Assets and document DPI issues

[RussPitcher]

I have just installed Designer 1.7.1.404 after rebuilding my PC this week, previously I was running on an earlier edition - I forget which version exactly.  I have a number of assets that I imported from a backup .afassets file and these seem to be misbehaving after the upgrade.  The assets appear to be 50% size when I drag them on to the page.  At first I assumed I had the document DPI incorrect - I do some work in 72dpi and some in 300dpi - so I created two clean A4 documents, one with 72dpi and one with 300dpi and dragged the assets once onto each page.  Despite the different dpi settings the assets were the same size on page and both were 50% smaller than they should be. 

I also tried changed the DPI using the document setup, but there was no change to the items created from the assets. The page dimensions would change if I selected rescale, but the items on the page would never change apparent size no matter what I did.  Has asset/dpi management changed intentionally in this version and, if so, how can I fix my assets so they behave correctly?

Thanks.

[Sean P]

Hi RussPitcher,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums! 

There is a known issue that some assets are being placed double the size they were in 1.6, however this seems to be the opposite behaviour you are seeing. Would you be able to attach a copy of the afassets file you were using please? I'll get it passed on to development.

[RussPitcher]

Here's the file I used.  Thanks for the quick response.

Engraving - 2019-01-27.afassets

[Sean P]

Thanks for the file. I've just tried this myself and can confirm it is the same issue. I've tried placing assets from that category in 1.6 (both Windows and Mac) and for example, the first asset in 'Game Logos' is placed at 4.7mm x 4.2mm. If I then place the same asset in 1.7 it is placed almost double the size at 9.8mm x 8.7mm.

[RussPitcher]

Is there any way to download the latest 1.6.x version of Designer?  I need to get some work done and the dimensions are critical as they need to align with previously made physical items and some of the assets are used as templates for a cutter.  

[RussPitcher]

There are definitely general DPI issues too.  When I take a file with an A4 template at 72 DPI and change the DPI to 300 with [Anchor to Page] selected I expect to see the items on the page change size relative to the page.  Instead I see no visible changes.  Then if I open Document Setup again I see that the page size has changed from 210mm x 297mm @72DPI to 50.4mm x 71.3mm @ 300 DPI, so rather than changing the DPI, the page size has been changed. I can then leave the DPI at 300 and change the page dimensions back to 210mm x 291mm and select [Rescale].  As expected there is no visible change but now I've managed to arrive at 210x297@300dpi, which is what I wanted in the first place.

If I then change the DPI from 300 to 72 and select [Anchor to page], the page dimensions change to 875mm x 1237.5mm and the DPI appears to change to 72DPI, again there is no visible change but the page size has changed. It seems that rather than rescaling resolution and keeping the page size as specified, it's rescaling the resolution and leaving the page size to jump around.

[Sean P]

On 6/28/2019 at 4:52 PM, RussPitcher said:

Is there any way to download the latest 1.6.x version of Designer?  I need to get some work done and the dimensions are critical as they need to align with previously made physical items and some of the assets are used as templates for a cutter.  

Sure, older builds for Designer Windows can be found here:

https://store.serif.com/en-gb/update/windows/designer/1/

On 6/28/2019 at 5:34 PM, RussPitcher said:

There are definitely general DPI issues too.  When I take a file with an A4 template at 72 DPI and change the DPI to 300 with [Anchor to Page] selected I expect to see the items on the page change size relative to the page.  Instead I see no visible changes.  Then if I open Document Setup again I see that the page size has changed from 210mm x 297mm @72DPI to 50.4mm x 71.3mm @ 300 DPI, so rather than changing the DPI, the page size has been changed. I can then leave the DPI at 300 and change the page dimensions back to 210mm x 291mm and select [Rescale].  As expected there is no visible change but now I've managed to arrive at 210x297@300dpi, which is what I wanted in the first place.

If I then change the DPI from 300 to 72 and select [Anchor to page], the page dimensions change to 875mm x 1237.5mm and the DPI appears to change to 72DPI, again there is no visible change but the page size has changed. It seems that rather than rescaling resolution and keeping the page size as specified, it's rescaling the resolution and leaving the page size to jump around.

Thanks for that - I've reproduced that here and will get it passed on to development.

[Patrick Connor]

We have made fixes/improvements to this area (Changing DPI using Anchor to Page resizes document) of the program in the latest beta release of Affinity Photo & Affinity Designer on Windows. If you would like to try these changes the beta software is available in the forum posts listed below. Once Affinity Publisher has been through a full beta process the change will be released in a future free 1.8.0 update to all customers.

The 1.8.0.514 beta builds are in links at the top of these beta forum posts

• Affinity Photo 1.8.0.514 for Windows
• Affinity Designer 1.8.0.514 for Windows

Please note the other issue "Assets importing at incorrect size" is still unresolved.

[RussPitcher]

Do you have any idea when the importing issue might be complete?  It's now been around six months with important functionality broken.  I've been a big advocate for Affinity products, and I still am, but the lenght of time that it is taking to fix this is quite ridiculous.