Grad snapping w/ selection marquee

[Zack Black]

As a game developer who has recently jumped ship from all of my Adobe products to alternative solutions, it absolutely saddens me to say that I am unable to continue using Affinity Photo because of this missing feature. I have around 50 projects going all the way back to the 90s. There are countless UI elements and sprite sheets where everything is laid out in grids of 8 pixels. I often need to just open one of these source PNGs and move something to a different location. It's seriously a real shame because up until now I have been adapting quickly and easily to the differences coming from Photoshop. I absolutely HATE the idea of going back to my Adobe subscription but this is something that is just going to drive me insane trying to work without. Please PLEASE add support for snapping the selection marquee!

[debraspicher]

2 hours ago, Zack Black said:

As a game developer who has recently jumped ship from all of my Adobe products to alternative solutions, it absolutely saddens me to say that I am unable to continue using Affinity Photo because of this missing feature. I have around 50 projects going all the way back to the 90s. There are countless UI elements and sprite sheets where everything is laid out in grids of 8 pixels. I often need to just open one of these source PNGs and move something to a different location. It's seriously a real shame because up until now I have been adapting quickly and easily to the differences coming from Photoshop. I absolutely HATE the idea of going back to my Adobe subscription but this is something that is just going to drive me insane trying to work without. Please PLEASE add support for snapping the selection marquee!

Have you tried hitting 'Q'? Then use Move Tool (V) to manage the selection.

This option is also available in Select Menu at the very bottom "Edit Selection as Layer"

[Zack Black]

Just now, debraspicher said:

Have you tried hitting 'Q'? Then use Move Tool (V) to manage the selection.

Thanks for the help. Although I can set the bounds of the marquee to the grid this way, moving the new selection still does not snap the item to the grid. It also requires several extra key presses and changing modes which just makes for an awkward workflow. 😞

[debraspicher]

1 hour ago, Zack Black said:

Thanks for the help. Although I can set the bounds of the marquee to the grid this way, moving the new selection still does not snap the item to the grid. It also requires several extra key presses and changing modes which just makes for an awkward workflow. 😞

Snapping works for me for post-selection even on the same layer. Check your snapping panel so that "Snap to grid" is actually enabled. Click the down arrow next to the magnet to check the settings.

There may be a faster way than I could think of, but this isn't a workflow I follow anymore (I do my spritesheets in Designer with Artboards now). Anyway, you could set a keyboard shortcut (see below) for Select>Reselect after your first selection, use V&Q to move it where you need it again and make that selection more mobile that way. That is if you can get your snapping to work. So that way you're only really transforming the selection box once and basically panning around the canvas doing copy and paste operations.

I'm not real sure why we can't just set Marquee to snap to grid. Maybe we can and I just haven't figured it out for myself. I do agree that would be quicker.

Edit: Even better yet, maybe create a Macro for the Select>Reselect (no keyboard shortcut necessary), V, Q operations.. that way you can just pan your canvas as needed with your 8x8 block with one click. Not ideal, but an adaptation centered around your method.

I humbly suggest to rewrite your post a bit up top so that it can easily be read by staff (who does read) that you are requesting the ability to snap marquee tool to grid without Quick Mask (Q).

Edited February 24, 2023 by debraspicher
Added a better solution... maybe...

[Zack Black]

Just now, debraspicher said:

Snapping works for me for post-selection even on the same layer.

I keep trying to do what you are doing in the animation but it just won't work for me! I can't get out of the Quick Mask mode without losing the resize handles. I start with marquee, press Q then V to resize to the grid. And then... ?

(Also, I keep getting into a situation where holding Control + drag will not move the selected pixels underneath and the only way to fix is to close the document and re-open. So confused!)

[debraspicher]

9 minutes ago, Zack Black said:

I keep trying to do what you are doing in the animation but it just won't work for me! I can't get out of the Quick Mask mode without losing the resize handles. I start with marquee, press Q then V to resize to the grid. And then... ?

Click outside the selection (in the red zone) and it will leave the mask with the selection.

Quote

(Also, I keep getting into a situation where holding Control + drag will not move the selected pixels underneath and the only way to fix is to close the document and re-open. So confused!)

If you are using the Background Layer (basically if you opened an image as-is), you must unlock it to be able to shift pixels around. (The lock has to do with blocking movement, not edits) (Sorry I assumed you may have figured this out)

FWIW, I use ScreenToGif if you want to screen what's actually happening on your end (in the future). A simple but powerful little app.

https://www.screentogif.com/

[Zack Black]

Just now, debraspicher said:

If you are using the Background Layer (basically if you opened an image as-is), you must unlock it to be able to shift pixels around.

Ah, got it! Thank you so much for showing me how to do this - I really appreciate it. Definitely more awkward than just having the marquee snap to the grid but at least I can work with this. I truly hope the developers take note of this and update the functionality soon.