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Note: This is not a simple request. There 4 interlocking parts, but I think if implemented, many of the complaints and comments about cropping will go away. In addition, it will hide the fact that cropping to a specific ratio, then resizing with locked proportions does not work exactly right. Background: I am an American so I necessarily use english measurement - I would like this request to have the option of selecting metric units for my friends in more reasonable countries. As a photographer I, and most others, are frequently faced with the problem of being too far from my subject to get a picture without distracting objects in the frame. Since I have a high resolution camera, I frequently also have pixels to burn, so my solution is to use a "Digital Zoom" after the fact. While the tools in Affinity Photo are wonderful for creating web images where a pixel orientation is the rule of the day, I can not find a way to accomplish a "digital zoom" where the actual pixels in the image are selected then removed from the file in a way that the image is actually reduced to the exact size specified in inches and the file size is also reduced. I work in inches not pixels because that is how the media I use is measured. The relation between pixels and inches is not constant. For some purposes, printing on canvas for example, 200 pixels per inch is a good compromise between speed and presentation quality. For photo paper I like to use 300 pixels per inch and for banners I can get away with 150 pixels per inch because the viewing distance is in hundreds of feet not inches. Seldom do I use an image for multiple purposes and when I do I usually need to re-redit the original image so I always keep my originals just as they came from the camera. All the changes requested below are designed to fit in the existing Affinity frame work. If you find any request that would affect any existing user then I have made a mistake. Please implement in a way that users that do not need these features do not see a change in operation. Feature Request: There are four interlocking items: 1 - A combination Destructive Crop and Resize tool 2 - Additional preferences 3 - Visible image sizes 4 - Rulers in Printing units. User interface changes( Request - 1 ) 1 - Add a feature to the existing crop tool by creating a new mode called "Destructive Crop" 2 - Add the letter "D' in front of the Destructive Crop preset. For example a standard 8 inch by 10 inch photograph would be designated D8"x10" Note: I chose the name to differentiate this crop from all the other crop modes which seem to be non destructive. Of course the undo feature should restore the uncropped image so the action is not actually destructive until the file is saved. Operation of the new feature( Request -1 ) 1 - The user selects the crop tool 2 - A selection rectangle appears completely within the visible image frame the proportion of the previously used preset if any, otherwise, a selection rectangle appears entirely within the image in accordance with the first preset in the list as it does presently. NOTE: The reason for using the previously used proportion is to allow for rapid cropping of multiple images. 3 - The user is allowed to resize or drag the selection rectangle to choose any portion of the image. 3a - The corner handles will allow a constrained resize of the selection box. By constrained I mean, the size can change but the proportion can not. 3 -aa - Holding the shift key will allow unconstrained adjustment of the selection box and will change the proportions of the resulting image just as if the user had changed the original preset on the fly. (Note: The instantaneous size is shown in the dimension box -see request below) 3b- Moving just off the corner of the selection box will change the movement to rotate. This will allow free rotation of the selection box. 3c - Any other click and drag will result in the sliding the selection box in response to the cursor movement. 4 - Once the user has slid, rotated, and resized the selection box to the desired position, they commit the crop by either 1 - Pressing Enter, 2 - Pressing Return, 3 -Double clicking inside the selection box, or 4 -Clicking the Apply button Once the user has applied the crop, the following action will occur. 1 - The portion of the image outside the selection box is removed from the image entirely. The remaining portion will necessarily be in the correct proportion for the next step. 2 - Using the document resize presets, resize the image to the correct dimension in inches such that a 100 % selection in the print function will result in an image on the paper that is accurate to within one pixel as measured on the printer. (Note: If the user selected an unconstrained resize, use the new image size as calculated from their movement and as shown in the display created in feature request 3. Additional Preferences( Request - 2 ) Background ( Request - 2 ) To implement the cropping feature and allow for both metric and english as well as other measurements there must by a way to select these items per image and across images. Feature request( Request - 2 ) In a preferences panel, in the new image panel, and in the resize document panel allow the selection of: 1 - Preferred units (MM, Inches, etc.) Default - Pixels 2 - Specified pixels per inch for this document - Default - 72 Note: The following new preferences are settable in the preferences panel only 3 - Ruler units (inches, CM, Pixels etc) Default - Pixels 4 - Ruler divisions e.g. 1,2,4,8,10,16 , 21. :Note: I Chose these numbers to allow for english 1/4, 1/8/ 1/16 English and 10 metric Default - 21 (To match existing) Operation of the new feature ( Request - 2 ) With this information it is possible to determine and maintain the size of the document in inches for display and adjusting the rulers in the following request. Visible Image Sizes ( Request - 3 ) Background(3) To implement the Destructive Crop there will need to be several new states added to the image itself in addition to the image size in pixels already maintained. Once these are implemented there must be a way to display these values to the user. Feature request( Request - 3 ) Adjust the primary user interface to include one additional field. 1 - The field should be visible in all personas and at all times so my suggested location is at the very bottom edge of the user interface to the left of what is now the instruction area and aligned with the lower left side of the image frame. The field should be surrounded by a box with a dropdown widget. 2 - The field should be powered by a drop down that will offer at least 2 options 2a - Image size in pixels 2b - Image size in inches Operation of the new feature( Request - 3 ) This field will allow the user to tell at a glance the size of the finished image and in the case of Unconstrained cropping see the size of image they are creating on the fly. Re-originable rulers in multiple dimensional units( Request - 4 ) Background( Request - 4 ) Many photographs arrive at my desk taken with anything from an old flip phone to my newest professional camera. These are in many sizes and shapes, yet I am supposed to quickly determine if I can reasonably print a bill board from this image, not knowing if it came from a Rolleiflex or a flip phone. This is complicated by the fact that the customer only wants to print a tiny portion of the image. Feature request ( Request - 4 ) Allow the rulers across the top and the left edge of the image to be displayed in inches or other units. Then allow the origin of the rulers to be aligned with any part of the image. Operation of the new feature( Request - 4 ) 1 - Using the information added to the image as requested above, change the rulers operation to display rulers in the dimension specified in the preferences panel. 2 - Use the ruler division preferences to subdivide the rulers on the page. This will allow the rulers to make sense to Americans in inches and fractions, old American engineers in inches and tenths, or the rest of the world in metric, while maintaining the pixels measurement for modern web designers. 3 - When the user clicks and drags either ruler, a phantom ruler line will move off the ruler line with the cursor, either vertical or horizontal or both. The user will position the ruler to their desired location and release the mouse. The ruler will reorient the origin to the release point with numbers to the left or above negative and those to the right or below positive. Note: To select both rulers click to left and above the ruler junction. 4 - When the user double clicks in the ruler junction to the left and above the rulers the rulers will be re-origined to the upper right corner of the workspace. Thank you for considering my request. I will by happy to respond to any request for more information or clarification. I love your program and I will find a way to get my work done with it. These changes would make my job easier, and faster. From reading the comments on the Internet, I suspect there are many others that would like these new features as well.

I'm new to Affinity but i'm already impressed - the crop rotate tool is very smart :) Anyway I'm trying to understand the logic of Affinity only saving in it's native format, it's easy enough to export as jpeg or whatever but it seems odd that you can't save in the format you intend to use. The other thing I'd like is a way to resize including changing the dpi of an image. Maybe it's there but i can't see it. Pixel size is useful but knowing something is a certain size in mm or inches @ 300 dpi is very important for anything that has to be printed. Likewise being able to know immediately how big something at 72dpi is important for web usage. A save for web dialogue would be nice too!