How to rotate an image (in either program) by a few degrees?

[MHUnity]

I want to rotate a photo in Affinity Photo or in Affinity Deisgner but I seemingly can't rotate a mathematical amount.

I can use the Straighten tool, but that is not what I what, I want to be able to say, "hey, this image can rotate clockwise by 5degrees" . I can see the rotate links for 90degree rotations but that's obviously not the same. The straighten tool is very imprecise as it relies on eye rather than any mathematical int or float value (such as 5.75 degrees)

Have I missed something obvious? :-/ 

Cheers
Martin

[MEB]

Hi Martin,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Select the layer in the layers panel (it should be highlighted), make sure you have the Move Tool selected and enter the value you want in the rotation field in the Transform panel on the bottom right of the interface (in Photo Persona). Don't forget to set the anchor point (on the left of the input fields) as you wish.

[MHUnity]

Many thanks for your fast feedback, that was all I needed -- I was originally looking for a separate menu function for "rotate...", but now I know where to look.

Cheers

[imagegod]

On 2/20/2017 at 5:58 AM, MEB said:

Select the layer in the layers panel (it should be highlighted), make sure you have the Move Tool selected and enter the value you want in the rotation field in the Transform panel on the bottom right of the interface (in Photo Persona). Don't forget to set the anchor point (on the left of the input fields) as you wish.

 

Sorry, I'm disabled, and I can't get this to work (I'm a whiz at Photoshop CS, if that means anything):

I open an image. Using 'Studio View', I select the 'Layers' tab on the right (I guess that means 'layers panel'?). I select the Move tool...but the 'Transform panel' is grayed out.

 

I tried adding a new layer...nothing. I tried 'Select All'...nothing. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated...thanks.

 

[R C-R]

@imagegod: you need to select (click once on) a layer in the Layers panel or with the Move tool active click on the image on the canvas to select its layer. "Studio" is the name given to the collection of all the panels that are listed in the View > Studio menu item fly-out. Several panels may be combined into a tab group to conserve screen space (so that only the panel of the selected tab is visible). Selecting the Layers panel tab does not automatically select a layer in it.

[imagegod]

Got it...very helpful. Thanks, very much appreciated! 

 

 

[kirkmc]

AF does some amazing things, but this is the kind of thing that makes it incredibly frustrating to use. When I select the crop tool, there's a Rotate button, which works in an odd way. With a photo in 3:2 aspect ratio, it crops the photo as though it were in 2:3. (And the Crop tool is really painful, trying to use custom aspect rations; when I set it to 3:2, it keeps switching to 2:3.

 

Other photo editing apps let you click a button, drag a bit, and free rotate. The explanation above is hermetic to me:

 

Quote

Select the layer in the layers panel (it should be highlighted), make sure you have the Move Tool selected and enter the value you want in the rotation field in the Transform panel on the bottom right of the interface (in Photo Persona). Don't forget to set the anchor point (on the left of the input fields) as you wish.

 

Okay, I have my layer selected, and the Move tool selected, but where is the Transform panel? Oh, it's the Xfm panel? They why didn't you say so. Enter a value; well, I tried that, and I can't enter anything in that field. 

 

This is just an example of the frustration I have with this app. So many settings are hidden, or require long explanations to use. Why can't you simply allow a free rotation like most apps, even Apple Photos, offer?

[John Rostron]

20 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

Okay, I have my layer selected, and the Move tool selected, but where is the Transform panel? Oh, it's the Xfm panel? They why didn't you say so. Enter a value; well, I tried that, and I can't enter anything in that field. 

I have just tried to follow this with an image that had been cropped. I cannot see anything labelled Xfm, but I do have a Transform panel. As you also find, I could not enter anything in that field. However if I rasterize the image, then I can. I do find that when I click in the centre box of the bunch of nine, the top left one still remains highlighted, even though the centre of rotation now works as expected.

John

[toltec]

If you click on Rotate, it turns a 3:2 aspect ratio into a 2:3 ratio.

 

 

If you click and drag outside the crop box, you get the following icon

 

that allows you to free rotate and crop

 

The Transform panel become Xfm when you have several panels in the same group. Photo abbreviates the names so they fit.

Navigate becomes Nvg

Transform becomes Xfm

History become His

Channels becomes Chn

 

etc.

 

To free rotate a layer

You can either use the top handle or outside either corner, wait until you get the rotate icon and drag.

