Cropping Tool: Possible to Crop at an Angle?

[JVGen]

The image below is a png that has been imported to Affinity Designer.  It does not have layers.

I want to crop the white rectangle, keeping straight edges.  After cropping I want to rotate the image so that the edges of the white rectangle are parallel with the edges of the artboard.

Is there an easy way to do this with the cropping tool?

I'm working in Affinity Designer 2 on MacOS.  TYIA!

 

[dominik]

9 minutes ago, JVGen said:

The image below is a png that has been imported to Affinity Designer.  It does not have layers.

I want to crop the white rectangle, keeping straight edges.  After cropping I want to rotate the image so that the edges of the white rectangle are parallel with the edges of the artboard.

Is there an easy way to do this with the cropping tool?

I'm working in Affinity Designer 2 on MacOS.  TYIA!

Hello @JVGen,

there is no way in AD to crop non vertical and horizontal angles. Affinity Photo does have a straighten option with its Crop Tool. There you would first straighten the image and afterwards crop to the image's borders.

If you want to work in AD you can get this accomplished, too:

• First unlock the background layer if it is locked (this is usually the case if you import an image)
• Next place a guide exactly at the top corner of the white rectangle
• With the Move Tool enable 'Transform Origin' on the toolbar. This will bring up a little crosshair in the very middle of the pixel layer
• Move the transform origin to exactly the top corner of the white rectangle. You will have to zoom in quite close to position it exactly
• Finally rotate the pixel image in order to align its top left border with the guide. You can achieve this very precisely by using the transform panel. Click in the rotation value field and use your mouse wheel to increase or decrease the angle's value. Holding down CTRL will increas in smaller steps and helps to adjust precisely.
• Afterwards you can crop with the regular Crop Tool.

If it is just for a white rectangle on a black background it would be much simpler to create this from scratch in AD, though.

d.

[thomaso]

57 minutes ago, JVGen said:

I want to crop the white rectangle, keeping straight edges. 

For instance like so: Add a vector cropping mask layer (e.g. via Vector Crop Tool) and rotate the image as required. Depending on the order (rotate first or add mask first) you may need to activate "Lock Children" for the image rotation or select the mask an re-rotate this.

[JVGen]

53 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Add a vector cropping mask layer (e.g. via Vector Crop Tool)

Can you explain how to do this?  I don't see a way to create a mask layer with the Crop Tool?

 

 

[thomaso]

Just use the tool. In your screenshot you have selected the tool but did not drag any of its handles yet.

[JVGen]

11 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Just use the tool. In your screenshot you have selected the tool but did not drag any of its handles yet.

Sorry - it isn't clear to me.  I've rotated the image, started a crop, and tried unlock/locking the children.  It still crops along the edges of the original image.

[thomaso]

You are almost there. If you now rotate the currently selected mask layer ("Rectangle") you are done with rotation. Then you can move its edges to the desired size.