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Tiff Files in publisher - slightly dissappointed....


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Well, Very Slightly, otherwise its no real big deal:  Just imported Tiff with a transparent background and Lo and behold, no transparent background.  Just learned that Affinity Publisher does not support transparency in Tiff images based on a comment from another source stating that some applications do not allow transparency with Tiff.  I'll just have to png it I suppose, no problem.  But anyoone know why publisher developers have not done this?  Is it a huge coding job or something?  Just curiosity.

 

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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6 hours ago, Fixx said:

But it does support transparency. TIF have to be saved "with Layers".

Saving Layers isn't needed for TIFF transparency, and Publisher has no problem handling a TIFF with transparency. For example:

tif-transparency-test.tiff

tif-transparency-test.afpub

However, Publisher documents generally have white pages, and the transparency won't be apparent unless you set the document color handling options to "transparent background" as I did in that .afpub file. And setting that option is something most Publisher users wouldn't do, as they probably don't want to see all those checkerboards.

I suppose that one could set "transparent background", then put a white rectangle covering a Master Page that is applied to all the pages to prevent the checkerboards. Then on the page that needs a transparent TIFF file one could edit that rectangle to cut out part of it, exposing the checkboard behind the Placed TIFF file.

Of course, if you're printing  the Publisher file you still won't "see" the fully transparent areas as they'll have the page color :)

-- 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 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

transparency won't be apparent unless you set the document color handling options to "transparent background"

A resources transparency 'usually' is visible in AfPub without "Document Setup..." > "Transparent background".

1615023197_transparencyimagewithouttranspdocsetup.jpg.b7fd27fc6b32aa7857e26e3deae7fb0e.jpg
 

Unfortunately image transparency is not visible in AfPub for grayscale images which got colored via fill color in AfPub – regardless whether doc setup transp background is on/off.
Same missing transparency for images which have a clipping path included to create transparency. That appears to be basically ignored by AfPub.

1923692000_transparencyimageclippingpath.jpg.c0dd030aa75d3d9c748bcaae0fbc957c.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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30 minutes ago, thomaso said:

A resources transparency 'usually' is visible in AfPub without "Document Setup..." > "Transparent background".

1615023197_transparencyimagewithouttranspdocsetup.jpg.b7fd27fc6b32aa7857e26e3deae7fb0e.jpg

Good example. I might quibble about "usually" as it was only visible there because you overlaid it partially on a colored background. If it were just the transparency-test image on the normal Publisher white page, how would you tell?

Actually, don't bother answering that. You're right. You can tell by its layer thumbnail, and it's even more obvious if you configure your layer thumbnails to have a checkerboard background for transparency.

Thanks!

-- 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 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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11 hours ago, thomaso said:

Unfortunately image transparency is not visible in AfPub for grayscale images which got colored via fill color in AfPub – regardless whether doc setup transp background is on/off.
Same missing transparency for images which have a clipping path included to create transparency. That appears to be basically ignored by AfPub.

Can you provide a sample .afpub file showing this? I must be misunderstanding something because I can't reproduce that here, either using any of my images, with or without clipping paths.

Aside from that, if a master page is applied to a spread, doesn't the document have to be set up with a transparent background to prevent the master page's background from overriding what would otherwise be the spread's checkerboard pattern?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Hallo, to be honest I am absolutely confused by what peole are saying right now.   I just did a careful test with one of my less than charming seagulls.  Transparency is NOT supported in the way that I have been used to for 15 years.  AfPub may support it ...somehow....but it is not supported in the way that all other programmes support it, IE  TRANSPARENT, without the white, that is not the defintion of Transparent.  So now what?  I simply use PNG and THAT IS SUPPORTED by afpub.  This simple file  proves it.

SG CutOut_1794_01 copy.tif

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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6 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

Hallo, to be honest I am absolutely confused by what peole are saying right now.   I just did a careful test with one of my less than charming seagulls.  Transparency is NOT supported in the way that I have been used to for 15 years.  AfPub may support it ...somehow....but it is not supported in the way that all other programmes support it, IE  TRANSPARENT, without the white, that is not the defintion of Transparent.  So now what?  I simply use PNG and THAT IS SUPPORTED by afpub.  This simple file  proves it.

