the crop tool's annoying habit ...

[ceg]

The lowly crop tool could use some improvements:

1. For starters: when selecting an aspect ratio - please keep the crop within the image. For example, when I try to crop a 3:2 image in landscape format into a 1:1 square I get a crop that is based on the long edge, horizontal edge, rather than the shorter vertical edge. The crop extends off-screen. So far only mildly annoying: grabbing the handle on the left or right side easily resizes the crop. Worse though: if I decide to switch the crop to "unconstrained" I have to scroll up and down to corral those upper and lover edges of the crop.

2. Most other software recognizes that a 2:3 crop uses the same aspect ratio as a 3:2 crop and adjust the crop accordingly, based on mouse behavior. Affinity is, unfortunately, not smart enough to realize that a user would like to switch from landscape to portrait (or the other way round) while keeping the aspect ratio.

There are plenty of things I like about the crop tool, but these two issues have bugged me for weeks.

[Chris B]

Hey ceg,

Issue 1 - I've tried this but I always see the crop sticking within the document boundaries so it never exceeds it. If I recall, it used to but I haven't seen it for a while. Either that, or I'm doing something wrong. Could you provide the exact clicks I need to make so I can see what you're doing?

Issue 2 - Is this not what the Rotate button is for or would you wish to do this with a mouse instead of hitting Rotate?

[ceg]

Thanks for the response.

Of course, now you make me wonder ... whether I am imagining things. Luckily (for my sanity) I am not. 🙂

1. open an image in landscape format

2. select crop - in this instance the crop snapped to the image boundaries because I had selected "unconstrained"

3. go to the cogwheel and select 1:1 custom ratio and I get the attached image.

This is just one variation of the theme. Long story short: when AP gets the chance it never stays within the image boundaries. 🙂

2. I had never noticed the "rotate" button (so well-hidden in plain sight) and agree - it works. But other software products implement this in a  smarter way. The portrait/landscape orientation of the crop changes automatically if you drag the mouse across the image. check DxO Photolab or Photoshop for example.

 

[walt.farrell]

What version of Photo are you using, ceg.

I often experienced that problem prior to 1.8.2, but in 1.8.2 I haven't gotten it to fail yet.

[Chris B]

As Walt says, I haven't seen Issue 1 in 1.8.2 so please confirm your version

I see what you mean about other apps using logic and this might be a nice improvement for us. I will pass this on for you, happily. 

[ceg]

That might solve it. I am running 1.8.0.585 and was just asked whether I would like to download a newer version.

Thank you,

Christoph

[Chris B]

Please update and feed back to this thread if you can Thank you. 

[ceg]

Thanks Chris and Walt, installing the latest version helped.