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Arbitrary canvas rotation (angle) without trackpad


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Hi,

 

sometimes it is easier for drawing if you can rotate the canvas (I don't mean rotate document!).

Is there any way to rotate the canvas temporarily?

 

E.g. using 'horizontal flip' function of the clone tool for portrait retouching eyes in a potrait. It would be very helpful if I could rotate the canvas to align the eyes horizontally. Then I could use the 'horizontal flip' function of the clone tool to easily clone the right eye to the left eye and vice versa.

 

Currently I can get this only using the 'Rotate' function of the clone tool, but it is not so easy to get the right angle since you can see the rotation only in the small brush. And if you use a transparent brush it is even worse to see the rotation of the brush.

So much easier would be to rotate the canvas instead of the small brush.

 

So again the question, can I rotate the canvas in Affinity photo?

 

Thanks...

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Yes, you can do so in the View menu. Rotate Left or Rotate Right. Better yet, you can assign a shortcut for that in the preferences.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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Hi bleduc and MEB,

 

thanks for reply I found this feature now. But I don't have a trackpad. 

How can I rotate the canvas in arbitrary angle without trackpad?

Any fixed angle is useless for me since I need to rotate my canvas to align eyes horizontally.

 

Thanks for further help.

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Oh nice, MEB!

 

I was testing this for myself. I was moving my ring and index fingers up and down to rotate the canvas. It seems nice and smooth.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I believe it would make sense to add an additional view tool (similar to the existing Zoom Tool and the Pan/View Tool). Its Options bar would be a good place for "Reset", "+90°", "180°", "-90°" buttons and an angle field that can evaluate expressions like the other input fields in Affinity.

 

Also, holding down a modifier key like Shift should constrain the rotation to multiples of 15 degree angles like the regular rotate tool. This should work with both the Rotate Canvas tool I am proposing and rotations via MultiTouch Trackpads.

 

A nice additional feature would be an option to hold down the Option/Alt key to define a rotation center and then drag out sort of a rubber band line. Once the Option/Alt key is released, it would then start rotating around that center point chosen previously until the mouse button is released. The further you drag that leash out, the more precise the rotation. That would make it easy and intuitive to rotate around a specific object without having to worry about manually positioning it into the center of the view first with the View Tool, then switching into the Rotate Canvas tool to perform the rotation.

 

During rotation, it could also show an overlay with a numerical readout of the rotation angle and a pie-chart type overlay over the rotation center that visualizes the angle (useful when zoomed in so far that document bounds are not visible). This overlay could be toggled by an option in the Rotate Canvas Tool options bar.

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  • 5 months later...

I agree on the need for the arbitrary canvas rotation usable with keyboard+mouse/pen input. When I work, my left hand is set on the keyboard and right hand draws on the wacom. While I can somewhat do it on the macbook the left hand hand to magic pad and rotating fingers there, it is clumsy and unprecise in practice. My compromise has been to create keybindings to have rotate left and rotate right buttons on keyboard, but you'll have to slam them multiple times to get where you want. That workflow is slower than it should be, as when I'm painting, I'm constantly rotating to the canvas to align optimally towards my pen. I would love to have it improved as proper tool, so that you just press the key once and use the mouse left/pen to define rotation angle on the go, similarly as it is with the magic pad. That will improve the desktop painting workflow significantly. 

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Back at trying sketching on AP with training fast croquis pieces from quickposes.com. 

And oh my do I miss the photoshop's R+mouse drag flow. In Corquis, where every second counts (idea is to sketch a picture from reference in 30s-2min), it really shows how long it takes to move your hand to magic pad and back, and the imprecision of using keyboard hand to rotate canvas with the touch controls.

 

Please consider adding this as it is crucial in digital painting workflow for many artists. Point being that it is easier to draw curved strokes just as you want if your hand is at right angle towards the canvas, and also useful getting the brush rotation just right when it matters. 

 

As two-point based rotation/scaling already works with the touch-paid, maybe it might not be that large task to add similar support for mouse/pen. I truly wish to see this within the 1.x cycle.

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