Cropping problem

[Silvernel]

Hi there!

I'm having a slight issue with the crop tool. It works perfectly ok most of the time, but I'm a bit annoyed that it allows me to crop outside of the original image, thereby causing unwanted empty areas to be included after cropping. My only current method to avoid that this happens is to always inspect the crop zoomed in, which is a bit unpractical. Is there any way to force the crop tool to never go outside of the original image limits?

Mats

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Silvernel

Assuming that you are talking about the Crop Tool in Photo – the Crop Tool works differently in Designer and Publisher – there’s no way that I know of to restrain the crop to within the original image.

However, if you have Snapping ON the Crop Tool should (in most cases) snap to the edges of the image which should make it easier for you to stop ‘going over the edge’.

[Silvernel]

Thanks, Garry. I definitely think that I'm talking about Photo, don't even know what Designer or Publisher is. I have tried many of the various snapping options, there are a lot of them, but so far nothing has worked.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Silvernel

[GarryP]

Even with minimal Snapping options set it seems to always snap for me – see attached video.

Would you be able to give us a full-screen screenshot where we can see your Layers Panel and Snapping options?

Note: Designer and Publisher are the other two Affinity applications. It’s best to tell us which you are using as they have different functionalities and some functionalities work differently in each.

[Silvernel]

Wow, thanks. Really grateful for that. Seems I had overdone it, I had enabled maybe seven or eight snapping options a bit randomly. But clearing them all except for "Enable snapping" does the trick. Don't even know which one I had enabled that made it behave the way it did.

Mats

[loukash]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

there’s no way that I know of to restrain the crop to within the original image.

If by "within the original image" you mean "crop to opaque only", there is a somewhat weird workaround via the Panorama persona where the Crop tool for some still unknown and undisclosed reason (I asked!) has a "Crop To Opaque" button while the regular Photo persona Crop tool hasn't.

The workaround goes like this: 

1. temporarily export your image as TIFF or PNG with transparency
2. File > Panorama
3. add your exported image twice, otherwise there's nothing to stitch
4. stitch > OK
5. Crop tool > context toolbar: Crop To Opaque 
6. Apply
7. voilà