photo cropping canvas vs image

[ahnay]

I just watched the tutorial to change canvas size, i have always used the first method, and it seems using the crop tool to do this would go faster.  So how do you know that the crop tool is on the canvas size, and not on an image or whatever?  Just curious.

[v_kyr]

Inspecting the toolbar sizes will show you the area it covers, which initially when accessing the crop tool should meet the document/canvas size. Also you always can compare the setup crop size (see it's tool bar) with those initial sizes shown by the canvas & document resize panels. - Further you may also want to take a look at the crop tool tutorial here.

[ahnay]

On 6/16/2022 at 4:31 PM, v_kyr said:

Inspecting the toolbar sizes will show you the area it covers, which initially when accessing the crop tool should meet the document/canvas size. Also you always can compare the setup crop size (see it's tool bar) with those initial sizes shown by the canvas & document resize panels. - Further you may also want to take a look at the crop tool tutorial here.

yeah, my photo doesnt work like this at all!  Every time i try to crop an image it then crops it and expands it to the full document size, moving down so the top is uniform with the top margin and everywhere else is to the edge of the document.  Thats just craziness.  I hate this software and ive only started using it.  If the crop tool cant function correctly what hope is there for the other tools?

[ahnay]

oh my god, the cropping tool isnt a cropping tool, its a resize tool with cropping? are you kidding me?  I just want a normal cropping tool.  

So how exactly do you cut an image down, nothing else added in.  Huh?  I dont want to resize it, or change it or modify i, except to trim off some edges!  So simple in every other software on earth.  going back to gimp.

[Old Bruce]

7 minutes ago, ahnay said:

yeah, my photo doesnt work like this at all!  Every time i try to crop an image it then crops it and expands it

Are you sure that this isn't just the automatic zooming to fit that is occurring?

[ahnay]

Just now, Old Bruce said:

Are you sure that this isn't just the automatic zooming to fit that is occurring?

what? yes im zoomed out. 

[ahnay]

[ahnay]

[ahnay]

yeah

[Old Bruce]

What are you wanting? 

Is the first picture (a2.JPG) the picture before cropping and the second (a2.JPG) after?

Are you wanting to get rid of the transparency and just have the picture be the board?

Snapping is controlled by the little Magnet on the toolbar. 

    Here I have only Snap to guides turned on.

[ahnay]

I just want to crop the picture, cut down its size and get rid of some things on its ends.  Just a normal crop.  And every time i try it does the crop and expands the picture.  Its simple. but apparently affinity photo has decided you cant do that.

[ahnay]

its expanding to canvas size i believe.  there must be someplace hidden to turn that stupid function off.

 

[Old Bruce]

5 minutes ago, ahnay said:

And every time i try it does the crop and expands the picture. 

Are you seeing the cropped area become the cropped area Plus some of the outer space added or are you seeing the cropped area become larger in pixel size.

Take, of say, a 100 pixel square area in the centre for the crop, is the result having some of the excluded area included in the finished crop. Or are you seeing the 100 pixel square area become 111 pixels square but have only the area you wanted?

A screenshot showing your layers panel might be helpful.

Is this a Pixel Layer or an Image Layer?

 

[ahnay]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Are you seeing the cropped area become the cropped area Plus some of the outer space added or are you seeing the cropped area become larger in pixel size.

Take, of say, a 100 pixel square area in the centre for the crop, is the result having some of the excluded area included in the finished crop. Or are you seeing the 100 pixel square area become 111 pixels square but have only the area you wanted?

A screenshot showing your layers panel might be helpful.

Is this a Pixel Layer or an Image Layer?

 

look at the pictures for the answer. its there.  there is just the one layer. the cropped area become larger in pixel size.

[ahnay]

[ahnay]

You can see the original boundary of this image

[ahnay]

so crop doesnt really crop, its just junk.   Looks like the only way to actually crop anything in photo, is to use a mask, or export a slice!  Seriously, nobody has any comments about this?  lol.  what a joke. 

[Old Bruce]

What I am seeing is the difference due to the zoom factor. For the original the whole thing is at 37% and the cropped is at 55%. Look at the Navigator Panel in the lower right of your screenshots.

 

[ahnay]

It says the size is the correct size when i tried to resize it, so i zoomed out and yes it was zoomed in?  what happened to my canvas?  what is that new blue line around the image which i thought was my margin line? what on earth have these people done?  phhh. 

