Selection window is aligned to the canvas > odd orientation when canvas is rotated

[Intuos5]

The selection tools do not take into account the orientation of the canvas. As a result, the selection window becomes rather unpredictable and therefore difficult to use.

This is on Windows 10, Affinity Designer 10.5.1342.

[walt.farrell]

19 minutes ago, Intuos5 said:

The selection tools do not take into account the orientation of the canvas.

I would say that they do take it into account. You have rotated the view of the canvas, but "vertical" and "horizontal" (as well as left/right/up/down) remain relative to the canvas's content.

[Intuos5]

24 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I would say that they do take it into account. You have rotated the view of the canvas, but "vertical" and "horizontal" (as well as left/right/up/down) remain relative to the canvas's content.

In what use-case is this method desired then? To me it seems like canvas rotation was added after the selection window, which then meant the selection window was constrained relative to the canvas. In that sense, it doesn't take the canvas orientation (with which I meant the screen space) into account.

Whenever you rotate the view in any CAD software, the tools will always work relative to the new orientation — and that's what I would also expect to see in Affinity.

 

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, Intuos5 said:

Whenever you rotate the view in any CAD software, the tools will always work relative to the new orientation — and that's what I would also expect to see in Affinity.

Do you mean that the tools work and ignore the new canvas orientation? That is, vertical/horizontal/right/etc. are always relative to the screen, not to the canvas?

[Intuos5]

Yes, that's what I mean. The tools (always) work relative to the screen. So you can create rectangles at an angle by rotating the canvas.

[Intuos5]

They are straight with respect to the screen in CAD software...

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Intuos5 said:

Yes, that's what I mean. The tools (always) work relative to the screen. So you can create rectangles at an angle by rotating the canvas.

Thanks. That is not the way the Affinity applications work. 

There is, I think, one acknowledged bug: when painting on a rotated canvas, and you want to change the brush width or other attributes by dragging, that is also relative to the canvas. It should be relative to the screen. 

But as far as I know, everything else is supposed to be canvas-, not screen-relative.

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, Intuos5 said:

They are straight with respect to the screen in CAD software...

The Affinity applications are not CAD software.

[Intuos5]

I know, I'm just stating that this behaviour is uncommon and unfavourable.

[FormerCustomer]

I am experiencing the same problem, and I agree with Intuos 5 that Affinity Photo's handling of the rotation tool is certainly uncommon, unfavourible, and for me also awkward, convoluted and frustrating.  I spent 3.5 hours trying to straighten out the canvas after I had successfully rotated the canvas, then cropped it, and the straighten tool keeps failing to work.  When I finally got it to work, like 4 hours later, I had followed such a long, complicate procedure that I could neither remember nor repeat the process again.

This is something very different from how the rotation tools in Photoshop and GIMP work.  The latter programs, by the way, can rotate, crop and straighten any image in less than a minute, whereas, after 3.5 hours of testing, trial and error, reading Affinity Help, and watching a dozen YouTube videos, I still can't straighten out the canvas after the crop.

I'm using Affinity Photo 1.10.5 on Windows 10 Professional Version 21H1.

[FormerCustomer]

walt.farrell: Instead of describing how Affinity apps are supposed to work, why don't you tell us how we can fix this problem by offering solutions that actually do work?

[FormerCustomer]

Please tell us how we can straighten the canvas after we have rotated and cropped the canvas.  Tell us which menus, buttons or commands to use and how to enter them step by step, so we can easily straighten out the canvas and then export or print the document (or JPEG file) using Photo Persona or Develop Persona.

[NotMyFault]

1 minute ago, FormerCustomer said:

Please tell us how we can straighten the canvas after we have rotated and cropped the canvas.  Tell us which menus, buttons or commands to use and how to enter them step by step, so we can easily straighten out the canvas and then export or print the document (or JPEG file) using Photo Persona or Develop Persona.

Depends on what do you want to straighten.

