Working with selections in Affinity Designer v.2

[Narvaez]

I have just started using AD 2. After selecting part of this aerial photo with the lasso polygonal tool, I can't figure out how to save the selection to a file and/or move it to a new layer. The Select menu has a bunch of options, but none of them seem to work only on the selected area. And under "Select Object”, which seems appropriate, there are many more options that I don’t understand. I gather that AD1 was was more straightforward about this. None of the AD2 tutorials have helped so far. Would someone please explain how this works?

[Hangman]

Hi @Narvaez and welcome to the forums...

The process is the same as in V1, hopefully this will help, but just ask if anything doesn't make sense...

[Narvaez]

I'm not that familiar with V1, but doesn't it just offer the option to save the selection as an object file? I don't see that in the V2 menu here. Maybe I don't know how to interpret these selection choices.

[Narvaez]

I see how easy it is in Affinity Photo, but I'm using Designer, which seems to work differently.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

The process is the same as in V1...

But in neither V1 nor V2 of Affinity Designer do these options to save selection exist.

[walt.farrell]

25 minutes ago, Narvaez said:

I see how easy it is in Affinity Photo, but I'm using Designer, which seems to work differently.

In Photo (and in Designer) I would make the selection as you have, then Ctrl+C to copy it, and File > New from Clipboard to get it into a new document. Same process in both applications.

What are you find in Photo that's easier?

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

What are you find in Photo that's easier?

I think it is saving the selection to a file without having to copy it, use new from clipboard to create a new file, & saving that.

IOW, in AP Select > Save Selection > To File ... does that in one step.

[h_d]

@Narvaez your placed image is on an Image-type layer. In Designer, Pixel Persona, you need to right-click on the layer and choose Rasterise to convert it to a Pixel-type layer. You can then either copy your selection, and create a new Pixel layer and paste the selection to that, or indeed select File-New from Clipboard to create a new Designer document. 

 

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, h_d said:

You can then either copy your selection, and create a new Pixel layer and paste the selection to that, or indeed select File-New from Clipboard to create a new Designer document. 

But in AP you do not need to do of that copying/pasting stuff. Instead, like in the video @Hangman provided, you can use the Select menu option to save the selection directly to a file.

It also isn't clear to me if the photo the OP is showing is in a Pixel or Image layer, so can you explain to me how you figured that out?

[h_d]

14 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It also isn't clear to me if the photo the OP is showing is in a Pixel or Image layer, so can you explain to me how you figured that out?

Ahhh... I was actually looking at @Hangman's screen grab. (Engage brain before tapping keyboard... )

 

But it may still help the OP, who is asking for help with Designer not with Photo.

EDITED: In Designer, I can't copy and paste a selection from an Image layer but I can from a Pixel layer.

[Old Bruce]

17 minutes ago, R C-R said:

IOW, in AP Select > Save Selection > To File ... does that in one step.

I think the Select > Save Selection > To File ... saves the Marquee selection, the marching ants, not the pixel information/image/picture.

[h_d]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

think the Select > Save Selection > To File ... saves the Marquee selection, the marching ants, not the pixel information/image/picture.

It does - as an .afselection file.

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I think the Select > Save Selection > To File ... saves the Marquee selection, the marching ants, not the pixel information/image/picture.

You are right about that.  Select > Save Selection > To File ... creates an *.afselection file, just the marching ants selection but no pixel content.

EDIT: @h_d beat me to it!

[Narvaez]

Thank you for all of your helpful advice which I'll try in due course and report back. I'm old & slow!

[Hangman]

7 hours ago, Narvaez said:

I have just started using AD 2. After selecting part of this aerial photo with the lasso polygonal tool, I can't figure out how to save the selection to a file and/or move it to a new layer.

My original assumption, based on the mention of the lasso polygonal tool, suggested that your weapon of choice when selecting part of the aerial photo was that you were working in Designer's Pixel Persona since that particular tool isn't available in the Designer Persona. The process shown in the original video clip is the same whether working in Photo or the Pixel Persona of Designer and was really more to demonstrate the technique (I just happened to have Photo open at the time but in hindsight, the clip would perhaps have been better if shown using Designer's Pixel Persona for the avoidance of doubt)...

I was slightly unsure regarding the reference to "save the selction to a file and/or move it to a new layer" as to me the former could mean two different things, which is why I showed both the Save Selection to File option along with exporting the selection to a PNG file to try and cover both bases though as rightly pointed out above the former is only an option in Photo and the .afselection file can only be reloaded back into Photo but in terms of how to move the selection to a new layer works, then the process is identical whether using Photo or the Pixel Persona in Designer...

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

In Photo (and in Designer) I would make the selection as you have, then Ctrl+C to copy it, and File > New from Clipboard to get it into a new document. Same process in both applications.

