Need Deskew/Straighten Scanned Images or Documents

[AffinityLover]

Dear Developers,

We found Affinity Photo is lacking a Deskew feature which helps straighten out a crooked scanned document or photo. People scanned documents that look crooked or at a slanted angle and there is no option in your software to fix that. Please implement the Deskew feature to straighten a crooked/slanted scanned pages that don't reduce the document quality doing so, a non-destructive process please. I attempted to rotate a slanted scanned document and the image quality looks horrible, so many jagged edges and blurry. So this Deskew feature is very need. Other image editing software has it. Make it happens guys.

 

Thank You

[Fixx]

AP has Straighten routine in its crop tool. Try that.

If you need automated deskew you might want to try XnConvert which can batch process images.

[John Rostron]

It is not clear whether you need to rotate the entire document (in which case use @Fixx's suggestion) or whether you need to apply rotation to just one axis, in which case you can use the Shear tool Filter > Distort > Shear.

John

[AffinityLover]

8 hours ago, Fixx said:

AP has Straighten routine in its crop tool. Try that.

If you need automated deskew you might want to try XnConvert which can batch process images.

The Crop tool is very destructive which makes the scanned document or image drops in quality with jagged edges. I tried it by rotating the document angle slightly to straighten it out to perfect 90 degree and the result quality looks horrible. So the Crop tool is not a solution to Deskew slanted image. This is a basic feature that every image editing software should have but I'm surprise that Affinity Photo doesn't have it. Time to add it in guys.

 

Thanks

[Smee Again]

Deskew by using the arrow selection tool and unlocking the bottom layer. Grab the center node on bottom or either side and move as needed.

Alternatively, the "perspective tool" (nested with the mesh warp tool) to really adjust a skewed image. Can even correct perspective (as its name says).

[AffinityLover]

I just found out the Win10 Photos app has the capability to fix slanted scanned page. Sometimes we don't place the document on the scanner bed perfectly and the scan came out with slanted angle. I tested out with the Photos app by using its Crop tool, then use the Straightening function within by dragging the slider until the page lined up 90 and 180 degrees. The Photos app did it perfectly without any reduction in quality, non-destructive. Whereas AF make the straighten function destructive, which seriously reduce document quality that causes the text looking jacked up. Guys, we need this Straightening feature available in AF without destructive quality. Just try out what I pointed out in Photos app and make that function available in AF please. Seriously, the Straighten feature within Crop tool needs real fix and improvement.

I noticed developers don't take any feedback from customers to improve your product. Not cool.

 

Thanks

[fde101]

4 hours ago, AffinityLover said:

developers don't take any feedback from customers to improve your product.

This is flat out wrong.

They get so much feedback from so many places (not just the forums) that it simply isn't possible to keep up with it all at once.

They need to prioritize and decide what to work on first, and it takes time to make things happen.

In general, they do not normally respond to the feedback, but they do read it and many changes have been made in these programs because of the feedback people have given.

There is also an overall design that the developers have in mind for the software and sometimes the feedback might contradict the direction in which they are trying to go; additionally, sometimes the feedback from different users will contradict each other.  Not everything people ask for will be possible.

[Pšenda]

I will just add:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/52-feature-requests-suggestions/

[Fixx]

18 hours ago, AffinityLover said:

The Crop tool is very destructive which makes the scanned document or image drops in quality with jagged edges. I tried it by rotating the document angle slightly to straighten it out to perfect 90 degree and the result quality looks horrible.

I did not get so bad quality. Do you have View Quality set in Preferences to Nearest Neighbour or Bilinear?

[Stub Mandrel]

Is it possible to make the crop tool into a deskew/crop tool?

This is something I miss hugely.

[Old Bruce]

Try the perspective tool, it may do what you want.

[Stub Mandrel]

On 6/18/2021 at 5:36 PM, Old Bruce said:

Try the perspective tool, it may do what you want.

 

Thank you - it does help, although the ability to move an edge (two nodes together) would make it more powerful (shear) and user-friendly than only being able to move one node at a time.

I searched the help, and it doesn't mention 'skew' or 'deskew' - perhaps it would be useful to add that the perspective tool can be used for deskewing.

[John Rostron]

@AffinityLover, you do not say what the scanning resolution is for your images. (This is not the same as the dpi in the scanned image.) Most flatbed scanners can scan at 4000 pixels per inch. If you use such large, hi-res scan, then rotate/straighten, then resize to a more convenient size, you may avoid the jaggies.

John

[Fixx]

On 6/20/2021 at 11:51 AM, John Rostron said:

Most flatbed scanners can scan at 4000 pixels per inch.

That is high end scanner. Mainstream scanners scan 600 dpi, 1200 at most

[John Rostron]

1 hour ago, Fixx said:

That is high end scanner. Mainstream scanners scan 600 dpi, 1200 at most

I used a Canon MP630 and VueScan and it  claimed to be scanning at 4000ppi. I saw no reason to doubt this.

John

[Stub Mandrel]

My Epson offers 9,600 dpi.

It's actually 2,400 optical resolution but uses interpolation.