Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

is Crop to selection possible


Recommended Posts

22 minutes ago, TheLazza said:

Geez, I just discovered this way and it makes life so much better! 😁

This method clips the canvas to fit the selection - but doesn't actually crop pixels. The invisible parts are still stored in the .afphoto and reappear when you increase the canvas size. At any later time. – I guess what is missing is the ability to entirely get rid of pixels (data) with a 1-click action (without copy/paste or rasterization etc.).

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks to all of you,
 

I discovered that for my actual workflow the destructive cropping-procedure can work like this:
Crop the image, make a selection round what is needed to be stripped down, copy this - and then I used via the main menue "Edit/ make reduced copy" (not sure how the english wording here might be). So then I have a new layer with the desired cropped object.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

This method clips the canvas to fit the selection - but doesn't actually crop pixels. The invisible parts are still stored in the .afphoto and reappear when you increase the canvas size. At any later time. – I guess what is missing is the ability to entirely get rid of pixels (data) with a 1-click action (without copy/paste or rasterization etc.).

The non-destructive nature of the operation is not an issue here (and never was the point of the original post). One can always destroy later, if needed.

You could argue that the same behavior is shown with any kind of cropping you do using the crop tool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I genuinely confused by how this is still a matter of debate. The request is so simple, so reasonable, and for a method so much easier than any of the alternative methods being suggested. I'm baffled by why anyone would *not* want this feature to be available. It's absolutely the thing I miss most about Photoshop. Sure I can achieve the same result with considerably more effort, but I've not seen a single good reason why the feature as requested couldn't or shouldn't be implemented. What am I missing here?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Fixx said:

Probably just that devs think you should use a dedicated tool (crop tool) for the job as it does usually better as it is adjustable the way selection marquee is not. 

In which case, a simple solution would be to provide an option to "Convert Marquee to Crop". Maybe cmd/ctrl+click Crop tool. Then by hitting Return the crop would be applied and—hopefully—everyone would be happy.

Very often a user will be using selection tools to create a marquee that they want to convert quickly to a crop.

In my own use, I'd often cmd+click on a Layer to define its contents as the area I want to define the crop. Maybe it was pixels. Maybe it was an object I drew for the purpose.

I taught Photoshop for many years as a Certified Instructor/Expert. 'Crop to Selection' was always in the course content because it was so useful.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/29/2021 at 5:41 PM, Fixx said:

Probably just that devs think you should use a dedicated tool (crop tool) for the job as it does usually better as it is adjustable the way selection marquee is not. 

But it doesn't. It isn't always better.

Dragging those crop handles is better sometimes, but sometimes it's just fundamentally worse than cropping to selection. Unless I'm missing something, maybe? Let's say I have 30 layers with icons on. I want to crop to the biggest icon of the layers. In Photoshop I can just select that one by shift clicking on the layer list, highlighting the outline as a selection, then crop to selection. No dragging to find the edges, just a couple of clicks and it's done. I've not seen a single workaround method for Affinity Photo that can do that even close to as easily. Maybe I've missed it. But the Affinity method is only "better" under some circumstances.

And as others have said, having it simply automatically snap the current crop tool to the selected area gives the best of both worlds.

I genuinely don't understand the reluctance so many on these forums have to conceding that this might occasionally be useful.

Edited by Armelline
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Armelline said:

But it doesn't. It isn't always better.

Dragging those crop handles is better sometimes, but sometimes it's just fundamentally worse than cropping to selection. Unless I'm missing something, maybe? Let's say I have 30 layers with icons on. I want to crop to the biggest icon of the layers. In Photoshop I can just select that one by shift clicking on the layer list, highlighting the outline as a selection, then crop to selection. No dragging to find the edges, just a couple of clicks and it's done. I've not seen a single workaround method for Affinity Photo that can do that even close to as easily. Maybe I've missed it. But the Affinity method is only "better" under some circumstances.