[ahnay]

So what is in the image above?  if its cropped why is there a huge blue box all around it?  what happened to my canvas?  Is the furthest blue line on the left my canvas magine?  and what is the dark blue square inside the image?  no my canvas was 11 wide by 8.5 high, with a margin of .25 all around, its gone.  stupid software, waste of coins.

 

[Pšenda]

Rasterize and Trim command? 

Margin? 

[Dan C]

Hi @ahnay,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble, I believe you are a little confused over the functionality of Cropping in Affinity Photo.

The Crop Tool will 'crop' the canvas of your document, rather than the specific layer you've selected, hence the canvas size is different before and after the crop -

15 hours ago, ahnay said:

Looks like the only way to actually crop anything in photo, is to use a mask

If you only want to crop one layer and not the canvas itself, then you're correct and you should use a masked vector object for this. You can do this by drawing your vector shape (for example a rectangle around the are you wish to keep), the drag and drop the rectangle on the thumbnail of the image layer to be cropped.

15 hours ago, ahnay said:

So what is in the image above?  if its cropped why is there a huge blue box all around it?

Cropping in Affinity Photo is also non-destructive by design, which means the pixel content is not removed automatically. As Psenda mentions above, you can right-click on the layer and select Rasterise and Trim if you wish to remove this pixel data outside of the canvas.

You can find out more about cropping in the following tutorial -

https://affinity.serif.com/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/366751817/

I hope this clears things up.

[ahnay]

8 hours ago, Dan C said:

Hi @ahnay,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble, I believe you are a little confused over the functionality of Cropping in Affinity Photo.

The Crop Tool will 'crop' the canvas of your document, rather than the specific layer you've selected, hence the canvas size is different before and after the crop -

If you only want to crop one layer and not the canvas itself, then you're correct and you should use a masked vector object for this. You can do this by drawing your vector shape (for example a rectangle around the are you wish to keep), the drag and drop the rectangle on the thumbnail of the image layer to be cropped.

Cropping in Affinity Photo is also non-destructive by design, which means the pixel content is not removed automatically. As Psenda mentions above, you can right-click on the layer and select Rasterise and Trim if you wish to remove this pixel data outside of the canvas.

You can find out more about cropping in the following tutorial -

https://affinity.serif.com/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/366751817/

I hope this clears things up.

So, then, i missed the post about rasterise and trim?   oh wait, i did see that and wondered what that was.  Ok. i was going to ask how you resize an image then if you couldnt trim off all the blank space.  The systems sees the blank space in the size so you cant just type in dimensions.  So basically, you can only work on one image at a time because its actually the canvas?  this really does not make any sense to me at all.  I swear i read it could crop images and also it could change the canvas size by cropping it too.  Two different things, not one.  So to crop you have to go into design, and then come back to photo with that?  Im sure if they try harder they could actually make this all much more difficult and unprofessional than it already is. LOL.  its too late for me to get a refund or i would.  Thank you very much for your explanations, i do appreciate it. 😃

[Ron P.]

It's not difficult at all. Yes you can crop in Photo, you do not need to go into Designer for that function. I think you're trying to use Serif's products as they are Adobe's. To use them, you need to re-train your brain, ie; learn the programs. Serif's do a lot of, maybe even most, of what Adobe's do, just use a different method to get there.

Crop an image in Affinity Photo.

Online Help Crop Tool, Cropping & Straightening

Serif Affinity Photo Tutorials Cropping

YouTube Tutorials for Affinity Photo Cropping

Finally as stated before, Cropping in Photo is non-destructive, until you trim it, thus the Rasterize and trim. If you want to resize a layer (which can be an image), resize it using the move tool. Once you have it resized, then right-click on the layer and select, Rasterize and Trim.

8 hours ago, ahnay said:

So basically, you can only work on one image at a time because its actually the canvas?

No, you can work on numerous images. You can use File>Place menu option to import/place images, each as a separate layer, into a single document.

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, Ron P. said:

you can work on numerous images. You can use File>Place menu option to import/place images, each as a separate layer, into a single document.

True. But having done that, you cannot use the Crop Tool in Affinity Photo to crop one of the Placed images, because the Crop Tool is for cropping the content of the canvas. You would need to use a vector crop, with a rectangle as mentioned above, if you want to "crop" one of the Placed images. Or Designer, which has that vector Crop Tool built-in as its Crop Tool. Or Publisher, which has Picture Frames as another variation of cropping.