting what actually happens when the "Resize" button was pressed, & that they never actually said that particular bug was by design, only that it had been passed on to the developers for review.

I could be wrong about that too, but regardless the randomness of this new behavior is without a doubt a bug that should be reported.

BTW, for me not only does not resampling not always change the document size like it should, I sometimes see the new DPI setting being ignored after resizing without sampling, & if I repeat resizing with the same DPI value in the dialog, that value gets doubled each time I repeat it. So for example, I set a 300 DPI document to 150 DPI, still get 300 DPI as a result, & when I repeat using 150 again, the document DPI jumps to 600 DPI! 

[Nazario]

Its been like this since the betas for me.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, Nazario said:

Its been like this since the betas for me.

TBH, I am not sure that while the Mac 1.7 version was in beta I ever tested how document resizing worked, but as best as I can remember it always worked correctly in the 1.6 Mac retail version. i just installed the new Mac 1.7.1 beta & it is just as flaky in this respect as the retail 1.7 app, so it definitely needs to be reported somewhere, maybe in both the regular & beta forums.

[Nazario]

I mean prior to 1.0 release!