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Cutting out part of a picture to use independently


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Hi Paddy Dakar,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Don't drop the photo over the thumbnail (this creates a mask instead), drop it over the layer area on the right of the thumbnail.

 

To clear things up:

Draw/create the shape you want to use to clip the photo, then on the Layers panel drag the photo over the layer of the shape. You should see a horizontal blue rectangle appearing right below the shape layer (to let you know that the photo is being dragged over the shape object). That's it.

You can then click on the arrow on the left of that layer to expand/collapse it so you can be able to select just the image, and then move it on the canas to position it precisely inside the shape. 

Now THAT works! Thank you. So you don't click on the thumbnail at all. All the clicks in the layers panel are in the wide field to the right of the thumbnail.

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  • 6 months later...

Great question to post - this was the very first activity I tried to do. I've done this in half a dozen or more other programs and never needed to resort to outside help. I wonder why that is so complicated to perform in Affinity? What is the significance of the blue bar on the layer? I'm just now trying to locate tutorials that follow some particular order to bring me up to speed.

 

It's possible that Affinity is targeting the Adobe audience rather than more casual users like myself: I'm an engineer and software developer that still needs to be able to draw to get my point across. So was hoping that Affinity would be the platform to move to now that some of the big players are moving to a subscription model (and I won't be going with them!).

 

I'm an Adobe Photoshop user, and I couldn't figure out any way to cut and paste a simple selection.  In Photoshop, once you have a selection, you can just do command+C, then command+V where you want to drop it, and you can free transform it on the way.  I've been struggling to do this most basic of things in Affinity.   I'll add that the description above of how to do this in Affinity Photo is so complex I can't even follow it.

 

I'll add that if I cannot figure out how to do the most basic simple operations within the 10 day trial period, I'm not likely to buy/invest in this product.  It really makes me wonder what the designers of Affinity view as operations that need to be made simple tasks.

 

I realized in trying to again decipher the above description that I have no idea what's even being accomplished.  Here's what I need to do:  Imagine I have image 1 -> I select part of image one.  I wish to then cut out just that selection as an independent object with an alpha channel that I can free transform.  Then, going to image 2, I want to be able to drop that image into the new image as its own layer, thus compositing the cut out with the new image.  I do this operation a LOT.  I cannot figure out how this is done in Affinity Photo.  Help is appreciated.

 

For context, since Adobe Creative Suite 6 is not compatible with El Capitan, I'm currently running Photoshop CS6 in VMWare while desperately trying to move my data flow to a new product.  I am deciding between Affinity and Pixelmator.  Affinity shows great promise for doing more things at a professional level than Pixelmator, but so much in Affinity is incomprehensible, with so little support available, that it may just not be tenable for a couple more years of development.  However, I do very much appreciate that they are going after the market of all the Photoshop users jettisoned by Adobe when they went to a subscription model.

 

BTW, I'll second the observation that I am able to do all these basic tasks in virtually every piece of software I've tried without outside help.  So there's two possibilities:

 

1) Affinity just isn't done enough yet, so these operations just aren't implemented yet.

2) The designers of Affinity have very different workflows - or this is really more of an Aperture product and less of a Photoshop kind of product, despite the obvious marketing towards Photoshop.

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Quick update:  I found this tutorial on how to do what I'm describing.  It shows that cut and paste SHOULD work:

 

 

So either I missed one little trick along the way, or my version of Affinity Photo isn't functioning.  I find this has been a common experience in exploring Affiinity Photo - that my version doesn't work like the one in the videos.  Basically, you end up trying to follow along, but then when you try to do the operation, nothing happens.

 

However, I'm using the trial, not the beta, so this is the version that should be ready for sale.

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It's worth pointing out that so far, there have been two operations in Affinity Photo that seem as seamless and simple as I could ask for:

 

(1) Adding text.

(2) Once you have an existing multilayer image, free transforming one of the layers.  That's even easier than in Photoshop.