SG CutOut_1794_01 copy.tif

Hi Chris, I share your frustrations with transparency support, I have just posted a comment in the Publisher feedback forum, I am referring to JPGs with clipping paths but the same principle should apply to your TIF files. It might help with the confusion ... or maybe add to it...I hope not :)

 

4 minutes ago, Murfee said:

Hi,

Currently Publisher does not support clipping paths that are in embedded in files such as JPG (before everyone jumps in saying that JPG doesn't support transparency, they do if the option to convert clips to paths is selected when exporting :)

It is a bit of a workaround to use them at the moment, make sure your image is linked, then edit image...

Problem: the image is fine, you can see the path nested under the image if you expand the layers, you need to save as to update the file, fine except it roughly quadruples the original file size, update the link and the clipping path works as expected. If you just make a minor change like renaming the layer to enable the save the image, it may look like it has worked but the area that should be transparent is actually white. If you edit this revised file...the clipping path is still there. 

The easiest way that I have found so far is just to edit the image, copy the layer with it's clipping path then paste into Publisher, it works well.

Life will be so much easier when clipping paths are recognised so that when the image is placed, the clipping path works as expected without having to follow any extra steps or saving larger than necessary files that eventually bloat the document.

For those that still do not believe that JPG can contain transparency I have attached a quick example, it had to be zipped to prevent the forum from messing with the file :)  

Clipping Path Demo.jpg.zip

 

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In your case Chris, as the file has no layers just make sure it the gull file is linked, then edit image, in the new tab that opens, copy that layer, now go back to your Publisher document and paste, your transparency will now work...but it is a pain that you have to do this, Publisher should honour transparency.

I did a quick test with your file, when placed in Publisher it had a white background, it should have been transparent, I had Publisher set to transparent pages to show this, I then edited your file, copied it from the new tab back into the document...you can now see the transparency.

Screen Shot 2019-07-04 at 12.34.57.png

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22 hours ago, R C-R said:

Can you provide a sample .afpub file showing this? I must be misunderstanding something because I can't reproduce that here, either using any of my images, with or without clipping paths.

Hi R C-R, could you provide a sample Publisher file where you have inserted a file with a clipping path or transparency and it has worked straight away without you taking extra steps to get the transparency to work. Or explain your workflow. It might help us understand if we are missing something. I have tried all the steps that I can think of...with Publisher set to transparent pages before adding any files. The only way I can get transparency to work from the outset is to use a PNG file, other files need extra steps. 

Do you use Tiff or Tif ? Have you had success with JPG with clipping paths?

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On 7/3/2019 at 1:50 AM, walt.farrell said:

Saving Layers isn't needed for TIFF transparency, and Publisher has no problem handling a TIFF with transparency. For example:

tif-transparency-test.tiff

tif-transparency-test.afpub

 

Hi Walt, I wonder if this issue is a MAC thing or the Tif Tiff scenario? I have just opened your afpub file and it works...but your image is a Tiff file, the file that Chris uploaded was a Tif and despite Publisher being set to transparent from the start it clearly has a white background, editing it showed the transparency straight away :S copying it from the edited tab works when pasted back...but this extra step should not be necessary 

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4 minutes ago, Murfee said:

Hi R C-R, could you provide a sample Publisher file where you have inserted a file with a clipping path or transparency and it has worked straight away without you taking extra steps to get the transparency to work.

It works straight away for me with any file other than a JPEG with a clipping path. For them, I do need to open the file in (for example) Designer & use 'Save as' to create an .afdesign file. Placing that in an existing (or new) .afpub document preserves the clipping path layer (whether I use link or embedded preferred).

So in essence, the missing feature is that Affinity Publisher does not treat any JPEG file as a multilayer document, right? I agree that it would be a useful feature, but the workaround is very quick & easy so it does not bother me much that I have to resort to it.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So in essence, the missing feature is that Affinity Publisher does not treat any JPEG file as a multilayer document, right?

