Crop tool in Affinity not working

[Hanan78]

Hi

 

I've been having trouble with cropping tool in designer. when I open an image file that I need to crop, there will be no up-down arrow key and the grab hand doesn't appear.

I watched tutorial clips in YouTube and it seems that my cropping tool not working properly.

I'm using iMac 2013 with Catalina

and I installed affinity suit v2

I will be grateful if someone show me how to fix this problem

 

[Hanan78]

I forgot to mention that nothing appear in the toolbar aswell 

Edited March 30, 2024 by Hanan78

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @Hanan78.

You say that you’re trying to crop an image file, but you mention Designer.

I wonder whether you’ve been watching tutorial clips for Photo. Its Crop Tool is canvas-based, unlike the Crop Tool in Designer which is object-based (so before you use it you need to select the object/layer that you want to crop).

Open your image file in Affinity Photo and try using the Crop Tool there. Post back, of course, if you’re still having difficulties.

[Hanan78]

yeah you are right the tutorial is for Affinity photo, and it is working fine

thank you for taking the time to reply back to this fool here

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, Hanan78 said:

thank you for taking the time to reply back to this fool here

I’m glad I was able to help, but there’s no need to brand yourself a fool! We all have to start somewhere, and many new users are … er … fooled(!) by subtle differences in functionality between the apps in the suite.

[KarinC]

Maybe I'm missing something but I can crop an image in Designer (in Windows)

[PaulEC]

22 minutes ago, KarinC said:

Maybe I'm missing something but I can crop an image in Designer (in Windows)

As Alfred said, you can crop in both Photo and Designer, but the Crop Tool works in different ways.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, KarinC said:

Maybe I'm missing something but I can crop an image in Designer (in Windows)

 

46 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

As Alfred said, you can crop in both Photo and Designer, but the Crop Tool works in different ways.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, since Designer’s Crop Tool is object-based you need to select the target object in order for the tool to do anything. Either click on the layer in the Layers panel or drag a marquee around the entire canvas in the workspace, and then move the corner or side adjustment handles to crop the selected object.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, KarinC said:

Maybe I'm missing something but I can crop an image in Designer (in Windows)

That will depend on what you mean by an image, and your exact document structure. 

And also, how you expect the tool to work, which was the issue here.

[KarinC]

25 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That will depend on what you mean by an image, and your exact document structure. 

And also, how you expect the tool to work, which was the issue here. 

I tried both a jpg and a png in an artboard which is usually how I work in Designer.  It seemed obvious to select it first then select crop. Like I said, I was probably missing something.

[KarinC]

35 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

As I mentioned in my earlier post, since Designer’s Crop Tool is object-based you need to select the target object in order for the tool to do anything. Either click on the layer in the Layers panel or drag a marquee around the entire canvas in the workspace, and then move the corner or side adjustment handles to crop the selected object.

I just purchased Photo yesterday but haven't installed it yet so I have not tried it. When cropping an image in Photo you don't have to select it first?

[walt.farrell]

24 minutes ago, KarinC said:

I tried both a jpg and a png in an artboard which is usually how I work in Designer.  It seemed obvious to select it first then select crop. Like I said, I was probably missing something.

So you have (probably; hard to tell without screenshots) an Image layer in an Artboard layer, though you might also have a Pixel layer in an Artboard layer.

In either case, you have layers, and so the vector Crop Tool in Designer, which is designed to crop layers, can work on them.

[wusup]

20 minutes ago, KarinC said:

When cropping an image in Photo you don't have to select it first?

The Crop Tool in Affinity Photo affects the entire document (canvas) — selecting layer(s) has no effect on the crop. The Vector Crop Tool in Affinity Designer is object-based, as Alfred mentioned, so the object must be selected to perform the crop.

The Affinity help pages may help your understanding of the differences:

Photo Crop Tool
https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_crop.html

Designer Vector Crop Tool
https://affinity.help/designer2/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_crop.html

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, Hanan78 said:

when I open an image file that I need to crop, there will be no up-down arrow key and the grab hand doesn't appear.

34 minutes ago, Brian_J said:

The Crop Tool in Affinity Photo affects the entire document (canvas) — selecting layer(s) has no effect on the crop. The Vector Crop Tool in Affinity Designer is object-based

Nevertheless, also in APh you can use AD's cropping method of a masking shape/curve object, and fully regardless of the layer type, it works with "Image", "Pixel" or a selected "Group" layer, too, and thus it may affect an entire document as APh's Crop Tool does:

Start:

1. Add masking shape, e.g. 'Rectangle':

2. Choose "Clip Canvas":

Result: