Is there a way to rotate canvas in Affinity Photo while using drawing tablet?

[SKT7]

Is there any way to rotate canvas in Affinity Photo while using drawing tablet?

Now the canvas can be rotated using alt+scroll wheel on the mouse - but while using a drawing tablet it breaks the flow and not as intuitive as some other applications where you can hold down a button and drag the pen on the drawing tablet rotate the canvas without leaving the pen.

[iconoclast]

Yes! Take a look into the "View" menu. There you can find entries for that (my computer is off at the moment, so I can't tell you exactly where). You can also create shortkeys for this (my personal keys are "<", ">" and "Strg+Shift+<" for reset). And you can rotate with the mouse wheel. As far as I remember if you hold the Shift (or Alt, as you say) key and scroll with the wheel (okay, this will not work on a drawing tablet).

Unfortunately you can't rotate with the mouse/stylus like e.g. in ArtRage, GIMP, Krita and others. Hope this option will be added in the future. Also because I work with different apps simultaneously, and it is really annoying not to be able to create similar settings.

[Old Bruce]

8 hours ago, saikat said:

Is there any way to rotate canvas in Affinity Photo while using drawing tablet?

 

Really depends on the capabilities of the different tablets. My Wacom has the ability to use fingers to rotate and zoom and scroll/pan. That is set up in the Wacom Driver and then it is available in the Affinity applications automatically.

[iconoclast]

Yes, my Wacom has such a Touch-option too. It may be a matter of taste. I always keep it deactivated, because it never worked for me as it should. It's an annoying fiddling for me. Even worse than the Touch Pad of my Laptop. But the Move/Rotate/Zoom-options with modifier key and Stylus/Mouse, that some other apps offer, work pretty nice and convenient.

[Sierraphoto]

Yes PLEASE! I would love if affinity photo had a rotate canvas tool like Photoshop. My hands are KILLING me when using my graphics tablet. PS has a shortcut key/tool that allowed for free rotation and it made retouching SO much better. I have set the incremental rotation to short keys but it's just not as effective.

Much love to ya Affinity Photo team!

[iconoclast]

You mean the Rotate-Tool (short key "R")? I must confess that this is the most unwieldy solution to rotate the canvas, that I know, because you have to change the tool and interrupt your workflow  for it. The most convenient solution I know is the one that apps like ArtRage, GIMP, MyPaint and Krita use: hold the Shift-key (or the Alt-key in case of ArtRage) and the stylus-button that is related to the right mouse key and rotate by dragging the stylus (or mouse).

Even the short keys Affinity Photo offer (I customized them to "<", ">" and "Strg+Shift+<" for "Reset Rotation") are better than the one in Photoshop, I think.

[Sierraphoto]

2 hours ago, iconoclast said:

You mean the Rotate-Tool (short key "R")? I must confess that this is the most unwieldy solution to rotate the canvas, that I know, because you have to change the tool and interrupt your workflow  for it. The most convenient solution I know is the one that apps like ArtRage, GIMP, MyPaint and Krita use: hold the Shift-key (or the Alt-key in case of ArtRage) and the stylus-button that is related to the right mouse key and rotate by dragging the stylus (or mouse).

Even the short keys Affinity Photo offer (I customized them to "<", ">" and "Strg+Shift+<" for "Reset Rotation") are better than the one in Photoshop, I think.

Ah I see what you're saying. When I was using PS I used keyboard shortcuts nearly exclusively and when I used the rotate tool it would jump back to the original tool I was using when I let go of the r key.

[Alfred]

3 hours ago, iconoclast said:

"Strg+Shift+<" for "Reset Rotation"

Strg (Steuerung) on a German keyboard, Ctrl (Control) on an English keyboard.

[iconoclast]

5 minutes ago, Sierraphoto said:

Ah I see what you're saying. When I was using PS I used keyboard shortcuts nearly exclusively and when I used the rotate tool it would jump back to the original tool I was using when I let go of the r key.

OK, didn't know that this is possible. I'm not sure if it was as I last worked with Photoshop. It is of course the best solution to be able to customize it to your individual needs. Especially if you work with different apps simultaneously. To have totally different short keys for the same functions on different apps always causes problems.

[iconoclast]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

Strg (Steuerung) on a German keyboard, Ctrl (Control) on an English keyboard.

Yes, of course. Sorry, I didn't think of it.

[Tau Mitch]

The best hack I found on my Intuos 3 (yes, I use an 18 year old Wacom tablet) is to use the scroll pad instead of the wheel mouse and it works ! So Ctrl + Alt + Scroll pad, the only downside is that you can't move your cursor (working as a pivot point for the canvas) on the fly while using the scroll pad.  

I still prefer holding a shortcut (R) on the keyboard like in PSD (but you can't move the pivot point on the go in PSD if I'm not mistaken) for the rotation of the canvas but I'll get used to it.

Edited June 19, 2024 by Tau Mitch

[Blackout_create]

I've made a script that solves this problem and it's been working wonders for me. It emulates a scroll wheel using AutoHotkey (which unfortunately only works on Windows).

This script allows you to scroll up/down in 2 different ways (a "fast" one useful for canvas rotation and a "button mode" for other tasks in other programs). I've made it specifically to overcome this annoying problem with Affinity and I can tell you from experience that it works pretty much like canvas rotation in Photoshop (though I'd still prefer to see a native solution from Affinity).

I've made a detailed post on how to use it and how it works over here. It includes a link to download the script.