Question about printing a cropped image in Affinity Photo

[GrantCee]

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out how to print a section of an image to specific dimensions.

 

Let's say I have a picture which I'm cropping to a specific ratio; the cropped area is significantly smaller than the full document, is of a different ratio, and is off center. I want to then print that cropped section to a specific size on paper (to fit within the window of a matte.)

 

How can I achieve this?

 

Setting absolute dimensions (say, 7.6x9.6 inches, which is the matte's opening) makes a crop that is much tighter than what I want. Resizing the canvas to the specific dimensions produces the same result. Resizing the document is hit-or-miss, because I have to guess at the resulting size to get the cropped area to the dimensions I want. I can print the cropped area and specify sizing in percentages, but again I have to guess as to what percentage gives me the size I want.

 

All I want to do is make a crop, then tell AP to print that crop to a specific size. This is easy to do in Aperture or LR, but seems devilishly difficult to do in AP.

 

What am I doing wrong?

[Fixx]

I did not quite follow what was the problem part, but.

Crop image using crop tool.

Set image size to wanted without resample.

If you want to add white border with canvas size there is a trick: you have to rasterize layer to make the crop "real", otherwise canvas size will just regain the cropped parts.

Of course many printer drivers have their own tools for scale, position and border.

[GrantCee]

I did not quite follow what was the problem part, but.

Crop image using crop tool.

Set image size to wanted without resample.

If you want to add white border with canvas size there is a trick: you have to rasterize layer to make the crop "real", otherwise canvas size will just regain the cropped parts.

Of course many printer drivers have their own tools for scale, position and border.

Thank you - rasterisation was the step I was missing.

 

Here is the resulting workflow:

 

1) Crop image as desired

2) Merge visible layers

3) Uncheck all except the merged pixel layer

4) Rasterise that layer

5) Change the document size to the desired dimensions

6) Change the canvas size to the size of the paper I'm using

7) Move the merged pixel layer around the paper until I have the placement I need

 

(Just to be clear: Affinity Photo's printing functions need some serious work; they're woefully behind what the competition offers.)