Feature Request: please provide a dedicated 'crop to selection' function in the Edit menu

[stingray]

Please provide a dedicated 'crop to selection' function in the Edit menu (or elsewhere). Currently, I see no way of doing this in one move.

Edited December 13, 2023 by stingray

[carl123]

From the help....

       To crop an image to selection:

1. From the Tools panel on the left, select any Selection Tool.
2. Draw out the selection to set the prospective crop area.
3. Select the Crop Tool.
4. (Optional) Adjust the context toolbar settings.
5. (Optional) Drag a corner or edge handle on the grid to resize the grid to suit, then reposition the grid by dragging within it.
6. From the context toolbar, click Apply or press the Return key to commit the crop.

26 minutes ago, stingray said:

Currently, I see no way of doing this in one move.

It's 2 moves but much better than not being available at all

[stingray]

12 hours ago, carl123 said:

It's 2 moves but much better than not being available at all

Thanks @carl123. You're right two moves is better than nothing. That's the way I've been doing it. It just seems a little silly that we don't have a dedicated function for that. I use crop to selection very very very often in my workflow and in my opinion it would be convenient if the software was supplied with that function out of the box.

Edited December 13, 2023 by stingray

[stingray]

I suspect many users here frown upon such destructive edit methods since the 'raison d'etre' for Affinity Photo seems to be non-destructive editing. I agree much of the time non-destructive is desirable but sometimes I need destructive techniques.

For anyone interested I worked out a very fast way of achieving a 'crop to selection' as follows:

1 - make a selection with the Rectangular Marquee tool

2 - select Copy flattened

3 - select New from Clipboard

Done.

I was hoping to put steps 2 and 3 in a macro but no go joe! If anyone knows how to put such commands in a Macro please let me know.

TBH, after grappling with this, I should add also that 'Copy Flattened' when used alone actually fulfills a lot of what i was looking for. I'm often copying selections from an image in Affinity into other software and 'Copy Flattened' does the job in the one move i was looking for. So really all this to say that 'Copy Flattened' makes up for not having a 'crop to selection' and in some ways it's better.

Edited December 13, 2023 by stingray

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, stingray said:

For anyone interested I worked out a very fast way of achieving a 'copy from selection' as follows:

1 - make a selection with the Rectangular Marquee tool

2 - select Copy flattened

3 - select New from Clipboard

The only reason you would need step 2 is when you're working on an Image layer, rather than a Pixel layer. You can't copy pixels from an Image layer using a standard Copy; you would need to Rasterize the layer first.

[stingray]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

The only reason you would need step 2...

Thanks for your response.

It could be I misunderstand you or perhaps you have the wrong end of the stick 🙃. Are you suggesting an alternative method of doing this? or are you reiterating / confirming the need to rasterise the layer which is inherent in the use of the 'Copy Flattened' function?

You need step 2 in order to specify the selected area only. Otherwise a standard copy will copy the whole layer. Standard copy is not relevant in this procedure. The whole point was to do this in a procedure with as few steps as possible. There are countless ways of achieving the same thing... this was the briefest way I found. Please enlighten me with a different step by step procedure if you have a better or briefer way to achieve this... that is: a replication of a 'crop to selection' function in three or less steps.

And to clarify the use of the 'Copy Flattened' function alone. I have started to use 'Copy Flattened' in the following scenario:

1 - while working in another app, take a screenshot by pressing the PrtScr (Print Screen) button on the computer keyboard

2 - launch Affinity and select 'New from Clipboard' (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N) in order to import the screenshot

3 - make a selection within the image using the Rectangular Marquee tool and select 'copy flattened' (Ctrl+Shift+C)

4 - copy this selection into another app using a standard paste function. Only the selected part of the image gets copied (which is what I want!).

Note / FYI

In my post above I meant to write: I worked out a very fast way of achieving a 'crop to selection' as follows

Edited December 13, 2023 by stingray

[walt.farrell]

50 minutes ago, stingray said:

It could be I misunderstand you or perhaps you have the wrong end of the stick. Are you suggesting an alternative method of doing this? or are you reiterating / confirming the need to rasterise the layer which is inherent in the use of the 'Copy Flattened' function?

You can make a pixel selection then use a normal Copy if you have a Pixel layer. But if you have an Image layer, you need to either Rasterize it or use Copy Flattened instead of Copy.

[stingray]

31 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But if you have an Image layer, you need to either Rasterize it or use Copy Flattened instead of Copy.

Exactly. Working from an image layer I don't want to use an extra step to rasterise and then copy. 'Copy Flattened' does that in one move. The whole point of the procedure was to do it in as few steps as possible.

Is there a way to use 'New from Clipboard' and have the image appear with the layer automatically set to a Pixel layer from the get go? Don't all imported or copied images start out as an image layer first?

Edited December 13, 2023 by stingray

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, stingray said:

26 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Copy.

Exactly. Working from an image layer I don't want to use an extra step to rasterise and then copy. 'Copy Flattened' does that in one move. The whole point of the procedure was to do it in as few steps as possible.

But as I said, your step 2 is only needed if you happen to be working with an Image layer. It's not always needed, and for many cases and many users it's not. 

8 minutes ago, stingray said:

Is there a way to use 'New from Clipboard' and have the image appear with the layer automatically set to a Pixel layer from the get go?

That can only happen, of course, if there's a Pixel layer in the clipboard. But even then, I don't think it happens. I think I've seen requests for that.

[stingray]

23 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

your step 2 is only needed if you happen to be working with an Image layer. It's not always needed, and for many cases and many users it's not.

Point taken.

But when working with an image which was pasted from a screenshot taken by pressing the PrtScr (Print Screen) button, for example, the layer would always start out as an image layer right?

I'm often pasting technical screenshots from other software here.

I'll have to look into the intricacies of and differences between image layers and pixel layers. Thanks for taking the time to point out some of the details.

Edited December 13, 2023 by stingray

[walt.farrell]

41 minutes ago, stingray said:

But when working with an image which was pasted from a screenshot taken by pressing the PrtScr (Print Screen) button, for example, the layer would always start out as an image layer right?

Yes. So your first step in that scenario would usually be to Rasterize it, if you want to be working with a "normal" document, unless you really need an Image layer.

My main point wass that when setting up a list of instructions for how to do something, it's best to recognize the circumstances that require them to be used, and document those, too