fixed ratio selecting APhoto

[moonliiner]

I've been reading through various posts about fixed dimension cropping and selecting, only to get even more confused. Is there a simple way to choose fixed dimensions such as 16:9 for the rectangle selection tool as there is with the cropping tool?

 

Thanks

[Old Bruce]

It is down to a different term, Custom Ratio instead of Fixed. You can save them by using the little Cog Wheel icon between the Cancel button and the word Mode;

[moonliiner]

Thanks, but you are showing the crop tool. I am talking about the rectangle select/marquee tool, such as the attached in PSh.

[Old Bruce]

Sorry about that, I am listening to the news so I am not 100% awake. You can use a rectangle (from the shapes tool) and get a mask out of it, then you can use the Channels Panel to make a selection of that. But you can't do as your screenshot shows and set it up in the Marquee tool.

[carl123]

1. Add a rectangle (shape) with a 16 x 9 ratio

          E.g. 160px by 90px

2. Drag corner of rectangle (maintaining aspect ratio) to resize to the approximate size of the selection ultimately needed.

3. Select > Selection from layer and delete

4. Add a pixel layer

5. With the move tool active you can now move and resize (i.e. fine tune) the selection as required (use appropriate modifier keys if resizing the selection to maintain the 16 x 9 aspect ratio)  

Note: Step 3 above can introduce rounding up/down errors of 1 pixel thus not giving a 100% true 16/9 ratio selection - so do not use this technique if using Affinity software to design nuclear reactors or when working on the space shuttle.

Not sure if this rounding up/down error is a bug or "as designed" 

[Jowday]

Just add a ratio option to the selection tool, Serif. This is one of the worst omissions and issues in Photo. And yet still present in version 1.8! 

The usability issues just stack up and the work arounds are often just hilarious! Or tragic.

A workflow requires that a flow is possible.

[moonliiner]

YES YES YES!!! It's already in the Crop tool! Add it to the selection tool!

Because of this and a few other no-brainer omissions, I must keep PShop elements on my Mac so I can quickly do what I want.

[cygaj]

Needed to reset password to this account only so I could bump this thread because I am almost crying trying to make a selection right now. I've tried to make a rectangle and convert it to curves and make a selection out of them but I'm failing at the selection step, don't know why, will investigate, but also I feel that I really shouldn't have to do this to make a fixed ratio selection!

EDIT: I wasn't getting a selection because I made the rectangle fill transparent (to actually be able to select something with it). I don't understand it but at least I know the workaround. Still, it is a bad workaround, I can't set a fixed ratio to a rectangle either. As it is I need to, as far as I understand: 1. draw a rectangle 2. make it transparent so I can see 3. type in ratio as W and H 4. resize to desired size holding while holding shift 5. make the fill opaque again 6. convert to curves 7. convert to selection. It's so bad…

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, cygaj said:

EDIT: I wasn't getting a selection because I made the rectangle fill transparent (to actually be able to select something with it). I don't understand it but at least I know the workaround. Still, it is a bad workaround, I can't set a fixed ratio to a rectangle either. As it is I need to, as far as I understand: 1. draw a rectangle 2. make it transparent so I can see 3. type in ratio as W and H 4. resize to desired size holding while holding shift 5. make the fill opaque again 6. convert to curves 7. convert to selection. It's so bad…

One hint: Yes, the rectangle needs a fill, but it doesn't need to be fully opaque. Any fill at all will do, even at 10% opacity (or even lower, such as 1%), which would still let you "see" things through the rectangle.

[cygaj]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

One hint: Yes, the rectangle needs a fill, but it doesn't need to be fully opaque. Any fill at all will do, even at 10% opacity (or even lower, such as 1%), which would still let you "see" things through the rectangle.

That is a helpful hint, thank you!

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, cygaj said:

That is a helpful hint, thank you!

You're welcome.

[PhilJustPhil]

Can't find any way to make the marquee tool fixed ratio (very important for printing your images to a fixed size paper!) so I go to Gimp to make the selection (Gimp -- free -- has this tool) then I would come back to Affinity Photo... but why?

[Alfred]

47 minutes ago, PhilJustPhil said:

Can't find any way to make the marquee tool fixed ratio

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @PhilJustPhil.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, you can’t directly specify a fixed ratio for the Marquee Tool but you can draw a fixed-ratio rectangle and use the ‘Selection From Layer’ command to create a marquee from it.