Crop Tool Not Allowing Crop

[JonnyWhitters]

Hi all, not going to be the most technical explanation of the issue here but I'm looking for a little guidance on where I'm going wrong.  I've checked the search tool and couldn't see anything that matches my current predicament so figured I'd ask here.

I am relatively new to AP and have a few regular treatments I make to my raw photos, for which this programme is ace.  However, I'm currently having an issue with the consistency of availability of the crop tool.

The icon is always present in the left hand tool bar, but I'm only very occasionally able to see and select a ball / anchor point to crop a photo.  Most of the time it displays as per the screenshot and I'm not able to make a simple crop.  

Is there a setting I've inadvertently changed to remove the crop and thirds overlay as I've hunted around and can't see what settings I need to change to get it back.  As mentioned, it sometimes allows me to crop as I require but most of the time I just have to export it and crop it when it's a JPEG in iPhoto.

If it helps, I'm using AP 1.10.1

Cheers all. 

Edited December 11, 2021 by JonnyWhitters

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @JonnyWhitters

Could this be something to do with you trying to crop a NEF image? (I don’t use RAW images myself so I don’t have one to experiment with.)
I notice that the Units and DPI on the Context Bar are greyed out – could that be a symptom of the problem?
Being able to see your Layers Panel might help someone with a diagnosis.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

... I notice that the Units and DPI on the Context Bar are greyed out – could that be a symptom of the problem?

Nope, that's always the case here in both Personas (the Dev-Persona and Photo-Persona) for NEFs and has nothing to do with the Crop-Tool working.

 

19 hours ago, JonnyWhitters said:

Is there a setting I've inadvertently changed to remove the crop and thirds overlay as I've hunted around and can't see what settings I need to change to get it back.  As mentioned, it sometimes allows me to crop as I require but most of the time I just have to export it and crop it when it's a JPEG in iPhoto.

If it helps, I'm using AP 1.10.1

There is already an updated APh 1.10.4 version with some applied fixes, so you may try to update and retry it then maybe behaves differently here. - Other than that, you've a lot of NEFs opened there, if all of them are huge, APh it might have some memory problems during it's operation, especially then under certain newer macOS versions (keyword: Monterey).

 

[JonnyWhitters]

Thank you both for responding (and the welcome). 

I’ve only ever worked on NEF files in the programme so I don’t think that’s the case here, but appreciate the thought.

I’ll test the upgrade later on and report back. Will also try to reduce the number of files I’m working on into smaller batches. 
 

Good shout - will keep you posted. 

[JonnyWhitters]

Just to update here, I've tried suggestions from here and the Facebook group with no success.  Becoming more of a pain now and this is starting to outweigh the other benefits of the app.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[walt.farrell]

Have you tried pressing the Reset button on the Crop Tool's Context Toolbar?

Have you tried resetting the application itself?

1. Close the application.
2. Press and hold the Ctrl key and click on the application to start it. Keep Ctrl pressed.
3. When you get the Clear User Data dialog, release the Ctrl key.
4. First, leave just the first 3 items checked, and press Clear. I think this will leave your Assets, Brushes, Styles, etc. alone, but to be safe you might want to back things up first, using the hamburger icon in the various panels.
5. Check whether that resolved the problem.

[v_kyr]

Also test if other things do work correctly, meaning to check if only the crop tool is affected, or other tools like the marquee selection tool etc. too then!

[JonnyWhitters]

On 12/21/2021 at 8:24 PM, v_kyr said:

Also test if other things do work correctly, meaning to check if only the crop tool is affected, or other tools like the marquee selection tool etc. too then!

Thank you, yes weirdly it's just the Crop Tool that's impacted here.  

 

On 12/21/2021 at 7:56 PM, walt.farrell said:

Have you tried pressing the Reset button on the Crop Tool's Context Toolbar?

Have you tried resetting the application itself?

1. Close the application.
2. Press and hold the Ctrl key and click on the application to start it. Keep Ctrl pressed.
3. When you get the Clear User Data dialog, release the Ctrl key.
4. First, leave just the first 3 items checked, and press Clear. I think this will leave your Assets, Brushes, Styles, etc. alone, but to be safe you might want to back things up first, using the hamburger icon in the various panels.
5. Check whether that resolved the problem.

Appreciate this suggestion.  I reinstalled it last week and the first photo after I went through this process was fine (crop worked as intended).  When I came back to it later to do another one the tool was misbehaving as before.

I have just tried to do the reset as you instructed - thank you for this, I didn't know about this option.  I have re-opened Affinity and it has allowed me to crop two photos with the grid...long may that continue.

 

Thank you for this little Christmas present - very much appreciate the knowledge and guidance on this forum.