 

 

You can also enter a value in the Transform (or Xfm) panel.

 

Here 15 degrees. See how the alignment box (9 little squares) rotates to indicate this.

 

A placed image rotated by 15 degrees

 

Note. You cannot rotate a layer if it is locked. Unlock it first !

 

Locked icon

 

 

 

[kirkmc]

@toltec Thanks for that. All those are things that are not obvious. Such as why clicking Rotate on a 3:2 ratio converts it to 2:3; what's the logic there? I just reopened a file I was trying to rotate earlier, and even in Unconstrained, clicking Rotate shifts the aspect ratio from landscape to portrait; that seems like a bug to me. And I don't see any way to get that top handle that you show in your screenshots. 

 

This is just one of the many examples of severe user-unfriendliness I'm finding in AF. I've been using it for quite some time, but only use it for very specific things, because I don't know how to use most of it. I bought the book that was released a few months ago, and, while the second part with the tutorials is interesting, the first part isn't very useful. It assumes that the user already knows what all these features do, which really isn't the case for many people. I've watched some of the video tutorials for some of the features, and in many cases, this app requires extremely complex procedures for things that should be simpler. 

[John Rostron]

4 minutes ago, toltec said:

The Transform panel become Xfm when you have several panels in the same group. Photo abbreviates the names so they fit.

You learn something every day!

John

[toltec]

2 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

And I don't see any way to get that top handle that you show in your screenshots. 

 

 

 

That might depend on if you have enough space outside the image you are trying to rotate?

 

Hard to tell unless you can post a screenshot.

[kirkmc]

Several panels in the same group? As far as I understand, you can't save a workspace, so you will always have the same number of panels by default. 

[toltec]

12 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

You learn something every day!

John

 

You learn these thing when you have a "where the heck has it gone it" moment 

[kirkmc]

Just now, toltec said:

 

That might depend on if you have enough space outside the image you are trying to rotate?

 

Hard to tell unless you can post a screenshot.

 

Screenshot. 

 

 

[toltec]

1 minute ago, kirkmc said:

Several panels in the same group? As far as I understand, you can't save a workspace, so you will always have the same number of panels by default. 

 

No, you can move panels at will by dragging them around 

 

also, if you go View > Studio and tick on a panel, it will add it to the studio, somewhere.

 

[kirkmc]

In my case, as you can see in the screenshot above, it's the default set of panels that display on launch. 

[toltec]

18 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

 

Screenshot. 

 

 

Ah yes, it wont appear with the crop tool (only when rotating, sorry if I confused you) , but if you move the pointer around outside any crop box edge, you will get the rotate icon and you can free rotate.

[kirkmc]

Just now, toltec said:

 

Ah yes, it wont appear with the master crop tool (only when rotating, sorry if I confused you) , but if you move the pointer around outside any crop box edge, you will get the rotate icon and you can free rotate.

 

Got it, thanks. 

[toltec]

11 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

 

Got it, thanks. 

 

Incidentally, if you go to the Develop Persona,

 

(Lens panel) you can enter precise rotation values. Here I typed in 3.5. You can then crop it too, at that rotation.

 

[lepr]

.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, owenr said:

It's like rotating a rectangular sheet of paper from landscape to portrait orientation - the width and height are transposed.

Curiously, https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_crop.html) says:

• Rotate—rotates the crop area by 180°.

Unless my tired old brain has deteriorated even more than I thought, I think that should say it rotates the crop area by 90°. Anyway, it is useful because users don't need to clutter up the Mode menu with (for example) separate custom presets for 3:2 & 2:3 aspect ratios.

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Curiously, https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_crop.html) says:

• Rotate—rotates the crop area by 180°.

 

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/index.html?pages/Tools/tools_crop.html says exactly the same thing!

 

The ‘pt-BR’ version of that page likewise says:

• Girar — gira da área de recorte em 180°.

 

[R C-R]

34 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/index.html?pages/Tools/tools_crop.html says exactly the same thing!

 

The ‘pt-BR’ version of that page likewise says:

• Girar — gira da área de recorte em 180°.

The US English Mac built-in "Crop Tool" help topic also says 180°. I don't know but would not be surprised if the built-in Windows help topic says the same thing. If so, I am not sure if or where to report this -- I assume documentation errors are considered bugs, so I suppose it could go in any of the bug forums?

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I assume documentation errors are considered bugs, so I suppose it could go in any of the bug forums?

 

I would say so.