 

If everything were this easy, like magic wand, or select from color, I'd switch over in a heart beat.

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  • Staff

Hi jdiamond,

Check my reply here regarding selections. The bit you are missing is that you have to be working on a Pixel layer - not an image Layer -  when working at a pixel level. You can identify the layer type looking at the label between parenthesis after the layer's name in the Layers panel. To convert an Image Layer to a Pixel layer select it in the Layers panel then Rasterise.... After this you can copy/paste your selection as you'd expect.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Folks, One question to add to this conversation is the capacity to manipulate the individual pixel layers/ selections. In the video example this would mean the sandstone could be given the appearance of being photographed from a different angle.  The capacity to transform a selection is pretty important to me to get some sense of perspective in photo montage works. Is there a capacity to manipulate selections/layers like the Edit>Transform>options in photoshop?

Thanks

J

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James, are you saying the solution they gave me doesn't work for an isolated layer?  (My trial just expired or I'd try it.)  The 2 key pieces of info are (1) you have to right click on the layer and choose "rasterize", and (2) perspective transform is misfiled - instead of being under transforms, it's under "filters".

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  • Staff

Hi James Nash,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

To transform a pixel selection press Q (to enter Quick mask mode), change to the Move Tool and edit it as if it was a vector shape using the bounding box control handles to resize, rotate and shear/skew. Free Q again to quit Quick mask mode. 

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Quick update:  I found this tutorial on how to do what I'm describing.  It shows that cut and paste SHOULD work:

 

 

So either I missed one little trick along the way, or my version of Affinity Photo isn't functioning.  I find this has been a common experience in exploring Affiinity Photo - that my version doesn't work like the one in the videos.  Basically, you end up trying to follow along, but then when you try to do the operation, nothing happens.

 

However, I'm using the trial, not the beta, so this is the version that should be ready for sale.

Thanks for that link.

 

I have been trying to figure this cutting out skill for far too and not getting anywhere; yet after seeing this: I can now add and subtract any part of an image...Now I've got ABC's 1982 hit "All of my heart" stuck in my head. B)

MacBook pro, 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB, OS X 10.11.6

 

http://www.pinterest.com/peter2111

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm an Adobe Photoshop user, and I couldn't figure out any way to cut and paste a simple selection.  In Photoshop, once you have a selection, you can just do command+C, then command+V where you want to drop it, and you can free transform it on the way.  I've been struggling to do this most basic of things in Affinity.   I'll add that the description above of how to do this in Affinity Photo is so complex I can't even follow it.

 

I'll add that if I cannot figure out how to do the most basic simple operations within the 10 day trial period, I'm not likely to buy/invest in this product.  It really makes me wonder what the designers of Affinity view as operations that need to be made simple tasks.

 

I realized in trying to again decipher the above description that I have no idea what's even being accomplished.  Here's what I need to do:  Imagine I have image 1 -> I select part of image one.  I wish to then cut out just that selection as an independent object with an alpha channel that I can free transform.  Then, going to image 2, I want to be able to drop that image into the new image as its own layer, thus compositing the cut out with the new image.  I do this operation a LOT.  I cannot figure out how this is done in Affinity Photo.  Help is appreciated.

 

For context, since Adobe Creative Suite 6 is not compatible with El Capitan, I'm currently running Photoshop CS6 in VMWare while desperately trying to move my data flow to a new product.  I am deciding between Affinity and Pixelmator.  Affinity shows great promise for doing more things at a professional level than Pixelmator, but so much in Affinity is incomprehensible, with so little support available, that it may just not be tenable for a couple more years of development.  However, I do very much appreciate that they are going after the market of all the Photoshop users jettisoned by Adobe when they went to a subscription model.

 

BTW, I'll second the observation that I am able to do all these basic tasks in virtually every piece of software I've tried without outside help.  So there's two possibilities:

 

1) Affinity just isn't done enough yet, so these operations just aren't implemented yet.