The only downside of this method is that when using File > New from Clipboard your New from Clipboard file adopts 96 dpi vs that of the file it is copied from (in the example above 300 dpi) which is the reason for simply creating a new layer using copy/paste in the same document to maintain the resolution, though equally you could create a new 300 dpi document and copy/paste to that...

Anyway, long story short, the video clip was really more to demonstrate the technique of how to save the selection to a file and/or move it to a new layer.

Same Process in Designer's Pixel Persona (bar the Save Selection to File part...)

[Narvaez]

Hi Hangman & other helpers... Regarding that strange-looking aerial photo I posted, here’s a bit of history that explains what I’m trying to do. The old Coast & Geodetic Survey recorded ~41,000 of these nine-lens photos for the whole U.S. coastal zone during 1937-1961, and used them to prepare topo maps and nautical charts. The original photos in the National Archives are a valuable historical record but difficult to access and use. Back then they had special transforming printers that composed these with lenses into planimetric map form. Those printers are no longer in service, so the images have to be transformed some other way to make sense of them. That involves the operation I show here. So far—thanks to your advice—I understand the process of putting the nine image parts into separate layers (along with the template) and correcting and rearranging them. Now I need to merge them together like this example for Pine Island, and I’m trying to learn the warp tools in Designer 2. These 8 trapezoidal images should be warped out to fit within the red guide lines, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out at this point. BTW, this is a photograph (not a scan) of an original nine-lens negative (which is 2x2 feet!), so it's a little deformed and won’t fit the template perfectly, but that’s OK. Once again, I’ll appreciate any tips about warping these raster images.

[walt.farrell]

I think that part of the problem, @Narvaez, has been caused by ambiguous language usage. "Copy Selection" can mean either copy the Selection boundaries to use in another context, or copy the Selection contents to use in another context.

[Narvaez]

Yes, part of my learning curve is understanding what the possibilities are so I know how to describe what I'm trying to do. At least I've figured out the Copy Selection part of the process, and now am puzzling over the warp functions. It's my first experience with a graphics design program like this one.

[NotMyFault]

I think this process can be semi-automated in Photo (better than Designer). 

Would it be possible to upload one complete set of original images? Or are these images available on the web?

[Narvaez]

After watching another tutorial on using the warp tools in Designer 2, it sounds like for warping raster images, I'd be better off using the Affinity Photo 2 program instead. Any opinions on that?

[NotMyFault]

That is true for the current version. The next version of Designer will include warp and perspective filters for raster layers (buried from Photo), but until then Photo is better suited.

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, Narvaez said:

So far—thanks to your advice—I understand the process of putting the nine image parts into separate layers (along with the template) and correcting and rearranging them. Now I need to merge them together like this example for Pine Island, and I’m trying to learn the warp tools in Designer 2. These 8 trapezoidal images should be warped out to fit within the red guide lines, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out at this point. BTW, this is a photograph (not a scan) of an original nine-lens negative (which is 2x2 feet!), so it's a little deformed and won’t fit the template perfectly, but that’s OK. Once again, I’ll appreciate any tips about warping these raster images.

This complete process can be done completely non-destructively, so you would need only to paste in a another source image and get the transformation immediately.

All you need is 8 instances of a live perspective filter - maybe it is possible even without. We would need only 1 or 2 example images to produce to create the process.

 

 

[Narvaez]

After watching another tutorial on using the warp tools in Designer 2, it sounds like for warping raster images, I'd be better off using the Affinity Photo 2 program instead. Any opinions on that?

I think you're right about Photo 2 @NotMyFault. It would be wonderful to semi-automate this. These images are not online anywhere, but you're welcome to play around with this one. You would have to cut out the 9 separate parts of it and use my template here to transform and compose them, as above. 

[Narvaez]

By the way,@NotMyFault, I have 20 of these images. Here's another.

[NotMyFault]

Thanks.

The basic idea: 

• Create shapes like 8-sided polygon, trapeze etc which cover the exact area of the 9 parts. Save them as template (assets or template file) for later re-use
• now use the fill tool, set mode to bitmap, and select the source image form disk.
• The 9 shapes get filled with the correct parts of the image, and can be individually processed in later steps.

1. destructive workflow:

• use the layer geometry function like flip and move too to correctly align the shapes manually into target position. Try to use transform panel and numeric input.

2. non-destructive workflow

• (this will be tedious, but only needed once): add one individual live perspective filter to every shape. This will work best when the shape is not rotated.
• So you need to rotate all shapes so that one of the 8 shapes is horizontally aligned.
• Then add Perspective filter and move nodes to correct positions.
• Use the manually aligned shapes from (1) as helper objects (with snapping active). 
• Then rotate back all 8 shapes into original position.

Try this best with only 2 of the 8 tiles. Once you have all slices and the perspective filter, you can  re-use them for all source images. 

 

There is one catch: you said the images were made by camera, not scanned. It all depends that all camera images are correctly aligned in same way. If the Camera was handheld and you have individual perspective distortion, you need to correct them as pre-processing step.