And as others have said, having it simply automatically snap the current crop tool to the selected area gives the best of both worlds.

I genuinely don't understand the reluctance so many on these forums have to conceding that this might occasionally be useful.

Well said - agree 100%

In Photoshop, I also regularly CMD+clicked on a layer to quickly select all its contents then Crop to Selection. I taught Photoshop for years as an ACE/ACI—this was always included in the course. As you say, it would be the best of both worlds to have this as a simple to select action.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Oh, wow lol. 4+ years later and this hasn't been fixed yet?

The tone of this thread and the condescending answers is disappointing. Good tools are supposed to give people the maximum number of options to create content with the minimum amount of resistance.

Just because someone is locked into a certain kind of workflow, doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. It's arrogant - and ignorant - to assume that INSERT FEATURE HERE is of no use, just because you don't personally need it. While most people are okay with a few missing features and a bit of a learning curve when switching from Photoshop to Affinity Photo, it’s not expected that something as basic and popular as cropping the selection is missing in Affinity Photo.

Answers and excuses range from 'non-destructive workflow' to various workarounds, like copying the selection into a new document. This all misses the fundamental point of good tools providing more options, not less, to work how the user wants to work, and not forcing or limiting them. Common sense dictates that if Photoshop does something two, three or four times faster than Affinity Photo then the latter is doing something wrong.

Edited by Debra35
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Debra35 

First of all, Affinity Photo is not Adobe Photoshop. Functions that exist in Photoshop did not grow into the programme overnight. 
Of course, it's easier when you're served hot soup instead of having to make it yourself. What I mean to say is that many missing functions can also be created with macros. 
Cutting a selection is destructive and would be a good idea if you no longer need the original, otherwise you would have to save it in a new file anyway; you might as well save a new document from the selection.
If you no longer need the original and want to save the selection with the original name, you can create a macro that automates the necessary steps. Here, for example, invert selection, delete, deselect, limit canvas, rasterise layer, and save. Have I forgotten a step?

But yes, it is easier to have the worm brought to you than to look for it yourself.

And you have to remember that Serif has a much smaller development budget than Adobe. So the developers at Serif have to weigh up what to include in the programme. 

I also miss a few things in Affinity Photo, but as I wrote, Affinity Photo is not Photoshop. 

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X | INTEL Arc A770 LE 16 GB  | 32 GB DDR4 3200MHz | Windows 11 Pro 23H2 (22631.3296)
AMD A10-9600P | dGPU R7 M340 (2 GB)  | 8 GB DDR4 2133 MHz | Windows 10 Home 22H2 (1945.3803) 

Affinity Suite V 2.4 & Beta 2.(latest)
Better translations with: https://www.deepl.com/translator  
Interested in a robust (selfhosted) PDF Solution? Have a look at Stirling PDF

Life is too short to have meaningless discussions!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> First of all, Affinity Photo is not Adobe Photoshop. Functions that exist in Photoshop did not grow into the programme overnight. 

Nobody was expecting Affinity Photo to match Photoshop's feature set. But Affinity Photo is hardly a young program at this point. Not including this must be a deliberate choice and for some of us that's confusing.

> Of course, it's easier when you're served hot soup instead of having to make it yourself.

Well that's staggeringly condescending. It always impresses me just how condescending the people on these forums can be.

> Cutting a selection is destructive

Why? Why should this type of cropping be more destructive than the standard cropping?

> If you no longer need the original and want to save the selection with the original name, you can create a macro that automates the necessary steps. Here, for example, invert selection, delete, deselect, limit canvas, rasterise layer, and save.

Ignoring your assumption that it has to be destructive, that's an awful lot of steps to achieve a simple task. Why is it so unreasonable for us to want to a one or two step way of achieving this result? Are you saying that anything that can currently be done in Affinity Photo using 5+ steps should never be streamlined into a one step process?

> Have I forgotten a step?

There's that condescension again.

