Command C Command V from another planet ?

[Sébastien Acacia]

Well, I'm exploring alternatives to Photoshop, and I found Affinity Photo 2. I thought "wow, great, let's try".
So I've created a file, with 4 layers, each one with a photo within. 

Until then, great... it's working like Photoshop... software I use from the very first version. I used many design and graphic software since my T07 Thompson computer in 1988... from PaintShop Pro to photoshop, and now Affinity. So, I do something very simple : I select a part of the photo, and I do "Command C, Command N to create a new image, and Command V. And, Affinity pasted the whole photo. Not the part I've selected. I thought "oh, I must have done something wrong". I go back to the main project, and, as the selection is still active, I repeat my Command C and Command V on my new project. But, it's not working. So I go on the main project and right click on the selection, but I can't copy anything. No contextual menu. Ok, I think to myself : This is a new software, they have changed the Command C Command V stuff everybody use for almost 40 years in all photo/design software, so I will learn something new on some tutorial online. But, all the tutorials says : use the selection tool, select the area in the image and Command C Command V... 

Well, not working at all... So I thought : wow, if the whole Affinity software is like that, if all the process I've learned this last 40 years are useless, it's not an alternative to photoshop or all the software I learned this 40 last years, it's a liability for me... I'll lose my time, my money, and my nerves... 

So, if someone have some clever information about this Command C / Command V stuff and can proove to me that Affinity is a good software, I'm in... Maybe, 40 years working on PC and MAC computer are not enough to know how to use a SELECT TOOL with command C / command V...  Tks

[Hangman]

Hi @Sébastien Acacia and welcome to the forums,

Right-click the Photo in the Layers Panel, select Rasterise, make your selection, Cmd C, Cmd N, Cmd V...

[Sébastien Acacia]

4 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Sébastien Acacia and welcome to the forums,

Right-click the Photo in the Layers Panel, select Rastierise, make your selection, Cmd C, Cmd N, Cmd V...

Ok tks a lot for you help. So, Affinity is not pasting an image as a pixellized image. By default, it's an object which we can't do simple action with. Is there anyway I can configurate the way paste is working by default ? so I don't have to rasterize all the time my elements ? 
By the way, "tramer" as it is translated in my french computer is a very bad translation for "pixelliser" (rasterize). 
"tramer" generally refers to the action of converting an image into a series of dots to simulate different shades of gray or color in a halftone print, like the image below. Maybe Affinity developers can change this translation for "pixelliser". It will be understandable immediatly. 

 

[Sébastien Acacia]

Ok, so now I have another problem. When I create a new project with Command N, I can't find a way to rapidly set the size of the new project to the size of the copied element. Is there anyway I can create a new image the size of the copied area ?

[Hangman]

5 minutes ago, Sébastien Acacia said:

Is there anyway I can configurate the way paste is working by default ? so I don't have to rasterize all the time my elements ?

If you drag an image to the Photo UI without an existing document then it will appear automatically as a pixel layer, if you add a photo to an existing document it will appear as an Image layer which you'd then need to rasterise before making a selection...

5 minutes ago, Sébastien Acacia said:

By the way, "tramer" as it is translated in my french computer is a very bad translation for "pixelliser" (rasterize). 
"tramer" generally refers to the action of converting an image into a series of dots to simulate different shades of gray or color in a halftone print, like the image below. Maybe Affinity developers can change this translation for "pixelliser". It will be understandable immediatly.

It sounds like something the Serif team should take a look at...

[Hangman]

13 minutes ago, Sébastien Acacia said:

Ok, so now I have another problem. When I create a new project with Command N, I can't find a way to rapidly set the size of the new project to the size of the copied element. Is there anyway I can create a new image the size of the copied area ?

You could use File > New from Clipboard though this will use the default dpi of your computer monitor rather than the dpi of the source image...

You could note the selection size of the source image in the Transform Panel and use the dimensions to create your new file...

You could create a new document at any size, paste your selection and then with the image selected use Document > Clip Canvas if the document is larger than the pasted selection or Document > Unclip Canvas if the pasted selection is larger than the document. If you set up keyboard shortcuts for both this makes the process quick and easy...

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, Sébastien Acacia said:

So, Affinity is not pasting an image as a pixellized image.

Not in the way you might think. In Affinity Image Layers are a special kind of container object that, while they contain pixels, they also contains data about the objects color space, pixel resolution, & physical dimensions.