"Pixel Grid" for image layer? 1x1 Grid Fix not working for me

[mdgunn]

Hi all,

I'm doing some web graphics and even with pixel mode on and 1x1 grid if I move some of my small pixel based (image layer) elements they often end up on 0.5 and not on whole pixels as I'd expect. Possibly this is because I'm zoomed in at well over 100% so can slide and release the layer a bit, but at high zoom levels is where you want a 'pixel grid' to work often right?

As was mentioned elsewhere the 1x1 grid is a hack and not a proper solution but in my experience it isn't even working as a solution anyway.

So my question is. How DO you get image layers to remain on whole pixels?

I've seen this posted before but it does not seem to have been properly addressed in the program.

If I correct the layer back to whole pixels in the layer positioning it is OK so if I can manually do it , but can't there just be a setting where it essentially does the same thing. So basically a 'pixel grid' (whole number snapping or whatever) for image layers.

I don't really get why there isn't a pixel grid for image layers.....I mean...image layers ARE essentially pixel based right?

Please tell me I've missed something obvious here. Manually correcting the positioning for image layers can't possibly be the solution, that would be insane.

Best Regards,

Michael

[Hoogo]

What if you turn of antialiasing for that layer in the layer attributes? Then the alignment should not matter anymore.

[bkh]

I'm doing some web graphics and even with pixel mode on and 1x1 grid if I move some of my small pixel based (image layer) elements they often end up on 0.5 and not on whole pixels as I'd expect.

I guess that the problem is that the layer can also be centered wrt. a grid line, resulting in half pixel offsets if the layer size is odd. Probably difficult to resolve because in other circumstances, you want to center layers wrt. the grid (short of intriducing another alignment option).

The only advice I can give is to avoid odd layer sizes.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[bkh]

What if you turn of antialiasing for that layer in the layer attributes? Then the alignment should not matter anymore.

Doesn't work too well if you later want to paint into that layer at high magnifications– then the cursors for the painting tools isn't exactly where the the change is made on screen. It's most obvious with the Pencil tool where the brush cursor doesn't even align with the grid if the layer has fractional positions. (At least, this is something that could be fixed in PL.)

Cheers

Burkhard.

[mdgunn]

What if you turn of antialiasing for that layer in the layer attributes? Then the alignment should not matter anymore.

I don't think this actually works. In my tests I found with anti-aliasing off you can get extra 'double pixels' created. So if you had a neat 5 pixel wide arrow head and you move it then it might become 6 pixels wide with extra 'double pixels' appearing on the edge completely destroying the neatness of the design. Totally unacceptable for my purposes. Even if you set the image layer to never anti-alias it still creates 'double pixels'.

QUESTION: Is there not some way to force PL to use only whole numbers?

I've seen this asked before but I think the 'workaround' seemed to be to use the pixel grid, which does not seem to work as a proper solution, unless I'm doing something wrong.

I know programming a complex image editor is no easy task (I'm a programmer) but it seems that making the program have a setting to make the program automatically do what you can manually do (e.g. move a layer onto a whole number) should be one of the simpler tasks. I'm sure there are complications but the manual method works, it's just damaging to workflow and I think I'd probably end up finding this unacceptable and switching programs. I'm hoping someone says.....' you just need to do X, Y and Z, and everything is fine'.

I really surprised, well shocked actually, that things seem to work like this.

Can somebody please tell me I'm being a fool and there is really a simple solution to getting pixels to remain as clean pixels.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Cheers,

Michael

[mdgunn]

I'm doing some web graphics and even with pixel mode on and 1x1 grid if I move some of my small pixel based (image layer) elements they often end up on 0.5 and not on whole pixels as I'd expect.

I guess that the problem is that the layer can also be centered wrt. a grid line, resulting in half pixel offsets if the layer size is odd. Probably difficult to resolve because in other circumstances, you want to center layers wrt. the grid (short of intriducing another alignment option).

The only advice I can give is to avoid odd layer sizes.

I think you have something with that mention of odd layer sizes. BTW: the problem happens even if I have grid off and grid snapping off, presumably because my other settings (pixel mode, document->alignment) are still making it use a grid of sorts.

I did some more investigation and an my case the problem is made obvious because I am using trimmed image layers so pixels are of course right up to the the edge of the layer (because of the trim) and it is on the edge where the doubles pixels appear.

I wanted trimmed image layers because I wanted to align the small pixel image with something on the page so I believe in order to do that I need to trim the image because the align tools don't ignore empty (alpha?) pixels in an image layer when using align? Please correct me if I'm wrong or there is some setting somewhere.

After some more investigation I have found that an even sized trimmed image will not show the double pixel problem but an odd size can get double edge pixels (in whichever dimension is odd - which could be both).

Sounds more like a bug than a feature to me (can't think when this behavior would be useful). I think I will write to official support and see if they can sort this out. In the meantime I suppose I can manually align the layer to a whole pixel....every single time ....if I notice and remember (oh joy!).

Thanks for the help people.

