Distort Option For Transformations in Affinity Photo

[David McEachern]

I would love to have the option that most other apps have to freely distort objects and pixel selections much like one can scale, rotate, and skew, currently (i.e. grab a corner of the blue box when the move tool is selected and move it freely distorting the selected pixels). I know there is the perspective tool/effect but it doesn't work as expected with selections.

[loukash]

On 12/17/2024 at 10:08 PM, David McEachern said:

I know there is the perspective tool/effect but it doesn't work as expected with selections.

1. make a selection of your choice
2. add the Live Perspective (or whichever) filter and keep it selected in the Layers panel
3. create a mask from the selection
4. switch to the Source mode in the Live Perspective window to define the area
5. switch to the Destination mode to distort as you see fit

[GarryP]

You can also distort pixel selections by switching to Quick Mask (on the Toolbar) and then selecting the Move Tool.

From there you can move, resize, change the perspective with the Perspective Tool, or add warping with the Mesh Warp Tool.

Then switching Quick Mask OFF takes you back to editing ‘as normal’.

Note: Some of these modification functionalities may cause some ‘selection degradation’ because of 'stretched pixels' but this can be overcome by selecting the Selection Brush Tool, pressing the Refine button on the Context Toolbar, and then switching Matte Edges OFF.

See attached video for a demonstration.

It’s maybe not as easy as might be wanted but it can be done.

[David McEachern]

Thanks for the responses. I wasn't super clear, I meant transforming selected pixels, not the selection themselves. I still can't get distort or perspective to operate on the selected pixels, it sort of just distorts the whole layer within the selection. For now, I just cut the selection to a new layer then I can use the distort/perspective tools to get the results I want, but it just seems a bit convoluted for something so simple. I'm exploring and trying to use Photo for my digital painting needs and while I absolutely love the brush engine, some of the holes in functionality leave me scratching my head (yes I know there are dedicated apps for that and I have licenses for quite a few, but they all lack the performance of Photo and Photoshop which I used until recently). I really think a quick distortion mode should be added to the move tool since one can already move/scale, skew with it. Anyway, thanks again for the explanations.

[loukash]

10 minutes ago, David McEachern said:

I just cut the selection to a new layer then I can use the distort/perspective tools to get the results I want, but it just seems a bit convoluted for something so simple.

Hm… looks simple enough to me. How much "simpler" could/should it possibly be? (That's a seriously meant question )

I remember Photoshop (which I used until version CS5.1) had various such destructive tools which were useful sometimes. But, I, for one, usually prefer non-destructive workflows. So a workflow where I'd be duplicating a layer and masking the part I'd like to distort looks very convenient to me:

[David McEachern]

I’m not really sure why you seem to be trying to convince me that I don’t need what I asked for. It is much simpler to grab a corner of the transform gizmo and distort than cut to a new layer use the perspective transform then merge back. It just adds extra steps for making quick adjustments. I’m not trying to take away your non destructive workflow, I’m glad it works for you, but it’s not great for me in this particular use case, hence why I asked for an enhancement to the current tools. Anyway, thanks for the input. 

[GarryP]

I’m still confused as to what you are trying to do and/or what you are trying to do it to.

I think it might be good if you can give us a visual example of what you are starting with and give us more details about what you want to achieve with it.

The more details you describe the better we can know what’s required (hopefully).

The functionality that you want might exist but you might be looking in the wrong place for it, or you might not know that the specific thing you want to do can be done in a way that might not be obvious.

[NotMyFault]

14 hours ago, David McEachern said:

Thanks for the responses. I wasn't super clear, I meant transforming selected pixels, not the selection themselves. I still can't get distort or perspective to operate on the selected pixels, it sort of just distorts the whole layer within the selection. For now, I just cut the selection to a new layer then I can use the distort/perspective tools to get the results I want, but it just seems a bit convoluted for something so simple.

Affinity apps prioritize on non destructive workflows.

This means in some cases you can’t edit selected pixels directly in the source layer. Instead you make a selection, copy/paste (duplicate) that area to get a separate pixel layer. There you can use all tools like mesh warp, distortion filter, perspective etc to achieve your edits.

If required, merge down as final step to re-combine both layers into one.

If you want to distort specific parts of a pixel layer, you must bring them to a separate layer first, and merge them again last. You can’t do this currently „in place“. 
I agree to the other replies that saving 2 clicks (duplicate after selection, merge down after finishing) is a bit weak benefit to the price of breaking existing functionality and core principles of edit workflows in Affinity.

Never the less, you have stated you feedback, it is documented here and Affinity developers may consider it for future releases (or not).

The reply’s of others trying to clarify your request, thus helping all readers to get a full understanding, and showing how you and other readers can achieve the intended results by alternative methods or workarounds is nothing bad or offensive against you. It is part of the professional discussion about your request, its consequences when potentially getting implemented or not.

[David McEachern]

Okay, thanks for your input.

[David McEachern]

Adding a video for clarification. As mentioned by others, I know there are ways to achieve this, but I was hoping for a quality of life addition since I do lots of small tweaks, distorting the line work to fix the drawing or explore different shapes. In the video, I couldn't get the skew part of the Photo move/transform tool to trigger for some reason, hence a lot of the fumbling around. Anyway, it would be helpful if I could grab the corner of the transform box, and with a modifier key or something, distort the selected pixels, non uniformly. 

 

[Ldina]

@David McEachern Here's one way that is fairly simple.

1. Make Selection of the area you wish to distort or manipulate.
2. Cmd-J to duplicate selection to a new layer
3. Cmd-D to Deselect that selection
4. Filter > Distort > Mesh Warp...and warp away! 

Flexible and non destructive. There are other filters too, such as Deform, etc.

[David McEachern]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

 

[Ldina]

2 hours ago, David McEachern said:

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

One additional thought...

When you distort or move that pistol (or whatever), which is on the top pixel layer, it may uncover pencil lines on the original base layer below. You can mask, as suggested previously. Here's another way to do it fairly quickly and easily, just add one quick step to my previous steps...

1. Make a Selection of the area you wish to distort or manipulate (I used the Freeform lasso tool).
2. Cmd-J TWICE to duplicate your selection onto TWO NEW LAYERS.
3. Select the Lower duplicate, and with marching ants still active, Opt-Delete to fill with white. (This assumes White is your Primary color in the color picker. If it's not, click the "D" key to set default White and Black colors. Or set this layer to whatever color you want).
4. Cmd-D to Deselect the selection, and target the top duplicated layer with the Move Tool
5. Filter > Distort > Mesh Warp, Perspective, Deform, or whatever.

The white middle layer will hide pencil lines on the original base layer so they don't show through. You can also use masks as GarryP and LouKash suggested. This approach uses destructive filters, but on a duplicate layer of selected pixels, so it doesn't destroy the original sketch. There are a number of ways to do what you need to do, but not as simple as what you are used to doing. If there is, I haven't figured it out.