> But yes, it is easier to have the worm brought to you than to look for it yourself.

Oh look, more condescension.

> And you have to remember that Serif has a much smaller development budget than Adobe. So the developers at Serif have to weigh up what to include in the programme. 

As has been pointed out multiple times in this thread, this likely wouldn't be a very complicated thing to implement. And let's not ignore that the latest update included some incredibly niche features and improvements while this is basically a standard of photo editing applications and has multiple forum posts with hundreds of responses about it.

It's okay to say "I don't need this, but perhaps others would find it valuable."

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

I think this should work:

(NB - It's destructive, so always use on a copy, don't spoil your original file in case you make a mistake!)

 

Trim to Selection.afmacro 950 B · 4 downloads

Well, like macros shared before, this does not deal with non-square selections well.
It will remove everything outside the selection, but inside the outer bounding box.
For instance, make a selection consisting of 3 small squares that are apart from each other...

So "Trim to Selection" should crop to the bounding box of the entire selection.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Further more, a crop to selection (on non-square selections) is not doable with macros, as Affinity Photo (and Designer) does not provide a recordable way to snap the cropping to the bounding box of the selection.
And all given 'solutions' that include copying selection to a new layer or file have this same shortcoming.

The best given idea for implementation is still this:
Simply add a button in the toolbar of the crop tool that sets the crop bounding box to the bounding box of the selection.

If we have that, then we can make macros to automate this and assign it to hotkeys.

So Sefif: No, all your suggested 'solutions' do not work without having to fiddle around with dragging the mouse.
Ball is in your court...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

26 minutes ago, Peter van Westen said:

Well, like macros shared before, this does not deal with non-square selections well.
It will remove everything outside the selection, but inside the outer bounding box.
For instance, make a selection consisting of 3 small squares that are apart from each other...

So "Trim to Selection" should crop to the bounding box of the entire selection.

Sorry, I just thought it might be useful sometimes, for some people. But you're obviously upset by my sharing it, so I'll gladly remove my post!

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Only that he went to great length to explain how useless it is!

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, PaulEC said:

Only that he went to great length to explain how useless it is!

He didn't do that at all. He just explained how it doesn't solve the specific issue this thread is about. I think it's just that he, like I, is getting increasingly frustrated by the attitude on these forums of "What you want can be achieved using these steps so your request is unnecessary and borderline stupid." I know that's not what you were trying to say by posting your macro, and I for one downloaded it and appreciated it for what it does do. However, if left entirely unchallenged it will be pointed to as proof that this feature isn't needed, like has been done before in these threads, when it (though useful, for sure) doesn't fully solve the core problem being discussed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not saying your request is unnecessary or that it shouldn't be implemented. But I don't need a lecture on how useless something is, when I was just sharing a way to easily crop to a selection (As Komatös suggested). If anyone wants a macro to do this it is easy to do it themselves, I just thought I could save them time by posting the one I use. If you want to crop to the outer edges of several selections, as per Peter's video, I don't really see why you would bother to make several selections, rather than just making a selection around the whole area.  Obviously, if you want to "crop" to a non rectangular shape you will end up with a transparent background and there are other ways of achieving the same result. I'm obviously missing something, so I don't think it's worth revisiting this thread. I hope Serif will implement your request. 🙂

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like @Armelline said (thanks for defending me 😁) I am totally not upset with you sharing that.
My explaining is towards Serif, not you. I did not say your macro is useless. I underlined it is not a solution to the thing people are asking in this thread.
As Armeline pointed out, your macro is a solution for a specific thing. And that is fine if that is all you need.
But as I explained, it doesn't solve the thing a lot of us are wanting the simple 'crop to selection' feature for.

If you have never wanted to crop to a non-square selection, then that's fine. I used that very often in photoshop. For instance to crop the document to the bounding box of a certain layer (or combination of layers). Select the layer(s), expand selection by 1 or 2 pixels, crop.
So simple and useful... but not possible in Affinity Photo or Designer without going through hoops.