2) The designers of Affinity have very different workflows - or this is really more of an Aperture product and less of a Photoshop kind of product, despite the obvious marketing towards Photoshop.

 

HI,   For me,  some projects I need to do a lot of 'cut and paste' and to do this in Affinity is that frustrating that I export the image to Photoshop for the 'cut and paste'  then bring it back to Affinity.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Staff

Hello all,

 

To those who are still struggling with cutting out an image and either exporting it or pasting it into another image, I've updated the video tutorial that was linked to above. It now has better pacing and detail of the procedures is more thorough:

 

Cutting Out

 

Hope that helps!

Product Expert (Affinity Photo) & Product Expert Team Leader

@JamesR_Affinity for tutorial sneak peeks and more
Official Affinity Photo tutorials

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Hi Guys, I'm completly new to this, so please be gentle with me (lol).

I'm trying to cut out a class photo of students and place it onto a pure white background. I've tried the Selection brush tool and highlighted the outline. I then pressed cut and tried to paste it onto another layer.

However, what I get is the orignal photo and not the highlighted cutout.

What am I doing wrong please?

 

Chris

 

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  • Staff

Hi Chris,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

You are probably copying the selection from an Image layer type (you can identify this looking at the label between parenthesis after the layer's name in the Layers panel).

If that's the case right-click the image layer in the Layers panel and select Rasterise... to convert it to a Pixel layer. You can now copy and paste your selection as expected.

 

An Image layer is considered an object type layer, you can manipulate it at a global level (rotate, scale, skew etc) to it but you can't edit it at a pixel level. A Pixel layer is a "container" where you can perform pixel-based editing operations to the image. So you must convert it first to be able to work at a pixel level.

For more information about layer types, check Affinity Photo Help ▸ Layers ▸ About Layers.

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  • 1 month later...

Interestingly enough, nothing on page 1 worked for me...

 

It turned out that my 'layer' was an 'image' which needed to be 'rasterized' (option in the layer window), then copy/paste worked as expected.

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  • 1 year later...

Thanks again for the great tutorials and examples.  There's still one very common operation that I just can't figure out how to do:  a simple, rectangular crop.  This is one of the single most common operations in my workflow.

 

In Infinity, I can click on the crop icon and create a rectangular area, but how do I crop the image to that selection?  I've seen your tutorials where you mask an image to a complex shape, but that just sets the outside to transparent (and is overkill for a crop).  I want to actually change the size of the canvas, redefine its size with the crop locations.

 

I've also seen your tutorials where you drag an image into Affinity photo and then adjust its size and positioning to determine which part of it appears in the final image.  This is like cropping, except I need to first set the base image to the target size, which may not be known, and second, this approach is very impractical if you want to crop to a tiny part of the image.

 

Any thoughts?

Thanks so much,

- Jeff

 

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One other question:  I saw there's now an Affinity book for understanding Affinity.  I have no problem paying for the book, but is there an electronic version?  It's just so much handier sometimes.  Also, I know you make great Tutorials - is there any kind of manual yet, or an organization of all of the tutorials?

 

Thanks so much - I feel like Affinity Designer got a manual fairly early and I'm still waiting for the manual for Photo...

 

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13 minutes ago, jdiamond said:

Thanks again for the great tutorials and examples.  There's still one very common operation that I just can't figure out how to do:  a simple, rectangular crop.  This is one of the single most common operations in my workflow.

 

In Infinity, I can click on the crop icon and create a rectangular area, but how do I crop the image to that selection?  I've seen your tutorials where you mask an image to a complex shape, but that just sets the outside to transparent (and is overkill for a crop).  I want to actually change the size of the canvas, redefine its size with the crop locations.

