Affinity Photo 2.1 (not sure if it is only related to this) copy and paste and export is not consistent

[CyberAngel]

1 hour ago, lepr said:

You and R C-R are completely misunderstanding me, as is so very often the case.

As I keep saying, my poor communication skills are probably to blame.

 

I think you are misunderstanding what I am wanting, and what I am expecting.

I am expecting to make a change to the marquee size and nothing else. And after I have positioned it, and resized it then copy it and paste it back.

Why Affinity is doing what it is doing is wrong! 

[CyberAngel]

56 minutes ago, lepr said:

Of course the marching ants change when a Pixel Selection is transformed. The marching ants are a visualisation aid so the user can see the extent of a Pixel Selection's raster grid transformed into the document raster space.

But the expectation is that the marquee is resized and only it be resized, not what is under it.

 

 

[Return]

I did test the files in this thread and got a sharp copy by using a rectangle as helper to get a clean selection.
The issue remains that it adds a pixel to the outcome which seems to be the topic here.
My guess is that any selection consisting marching ants uses some kind of boundary.
By this I mean that the marching ants are 0.~~  pixels wide and add to the selection and get rounded up.

 

[Brian_J]

10 minutes ago, CyberAngel said:

What makes you think it is performing as designed?

Because it appears that's the intended behavior of the software. You can report it as a bug and see what Serif has to say.

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, CyberAngel said:

But the expectation is that the marquee is resized and only it be resized, not what is under it.

That will depend, I think, on whether you have a pixel layer selected in the Layers panel when you create the marquee and Transform it.

As I understand it (and see it working): If you have a pixel layer selected when creating/transforming the marquee, you have actually selected the pixels, and when you do the transformation you are transforming those pixels.

[Brian_J]

7 minutes ago, CyberAngel said:

I think you are misunderstanding what I am wanting, and what I am expecting.

I am expecting to make a change to the marquee size and nothing else. And after I have positioned it, and resized it then copy it and paste it back.

lepr understands what you are trying to accomplish.

[Return]

Just now, Brian_J said:

lepr understands what you are trying to accomplish.

Guess we all do understand but it isn't currently doable in the manner requested.
Only Serif can tell if a rounding up is the issue and why or what is causing it.

[Brian_J]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That will depend, I think, on whether you have a pixel layer selected in the Layers panel when you create the marquee and Transform it.

As I understand it (and see it working): If you have a pixel layer selected when creating/transforming the marquee, you have actually selected the pixels, and when you do the transformation you are transforming those pixels.

It doesn't matter if a layer is selected or not. Changing the dimensions of a pixel selection in the Transform panel or Quick Mask has the same result whether a layer is selected or not.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Brian_J said:

Because it appears that's the intended behavior of the software.

If so, explain this. In the test.afphoto file the OP provided, select & copy the top 73389.png layer. Note that its size is 225x 248 px. Now do a new from clipboard to get a new, one layer document with that 73389.png layer in it. Now, with that layer selected do a marquee select around the whole thing t get a 225x 248 px selection & in the Transform panel reduce the width by one pixel to 224 px. Do another copy & another new from clipboard. 

The size of the new file is 224x248 px, not 225x248 px. There was no need to apply any transform matrix to it, no antialiasing or resampling done or needed because everything is pixel aligned to begin with.

[CyberAngel]

30 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That will depend, I think, on whether you have a pixel layer selected in the Layers panel when you create the marquee and Transform it.

As I understand it (and see it working): If you have a pixel layer selected when creating/transforming the marquee, you have actually selected the pixels, and when you do the transformation you are transforming those pixels.

Thats the thing, whether you do or don't is not the issue. The issue is I expected to resize the marquee and the marquee only!

As I have stated, every other package does this, and hell, even Notepad can do this. It is the core staple of selection to copy and paste. The question is why is Affinity going against the norm here, and if they are not, why does it work this way?

[CyberAngel]

30 minutes ago, Brian_J said:

lepr understands what you are trying to accomplish.

I don't think he does!

[R C-R]

OK, one more shot at this. Make of it what you will:

In test v3.afphoto I selected the top 73389.png layer, drew out a marching ants selection & using the Quick Mask function set it to 224x248 px at X=608 & Y=649 px so it exactly covers all but the rightmost column of pixels. I then exited Quick Mask mode, did a copy & paste, resulting in the 73389.png (no blurring!) layer, which as best as I can tell is a blur-free, antialias free copy of all but the rightmost column of the original.

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, CyberAngel said:

Thats the thing, whether you do or don't is not the issue. The issue is I expected to resize the marquee and the marquee only!

But how exactly are you resizing the marquee when the pixel layer is selected? Are you grabbing one of the handles it shows when you have the Move Tool selected & you select it or via the Transform panel or the Quick Mask method?

Edited May 22, 2023 by R C-R
edited for clarity (I hope!)

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, CyberAngel said:

The issue is I expected to resize the marquee and the marquee only

And as I (and possibly R C-R) have stated, you can't do that if you have a pixel layer selected. You must do it with no pixel layer selected, and (I think) via the Transform panel.