Again, this all is more aimed at Serif than at you, Paul. So don't feel personally attacked. If you do, that's on you, not me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

But I don't need a lecture on how useless something is

Nobody has in any way claimed it is useless. I'm honestly not sure how you got that from any of the comments, especially my last one. But we're just going round in cricles at this point. And as Peter said, most of the discussion since you posted it has been about the underlying issue and the response some people have had to it, certainly not aimed at you specifically. All you did was hop in and provide a helpful macro! I genuinely did appreciate that.

 

If you're missing anything I think it's possibly the same thing as some others in this thread - that just because there *are* ways to do what we want, that doesn't make our request for this feature any less valid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Armelline said:

If you're missing anything I think it's possibly the same thing as some others in this thread - that just because there *are* ways to do what we want, that doesn't make our request for this feature any less valid.

The vast majority of those who enjoy using Affinity Photo—even those of us content with workarounds—absolutely agree that requesting this feature is completely valid. Ignore anyone who directly and specifically says that it is a needless request. :) 

With the above in mind, the official process for requesting new features for Affinity Photo is via the forum at Feedback for Affinity Photo on Desktop. A little digging will probably reveal one more threads already requesting this feature, but it's still worth a look.

Where this request lands in the developers' priority queue is another matter entirely. I know as a programmer and developer (in a former life), it's not easy to convey to daily users that their requested feature isn't a priority just yet. For some users, the lack of this feature or a combination of other features might be a deal breaker; for others, Affinity Photo natively and easily supplies 95% of what we need, even while we wait for features that would improve our workflow.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Komatös said:

@Debra35 

First of all, Affinity Photo is not Adobe Photoshop. Functions that exist in Photoshop did not grow into the programme overnight. 
Of course, it's easier when you're served hot soup instead of having to make it yourself. What I mean to say is that many missing functions can also be created with macros. 
Cutting a selection is destructive and would be a good idea if you no longer need the original, otherwise you would have to save it in a new file anyway; you might as well save a new document from the selection.
If you no longer need the original and want to save the selection with the original name, you can create a macro that automates the necessary steps. Here, for example, invert selection, delete, deselect, limit canvas, rasterise layer, and save. Have I forgotten a step?

But yes, it is easier to have the worm brought to you than to look for it yourself.

And you have to remember that Serif has a much smaller development budget than Adobe. So the developers at Serif have to weigh up what to include in the programme. 

I also miss a few things in Affinity Photo, but as I wrote, Affinity Photo is not Photoshop. 

1. Again, a good tool makes things easier, not harder. 

2. Google 'Photoshop Alternative' and Affinity Photo makes 9/10 'alternative lists'. Whether you agree or not, Affinity Photo is considered an alternative to Photoshop, and the folks at Serif are doing nothing to contradict that. You can't look at Photoshop and Affinity Photo side by side and proclaim with seriousness that the latter isn't trying to replicate the former. 

3. It doesn't matter whether you think my workflow is destructive or not. If I need to achieve something and my 'destructive workflow' gets me to that goal 5 times faster than the alternative, then why on earth would I take a longer and more difficult route instead? 

4. Smaller budget. Yeah, I think they could have squeezed it in since this thread started in 2017. Not expecting, nor wanting Adobe bloat level updates. Just basic stuff - which others have noted - is found in free alternatives. 

Bottom line is that there are two serious contenders to Photoshop; Gimp and Affinity Photo. But for some reason Affinity Photo is having an identity crisis about what it wants to be, and for even more explicable and strange reasons, Affinity Photo fans are working overtime to reject suggestions for alternative workflows, which wouldn't take away anything they already have and love, but instead add features that would draw a larger crowd.

I wonder why that is...A simple crop selection feature won't take ANYTHING away from your workflow. Why are you so opposed to me adding it to mine? How is adding this feature going to hurt you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.