 

I've also seen your tutorials where you drag an image into Affinity photo and then adjust its size and positioning to determine which part of it appears in the final image.  This is like cropping, except I need to first set the base image to the target size, which may not be known, and second, this approach is very impractical if you want to crop to a tiny part of the image.

 

Any thoughts?

Thanks so much,

- Jeff

 

Hi Jeff,

Not sure I fully understand the question, are you asking how to crop a square from a image so your not resizing the image in any way ?

 

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The easiest way to define it is I want to do the "crop" command in photoshop.  (The one under edit.)  I don't want to resize the image - I just want to provide a rectangle of interest within the image and then crop to that rectangle, making the rest of the image (and canvas) disappear, such that my selected rectangle now represents all the pixels in the image.  This might be like changing the "canvas" size with visual feedback (vs changing the "image" size), where in photoshop the image size is its logical size while the canvas size is the pixel dimensions of the entire stack of layers.

 

Humorously, when I search for crop in the help, the word is not even mentioned. :)

 

To give a more concrete example, in your tutorial you were going to export a png in which you'd masked out the background of your photo.  But that exported photo is still the size of the original, with the object of interest offset within it.  I'd want to export a png containing JUST the foreground image extent.  I haven't cracked this idea in Affinity Photo yet,

 

Edited by jdiamond
Clarifying
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11 minutes ago, jdiamond said:

One other question:  I saw there's now an Affinity book for understanding Affinity.  I have no problem paying for the book, but is there an electronic version?  It's just so much handier sometimes.  Also, I know you make great Tutorials - is there any kind of manual yet, or an organization of all of the tutorials?

 

Thanks so much - I feel like Affinity Designer got a manual fairly early and I'm still waiting for the manual for Photo...

 

I have seen this book on Amazon, I don't have it - so cant recommend but looks like it gets good reviews. https://amzn.to/2GVcE1u

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1 minute ago, The Computer Lab said:

I have seen this book on Amazon, I don't have it - so cant recommend but looks like it gets good reviews. https://amzn.to/2GVcE1u

Yep - that's the one I saw, too.  Just wondering if they might sell an electronic version for the convenience of it.  Or if there's a virtual equivalent via all the tutorial videos in these forums.  Or if Affinity has created the manual yet.

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2 minutes ago, jdiamond said:

The easiest way to define it is I want to do the "crop" command in photoshop.  (The one under edit.)  I don't want to resize the image - I just want to provide a rectangle of interest within the image and then crop to that rectangle, making the rest of the image (and canvas) disappear, such that my selected rectangle now represents all the pixels in the image.  This might be like changing the "canvas" size with visual feedback (vs changing the "image" size), where in photoshop the image size is its logical size while the canvas size is the pixel dimensions of the entire stack of layers.

 

Humorously, when I search for crop in the help, the word is not even mentioned. :)

 

You can crop to a square, once you have crop tool selected if you look near the top tool (left top) bar there is a section that has pre defined section - here you can select 1:1 crop (going of memory as I am not sat near my mac to check at the moment) this then gives you a square crop.

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2 minutes ago, jdiamond said:

Yep - that's the one I saw, too.  Just wondering if they might sell an electronic version for the convenience of it.  Or if there's a virtual equivalent via all the tutorial videos in these forums.  Or if Affinity has created the manual yet.

Not sure, I only remember that one as I got a email from Affinity a while ago about it.

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3 minutes ago, The Computer Lab said:

You can crop to a square, once you have crop tool selected if you look near the top tool (left top) bar there is a section that has pre defined section - here you can select 1:1 crop (going of memory as I am not sat near my mac to check at the moment) this then gives you a square crop.

 

It's really not the shape itself that's causing me the problem - it's very easy for me to select a rectangle.  But once done, the rectangle is just sitting there.  There's no crop action I can see anywhere.  So now I have an image with a selection rectangle on part of it.  How would I crop to that rectangle?  How would I change the canvas extent to match that rectangle?  The icon looks like a crop icon, but if it crops, I don't know how.

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