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Selecting and Moving an Image in Affinity Photo.


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I have recently bought Affinity Photo to assist me with a project. I have gotten a book cover from a printer, but the lady's photo is in the wrong place. I could go back to him and ask him to shift it for me, or I could use Affinity Photo and learn something new.

Ideally, I would love to extract the image to create a PNG of just her headshot, removing it from the cover file, so that I could then place the headshot exactly where I want to using Affinity Publisher and the Picture Frame tool.

Any advice for a newbie to graphic manipulation? I'm eventually trying to take the publisher's 11x17 cover and create a 5.5 x 8.5 cover file with text and the headshot on the back cover placed higher than where it is right now.

COUNT IT ALL JOY 11 x 17.jpg

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I used the selection brush tool then made several copies. I blacked out the area where the original photo was by using the colour picker.

There are other ways to do this, but this is simple and quick.

Steps:

1. Use selection brush tool on photo.

2. Edit tab/copy/paste.

3. Use the move tool to place the photo where you want it to go.

4. If needed the copied selection can be saved as an independent PNG file.

805285893_COUNTITALLJOY11x17.jpg.d0ee064784caa2f31625ae68210a5823.jpg

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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Yes I want to do both - save the selection as an independent PNG file and then black out the selected image.

I used the selection tool to select the image, 

image.png.067f7c1765ee2fb5813be8184d8d6972.png

 

But when I went to Edit and Cut The whole thing disappears rather than the selected image: 

 

image.png.c3d5eb70b5a36789efac4b079cd23995.png

 

And ironically the same section is selected but the whole layer is gone.  What am I doing wrong?

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Are you sure you are selecting the layer where the picture is? Your screen shot of the layer panel shows that the layer called picture frame is highlighted, is that the correct layer?

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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If the file you're using is an Image file, the copy & paste will not work - the file will have to be rasterised.

What type of file are you working with?

You could upload the file, it might help solve the problem quicker?

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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1 minute ago, AffinityJules said:

If the file you're using is an Image file, the copy & paste will not work - the file will have to be rasterised.

What type of file are you working with?

You could upload the file, it might help solve the problem quicker?

The original file is a PDF. I originally converted it to an image file before I started working thinking that was what I was supposed to do. Should I attempt this with the PDF?

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1 minute ago, Robert Gibson PWES said:

The original file is a PDF. I originally converted it to an image file before I started working thinking that was what I was supposed to do. Should I attempt this with the PDF?

I don't know how PDF's work or behave in photo, and as your file is an image file the copy & paste will not work properly. If you make another copy of the original file and then rasterise the photo layer itself the copy & paste function will work. Give that a go.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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1 minute ago, AffinityJules said:

I don't know how PDF's work or behave in photo, and as your file is an image file the copy & paste will not work properly. If you make another copy of the original file and then rasterise the photo layer itself the copy & paste function will work. Give that a go.

I'm a complete newbie to this lol so which Rasterize should I use? (I'll Google what Rasterize means later)

image.png.832858bb73727cbaa8426c7a29c7603f.png

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2 minutes ago, Robert Gibson PWES said:

I'm a complete newbie to this lol so which Rasterize should I use? (I'll Google what Rasterize means later)

image.png.832858bb73727cbaa8426c7a29c7603f.png

Go to the layers tab, and near the bottom of the drop down list select rasterise.

Or right click (with the layer selected) and choose rasterise from the drop down list therein.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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Use the colour picker tool to on the black area to get the right black tone. Use a hard brush and paint over the white area, or use the bucket fill tool.

File/Export/PNG of your selection should give you a saved copy.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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In the export menu choose selection rather than whole document.

Screenshot (126).jpg

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

These are not my own words but I sure like this quote.

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On 5/19/2022 at 6:32 PM, Robert Gibson PWES said:

But that's the thing. I figured that's what it was and I kept choosing Selection and it still wasn't just exporting just the headshot....

My guess would be that in this case Selection is the entire layer that is selected in the layers panel, not just the pixel selection. You would need to copy and paste the Pixels into their own layer and then select that layer, you could then get rid of the pixel selection.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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On 5/20/2022 at 3:32 AM, Robert Gibson PWES said:

I kept choosing Selection and it still wasn't just exporting just the headshot

"Selection" in the export dialog refers to objects = layers. Such a selection may be created by clicking only, whereas a pixel selection with the marquee or freehand tool can never be created by just clicking, but only by dragging. Accordingly, a pixel selection is simply ignored as export selection, i.e. without a selected object (= highlighted layer) the export selection is not an available option, regardless of a possibly active pixel selection.

(Yes, you can also select objects on the page by dragging: depending on your preferences, then dragging either affects only those objects which are entirely included in the dragged area or also those which are just touched by your dragging)

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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