Regards,

Michael

[Herbert123]

You have hit the (painful) nail on the head: image layers in Photoline cannot be snapped to the pixel grid. This behaviour makes sense when working on print related documents (such as a poster), but indeed may induce crazy much work when dealing with screen and game graphics, pixel precise design, and so on. My solution for now is to manually position every image layer to a non-decimal pixel position when required.

It can be a bit of a workflow killer at times, I admit that. When I work on a web or mobile screen layout, I am forced to check the position for many bitmap layers (and text layers under circumstances), and manually remove the decimals for position which is a very, very cumbersome and tiring task.

In addition, because image layers cannot be aligned to exact pixels, the bitmap artwork CHANGES in appearance when anti-aliasing is turned on - especially visible with sharp edged artwork. This is another unwanted and potentially damaging consequence of a missing pixel snap option. The interim solution is to turn off anti-aliasing for such layers, BUT there is still a change of an added edge due to interpolation issues when a decimal position is set.

For text layers which are meant to represent screen work I often encounter similar consequences: because the position cannot be pixel snapped, two lines of anti-aliased 14px text may render quite different because of decimal point positioning.

Vector layers, however, can be aligned to the pixel grid.

I have asked the devs a number of times whether a similar option could be implemented for image and text layers, but so far they have not done so. Perhaps it is on their list to do (I certainly hope so). It would be elevated to a higher level if more of us indicate that this is truly unwanted behaviour depending on the task at hand.

To be fair, under circumstances I actually LIKE this behaviour, because it allows for different pixel rendering depending on position, which gives me a choice of varying anti-aliased versions of a graphic element. But there is no way around it: for the sake of screen and web workflow sanity, a pixel snap option is ESSENTIAL.

Ideally, I think we would like the following options:

• a global option to turn on pixel snap for ALL layer types (similar to the anti-aliasing button/view option)
• positioning and ideally transformations such as scaling should snap to pixels
• a view option to display a real pixel grid that appears when we zoom in at a custom level the user can control
• the "Alignment" (pixel snap) option in the layer properties which is available for vector layers is also added to bitmap and text layers.
• rename "Alignment" to "Pixel Snapping", "Pixel Snap", "Snap to Pixels", or something similar. The English word "Alignment" is too generic, and does not really translate the connotation of that particular function.

Take care of this, and Photoline becomes a viable screen, web, and game graphics tool. The only thing left to do after that is to add a custom export settings option for layers (but that is a different story

[mdgunn]

Thanks for the detailed information Hubert, you seem to know the situation very well. Painfully well

I think it was your informative posts that had helped me understand the situation originally.

'Alignment' was not an obvious term for me either. Being able to do pixel level/screen work seem unnecessarily complicated to me - there is pixel mode, alignment (document and layer!), the anti-alias button, and also anti-aliasing per layer.

I'm sure that this is somehow necessary or useful but to me it's not intuitive or simple. I don't remember any complications like this when using even ancient versions of Photoshop. Maybe it is because PL is trying to do more than Photoshop (DTP + image editing)?

I was enjoying getting back into PL again (recently upgraded from an old version) but my confidence in achieving a good fast workflow with reliable results in the current work I want to do is quite shaken at the minute.

I have emailed the devs (as you did Hubert) with a test file showing the clear problem. Hopefully they can do something. If there is a workaround fix then I hope it is something that is not stuck in the layer panel and can be added to the menu, context menu, and keyboard shortcut. Overall I think the software needs to deal with this where possible so the user does not have to 'tidy up'.

Presumably there is no beta with any fixes for this in (I don't know where betas appear).

I hope something can be done otherwise I will have to admit that this software isn't going to be capable of doing the simple pixel level work I need and I'll have to find something else.

Best Regards,

Michael

[Herbert123]

I have posted a request for this again in the beta forum. Fingers crossed!

[mdgunn]

I checked in an old version of Photoshop (CS2) and found that it successfully allows you to align (move etc.) pixel based layers without needing to fiddle about with anything at all . It was my attempts to align pixel elements in PL and finding you had to trim the layer is what lead me to this double pixel problem.

I guess Photoshop looks for non-alpha pixels on the extremities of the layer or something when trying to determine alignments, along with some sort of calculated center/origin point for certain alignments.

I like the way Photoshop has a sort of infinite layer which you don't have to specify a size for. Figuring out the canvas size for an image layer seems like something the software should do and the user should (probably) never need to consider. That doesn't mean you have to support an infinite canvas, just a way of extending out the layer as need be. Tricky perhaps. Glad I don't have to code it.

For alignments it seems to me that more often than not you want to align to the most extreme pixels drawn so far, rather than the layer edge (which may have many rows of blank pixels). I mean what exactly am I aligning in my image layer if there are no pixels modified there?

I suppose I might have just missed the option that lets you align images using non-alpha pixels rather than layer edge?

Regards,

Michael

[mdgunn]

I have posted a request for this again in the beta forum. Fingers crossed!

Yeah great. Even some sort of work-around to avoid manually tidying up the position fields would be nice.

[mdgunn]

The latest beta (19.40b3) allows image layers to align to the grid so for my use cases I can that I can align image layers to the pixel grid without having anti-aliasing or double pixel issues.

Fantastic!

Regards,

Michael