Copy and pasting = lower resolution

I think this has been going on for some time, but I either didn't notice it or when I did, I thought my eyes were deceiving me.

I'm doing a very simple procedure of using a scanned field of color to paste into an area of a drawing. (The color is scanned from colored pencil; I don't wish to use digital fakes of colored pencil).

So I have a black and white pencil drawing of just outlines, and then I copy one of the fields of color and place it as a layer under the area I wish to color, go up a layer to the pencil drawing and Magic Wand the white area and cut cmd-x, then go down a layer to the color field and inverse the selection and delete the extra "waste" area, and voila, the area of the character is colored.

But it finally got through my thick head that the color I have copied and pasted into the pencil scan is fuzzy and looks out of focus. But both the pencil drawing of the character and all the colored fields were scanned at the same time with the same resolution and color depth.

So why would anything change just from copy and pasting?

i can intuit what you mean Bruce, but ever since i started with Affinity, I've been constantly perplexed at how it differs with Photoshop (or at least my old Photoshop) in regards to pixel layers and non-pixel layers.

you are correct in noticing that the pasted in areas are rotated.

but i'm not following how or why that results in the fuzziness, let alone what i can do to prevent it. or is there anything i can do?

also, i have to correct myself. this might explain why i haven't always been noticing it. it doesn't happen all the time. i just finished filling in the colors of the other areas, and they didn't go all fuzzy.

I didn't mean I don't understand pixels, or especially pixels vs vectors or the way Affinity treats images that are otherwise rasterized. That isn't what is going on here.

Rather, I didn't understand what you meant by "integer pixel location".

And now with the added information that other layers/colors have been pasted in, and rotated, without this same problem, it can't be simply because that one layer was rotated.

Interesting. Maybe that explains it but only kind of. The other layers pasted in just fine.

And here's another twist. I just repeated my steps again for the wings and feet, and it all pasted in looking just fine. Go figure.

For what it's worth, i've discovered something that i find interesting.

I just made five different layers, using all the same color, but for different parts of this creature: left and right wings, feet, mouth and eyes. I wanted to combine all the layers as one. So I selected them and chose "merge selected" and some (not all) of the layers went fuzzy.

I undid that, and with just those layers as visible, I chose "merge visible". That created a new layer of the merge, and all the parts were showing the usual detail.

of course, but there is no scaling going on. i copy and paste and that's it. the image appears sharp at first.

what i am now realizing after focussing on this more closely now, it is happening whenever i merge down (both combined layers go fuzzy) OR if i merge selected layers (all the layers that are selected go fuzzy). the only time it ISNT happening is if i merge visible. so that requires some extra steps of unselecting whatever layers i dont want to combine, then reselecting them, and since it creates a separate merged layer, i must delete the original layers. but at least it is a workaround.

this is starting to drive me crazy. i finished adding color the set of 22 drawings, so I had to retrace my steps to try out your suggesting.

I pasted in three different layers for the dark brown - wings, eyes/mouth, feet - and just to be sure, i tried both cmd-e (to collapse each layer on top of the other) and selected them and chose 'merge selected'. both of these steps have been giving me problems.

and what do you know..... neither method gave me a fuzzy image.

the only thing that was different this time around is that I had already cut out the white background previously, but that shouldn't affect anything.

this is where i think i should just give up and stop bothering everyone about this!

as i say, i figured out a workaround. i think in the long run that's going to be easier than figuring out what has been going on.

oh, that's interesting.

i don't know the answer to your question because i freaked out and stopped when i saw that. and then played around with it until i found the workaround (merge selected). It might take me awhile to try it again because the last time I retraced my steps, and it worked find. that might suggest that you're right and has something to do with display behavior.

er.....What is OpenCL? I did quick searches in both Affinity and the system setting and dont see that.

No Performance in settings.

No Metal in settings.

Don't even see any acceleration in settings.

Quote from Terry

Quick question: does the issue show up only inside Affinity, or does it appear after exporting as well?

okay. i started working on a new image.

this is a screenshot before merging layers

this is a screenshot after merging 3 layers. the fuzziness is most apparent in the upper leg and wing. oddly it doesn't happen throughout the lower wing, or maybe i just cant see it.

screenshot after export as viewed in Affinity

screenshot after export as viewed in Preview

and for what it is worth, this is the actual exported file

so, yes it appears after i export it.

and once again, the only way i can merge the layers is by turning off any other layers, and then choosing 'merge visible'. cmd-e doesnt work and 'merge selected' doesn't work.

oh sorry. i get confused from forum to forum whether i have such stuff in my profile.

sonoma 14.7.4 (and dont ask me to upgrade; i dont want any AI stuff!)

M1 Max

64gb ram

mostly mac yes. but i still use a desktop that has my dear Photoshop CS2 on it. using Windows XP!

at this point, i'm mostly curious about why this is happening. i've abandoned trying to merge the layers. i was mostly doing it to make the afphoto versions of the files smaller and it helps avoid confusion as which layer is which.