1. If you want to reset the canvas rotation:
   1. use the menu view->reset rotation
2. if you want to straighten a document (all layers):
   1. use the crop tool.
   2. Click the straighten button once
   3. with mouse, click and hold on the left side of an line which defines the horizon. Drag to the right side of the horizon. Release.
3. If you want to straighten one single layer
   1. activate move tool
   2. use the mouse or transform panel to rotate the layer. May choose the anchor point, or even use the option to move the center of rotation freely
4. alternative straighten using develop persona
   1. enter develop persona
   2. activate lens panel
   3. adjust rotation to taste, using numeric input or mouse wheel (while mouse curser hovers over numeric input)
   4. use modifier keys like shift (10, alt/option 0.1) to adjust scale of increments

[NotMyFault]

16 minutes ago, FormerCustomer said:

walt.farrell: Instead of describing how Affinity apps are supposed to work, why don't you tell us how we can fix this problem by offering solutions that actually do work?

Respect, please.

[FormerCustomer]

I think the problem is that I'm moving the whole canvas, instead of just moving the image and then properly cropping the whole canvas so that what is straight on my screen is also straight on my canvas and the two match.  So, how can I do that?

[FormerCustomer]

For example, I've been doing this:

1.  Hold alt key and using mouse wheel to rotate the canvas.

2.  Crop the image with crop tool on left vertical editing tools bar.

3.  Straighten the canvas by clicking on the straighten button on the top tool bar, on the far right.

No. 3 is always the part that inevitably fails, no matter how many different ways I try to do it.  I end up moving the image in all kinds of weird angles that are never straight and the canvas remains at some weird angle that is never straight.

[FormerCustomer]

I've also tried pressing the apply button after cropping, and switching to Develop Persona, and applying again, and then cropping, applying, or pressing return, then cropping again, but I can never get the canvas straight.  I keep getting weird angles.

I also tried saving the file, exporting it, then closing it, then opening it again after the crop, and that doesn't work either.

[FormerCustomer]

I tried all four of NotMyFault's solutions and each of those failed to work, except for 3.

1. Just resets the canvas to the way I started without any changes.

2.  Just creates even worse angles, like 45 degrees, when I'm only trying to rotate about 5 degrees counterclockwise.

3.  Actually worked, but the right menu in the Layers Panel is not actually called "Transform".  It's called Layers - Background, and you have to unlock it before you rotate.  It probably worked because I was only rotating the image, and not the whole canvas, which allowed me to finally crop it upright on the canvas.

4. Never worked, because I could not find any Lens panel anywhere in Develop Persona, not in any of the Layers panels, not on the top tool bars, nor anywhere on the Editing Tools on the left.

[FormerCustomer]

Solution for Rotating, cropping image, then straightening canvas so it aligns with your screen:

1. Photo Persona
Click on crop tool in the vertical bar on the left that is near the top (Editing Tools).  Expand the left side of the canvas out, so you have plenty of space to rotate on that side.  Apply.

2.  Go to the Layers palette on the right and unlock Background (supposed to be Transform).

3.  Click on the Move Tool in the vertical bar on the left (Editing Tools) which is a small black arrow icon near the top.

4.  Left Click on the little circle icon at the top of a vertical line moving up above the top horizontal border of the image.  It makes the curving rotation icon appear there.  Click and drag it down about 5 degrees counterclockwise until the image looks properly aligned on your screen.

5.  I pressed return (though it didn’t seem to work like “apply”).

6.  Left click on the crop tool again, and this time properly crop the entire canvas until all the borders are close to the edges of your document and you get the image you want.

7.  Press return.

8.  File --> Export as JPEG.

[FormerCustomer]

That solution worked in Affinity Photo 1.10.5

 

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, FormerCustomer said:

I think the problem is that I'm moving the whole canvas, instead of just moving the image and then properly cropping the whole canvas so that what is straight on my screen is also straight on my canvas and the two match.  So, how can I do that?

Please note that this is not what Intuos5 was discussing. 

It would have been helpful for you to start your own topic, provide a detailed description of the problem you're experiencing, and a screenshot or video to help demonstrate it.

Edit: And even from your explanations of the "solution" it's still unclear to me (a) what you're starting with and (b) what problem you're having with it. But I'm glad you found something that works for you.

[Old Bruce]

9 hours ago, FormerCustomer said:

I think the problem is that I'm moving the whole canvas, instead of just moving the image and then properly cropping the whole canvas so that what is straight on my screen is also straight on my canvas and the two match.  So, how can I do that?

Move the image, not the whole canvas. Use the Move tool, the arrow shape.