No it does not, but it also does not respect the transparency in a Tif file that has no additional layers when it is first placed, when you edit the image while still in Publisher, you can see it is a single layer and has transparency...I think there must be a bug with the initial placing for these files. Can you try by using the seagulls tif that Chris uploaded..it would be interesting to see if you get different behaviour with the file.

58 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

 

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2 minutes ago, haakoo said:

I tried with the files from Walt and Chris and indeed the tif file has no transparent background and the tiff did.
Short answer from me and it worked >rename tif to tiff 
This is on windows and don't know if this will work on mac

Just tried that...no success for me on the Mac

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2 hours ago, Murfee said:

In your case Chris, as the file has no layers just make sure it the gull file is linked, then edit image, in the new tab that opens, copy that layer, now go back to your Publisher document and paste, your transparency will now work...but it is a pain that you have to do this, Publisher should honour transparency.

I did a quick test with your file, when placed in Publisher it had a white background, it should have been transparent, I had Publisher set to transparent pages to show this, I then edited your file, copied it from the new tab back into the document...you can now see the transparency.

 

Hallo murfee, thanks for your help, I too am half glad this was not my fault.  May I just ask about what I have high-lighted Bold in your message.  Are you referring to Edit as in AfPhoto?  Which I do not have....I forgot to add that I changed the file extension from 'tif' to 'tiff' but that did not work here at all on windows 10.

In the meantime the images I need transparency on will be converted to PNG 24 for the time being, at this stage there will be no loss in quality on output.

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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1 hour ago, MEB said:

Hi Chris26, all,
There is indeed issues when placing TIF/TIFF files in a Publisher document. I'm logging this to be looked at. Renaming the file top TIFF will not fix this issue on Mac.

nor on windows MEB.  Thanks for your input.

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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5 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

Hallo murfee, thanks for your help, I too am half glad this was not my fault.  May I just ask about what I have high-lighted Bold in your message.  Are you referring to Edit as in AfPhoto?  Which I do not have....

In the meantime the images I need transparency on will be converted to PNG 24 for the time being, at this stage there will be no loss in quality on output.

Hi Chris, I have all 3 apps so I am not sure if you can see the Edit Image button, if you can then with your image selected click the Edit Image button, a new tab should open in Publisher, go to this tab and copy the layer, then go back to your original tab and paste

Screen Shot 2019-07-04 at 13.52.26.png

 

This is what I see when I click the new tab, still in Publisher

 

Screen Shot 2019-07-04 at 13.55.55.png

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1 minute ago, haakoo said:

If you only just shift the image some pixels when editing in a new tab and close this tab it will ask you if you want to save the file>click yes and in the main tab the transparency comes through.

Thanks haakoo, that is the one that I hadn't tried yet with a tif, I tried earlier with a jpg that had a clipping path, but that didn't work the same. Copy & pasting works well though :)

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Hi Murfee,

Here is a screen shot of my desktop.  I can not do anything, move, twist, distort, overlay, curve, wrinkle,, colour, cook, fry or eat it.  I think one needs AfPhoto to allow you to actually edit the image.  But it is good to know.  I always favourite particularly important answers for future reference even if I can not use them now.

Capture.thumb.JPG.942c83a57dd9c4411be7e5ef2f74a27f.JPG

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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13 minutes ago, Chris26 said:

Here is a screen shot of my desktop.  I can not do anything, move, twist, distort, overlay, curve, wrinkle,, colour, cook, fry or eat it.  I think one needs AfPhoto to allow you to actually edit the image.  But it is good to know.  I always favourite particularly important answers for future reference even if I can not use them now.

You might not be able to edit the image, but you should be able to copy that layer, it is showing the transparency. Your screen shot is showing you have the layer selected, try ctrl c, then go back to your for back of cards tab, then ctrl v. That should paste the image with the transparency . If that works just delete the original layer that had no transparency ... I hope that works for you :) of course these instructions are for the tif you were having a problem with...not the png in your screenshot .... I only just noticed that :4_joy:

Edited by Murfee
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