It doesn't matter what other software may do. If you want to use Affinity, you need to learn how it works, and adjust your expectations to that. Or use the other software.

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

And as I (and possibly R C-R) have stated, you can't do that if you have a pixel layer selected. You must do it with no pixel layer selected, and (I think) via the Transform panel.

It also can be done using the Quick Mask with the Move Tool selected.

[CyberAngel]

16 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But how exactly are you resizing the marquee when the pixel layer is selected? Are you grabbing one of the handles it shows when you have the Move Tool selected & you select it or via the Transform panel or the Quick Mask method?

What handles!

I have said it time and time again.

I drop the marquee down and use the transform to resize the marquee, I expect that to only do the marquee in the same way it resizes any other shape. At that point, the marquee should not be aware of anything else other than its own size and position. It should not care what is under the selection till you press Ctrl +C!!

[CyberAngel]

14 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

And as I (and possibly R C-R) have stated, you can't do that if you have a pixel layer selected. You must do it with no pixel layer selected, and (I think) via the Transform panel.

It doesn't matter what other software may do. If you want to use Affinity, you need to learn how it works, and adjust your expectations to that. Or use the other software.

And I am saying it shouldn't matter, and I have tried it with a pixel layer selected and not selected and get the same results.

The expectation, coming from other software is simple!

Step 1: I place a marquee

Step 2: If required position or resize this marquee via handles or the transform

Step 3: CTRL + C

Step 4: Ctrl + V

I should now have what is under the selection. Instead, I not only get what is under the selection, but I get an extra pixel on the width!!! For what reason is there an extra pixel in the width? What is happening here is counterintuitive to the standard process every application on this planet does, make a selection, adjust that selection copy and paste!!!

 

[CyberAngel]

10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It also can be done using the Quick Mask with the Move Tool selected.

And I also get an extra pixel, but that again is a long winded process to something that should be so simple and just work!

[CyberAngel]

Ok, so because I feel that nobody has fully understand what I am talking about, I have put together a video.

Before watching this, please take a moment to reread the title of this post, which clearly says that using the marquee tool for copy and paste is not consistent!

This video has proven that I can duplicate 2 of the 3 issues I have experienced, this post has shown the other via an image.

[R C-R]

At the end of your video you ask why it works inconsistently. I'm pretty sure the answer to that is because there is a bug, possibly in the Transform panel.

[CyberAngel]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

At the end of your video you ask why it works inconsistently. I'm pretty sure the answer to that is because there is a bug, possibly in the Transform panel.

Right, which is what I have suspected.

And why I was not interested in work arounds, or it is because it does this, or it does that. I was interested in knowing if what I am seeing is indeed a bug.

[lepr]

4 hours ago, CyberAngel said:

Ok, so because I feel that nobody has fully understand what I am talking about, I have put together a video.

Before watching this, please take a moment to reread the title of this post, which clearly says that using the marquee tool for copy and paste is not consistent!

This video has proven that I can duplicate 2 of the 3 issues I have experienced, this post has shown the other via an image.

 

For the moment, putting aside the small mountain of comments since I last posted, I'll respond to your video. 

Your video shows a severely flawed test.

After your first copy and paste (unfeathered), you made a new Pixel Selection (PS) and transformed the PS and then pressed ctrl+C or whatever to attempt a copy at time 3:35. However, nothing was highlighted in Layers panel when you attempted the copy and so the clipboard still contained the earlier unfeathered copy, not a new copy influenced by the new PS.

You went on to attempt more copies with various PS, some when there was a highlighted source and some when not, and so sometimes you were unwittingly failing to create a new object on the clipboard, leading to your (and particular other people's) whacky ideas about the software's behaviour.

 

[CyberAngel]

1 minute ago, lepr said:

 

For the moment, putting aside the small mountain of comments since I last posted, I'll respond to your video. 

Your video shows a severely flawed test.

After your first copy and paste (unfeathered), you made a new Pixel Selection (PS) and transformed the PS and then pressed ctrl+C or whatever to attempt a copy at time 3:35. However, nothing was highlighted in Layers panel when you attempted the copy and so the clipboard still contained the earlier unfeathered copy, not a new copy influenced by the new PS.

You went on to attempt more copies with various PS, some when there was a highlighted source and some when not, and so sometimes you were unwittingly failing to create a new object on the clipboard, leading to your whacky ideas about the software's behaviour.

 

It doesn't matter if the layer is highlighted or not, the results are the same!

[lepr]

1 minute ago, CyberAngel said:

It doesn't matter if the layer is highlighted or not, the results are the same!

LOL. What a bizarre attitude.

[Brian_J]

1 minute ago, CyberAngel said:

It doesn't matter if the layer is highlighted or not, the results are the same!

It doesn’t matter if a layer is selected when you make the selection. It does matter if there’s no layer selected when you copy — if no layer is selected when you copy, there is no change to you’re clipboard, so you’re pasting the last thing you copied correctly.