Affinity Photo: Using Stock Images Question

[Brad Lawryk]

Hello Community,

I am an Adobe Photoshop convert and so far I love Affinity Photo! I have been able to figure almost everything out from my usual PS tasks.

I have one question about using Stock Photos. I really love how I can simply drag an image to my comp. Amazing.

However when I drag an image into my comp it is very large compared to my composition. It takes forever to scroll around and find the resize handles. Is there a way to drag an image in and have it constrained to document size?

Loving Affinity. Wish I had discovered it sooner.

Thanks in advance.

[NotMyFault]

Hi,

there is no direct way, but at least 2 ways to resize very fast:

• select move tool [v]
• Use "Scale" and enter a smaller value to reduce size (after enabling link between x and y)
• Or use transform panel. Enable link between x and y. enter document width as width. enter 0 for x and y position.

Another way is to save the stock image as file on disk (double-click opens in browser, you can select optimal dimensions, and the use place command, where you can draw the size you need.

 

[Brad Lawryk]

Thank you so much for the quick reply! 

The scale method works well. I didn't know that was an option. Thanks for your screenshot!

 

[carl123]

7 hours ago, Brad Lawryk said:

Is there a way to drag an image in and have it constrained to document size?

In the Transform Panel, type sw (spread width) in the Width box and sh (spread height) in the Height box.

1. You must have the aspect ratio link icon selected

2. sw and sh are case-sensitive (Grrrr)

3. Your image may end up off the canvas, if so you can just drag it back on or enter 0 and 0 for the x,y coordinates in the same Transform panel

4. If you do this a lot, just get used to immediately typing 0,0,sw,sh whilst tabbing between the fields

5. The above will make the image closely match the document size, but it won't be an exact fit due to the different aspect ratios of different images

[R C-R]

<ignore>

Edited December 4, 2021 by R C-R
deleted incorrect info

[v_kyr]

• Expressions for field input

Quote

Transform panel variables

Use when sizing and positioning content using the Transform panel in relation to the page (spread).

spreadwidth, sprw, sw	The width of the current spread
spreadheight, sprh, sh	The height of the current spread
spreadleft, sprl, sl	The position of the left edge of the current spread
spreadright, sprr, sr	The position of the right edge of the current spread
spreadtop, sprt, st	The position of the top edge of the current spread
spreadbottom, sprb, sb	The position of the bottom edge of the current spread
marginsizeleft, mgnszl, msl	The size of the left margin on the current spread
marginsizeright, mgnszr, msr	The size of the right margin on the current spread
marginsizetop, mgnszt, mst	The size of the top margin on the current spread
marginsizebottom, mgnszb, msb	The size of the bottom margin on the current spread
marginleft, mgnl, ml	The position of the left margin on the current spread
marginright, mgnr, mr	The position of the right margin on the current spread
margintop, mgnt, mt	The position of the top margin on the current spread
marginbottom, mgnb, mb	The position of the bottom margin on the current spread
designareawidth, areawidth, aw	The space between the left and right margins on the current spread
designareaheight, areaheight, ah	The space between the top and bottom margins on the current spread

 

[jmwellborn]

@Brad Lawryk  I have found a very easy way, thanks to Dave Straker @dmstraker to do this.  It may be a wee bit fiddly, but for me it works perfectly.  He posted this back on June 29, in response to the topic: Realistic Wet-in-Wet Watercolor for Affinity Photo:

"When starting from a stock photo, try:

1. File/New then just hit 'Create'. Doesn't matter what shape/size the canvas is.
2. Find and drag in image from Stock tab.
3. Document/Clip Canvas.
4. Layer/Rasterise.

"The Clip Canvas will automatically resize the canvas to fit the image."

In order to get the image into the right size, I start with the blank new document.  Then after his Clip Canvas step (3), I don't rasterize the image layer.  Instead, I use the Move Tool to reduce the size of the image to something much smaller.  Then I Copy that image layer, and move to the document in which I wish to place the image, and hit Paste.  The image can be resized any way you like in the destination document.  (Also rasterized there.)

 

[Brad Lawryk]

Thank you all for the valuable information! This community is so helpful and it is very much appreciated.

I hope to someday be able to help newbies like myself as well.