Affinity Photo, how to create rounded corners?

[heldrida]

Hi, how to create rounded corners?
Doesn't the select tool have that functionality?  not finding how...

tried to create a new rectangle with rounded corners in a new layer, then use the magic selection tool, to then keep the selection and apply on the image, but the magic selection tool also failed.
***
if someone is reading this in the future...well...there's no such thing... so try GIMP or use reactangle with rounded corners and Mask below

[toltec]

What software are you using?

 

In Affinity photo you can draw a shape, set rounded corners, change the radius, set different corner styles, rounded, angled, concave, even individually on each corner. Then make a selection or a mask.

You can apply a shadow, a fade, 3D edges too if you want.

 

That took less than 1 minute. I'm not sure if you can even do that in gimp.

[toltec]

Change your mind about the shape? Just change it. No need to unmask first, just drag the controls.

It would even reshape with the fade applied.

[R C-R]

There is no "Magic Selection Tool" in either Affinity app, so I assume the OP means what in Affinity Photo is called the "Flood Select Tool," commonly known as the magic wand because long ago Adobe chose that silly, non-descriptive name for a similar Photoshop tool. It can be used to make a selection based on color tolerance to create a new selection, or to add to, subtract from, or intersect with an existing selection, but it cannot be used to turn a rectangle into a selection.

 

As toltec mentioned, a rectangle (or other shape) can be used to create a selection (Select menu > Selection from layer). For rectangle layers the Context menu offers many different options for rounded, cutout, concave, etc. corners, including as he demonstrates using different ones for different corners. If that isn't enough, "Convert to curves" makes the shape completely editable into anything one can imagine, which can then be used via the Select menu to make any arbitrary kind of selection shape.

 

Of course, masking is another, usually better alternative to making a selection, inverting it, & erasing the selected parts, again as toltec demonstrates with his examples.

[toltec]

Thinking on this further, and reading the post again, maybe you wanted to make a selection from a rounded rectangle layer?

 

Draw a rectangle, Select > Selection From Layer

 

Here I used the white rectangle to select the rounded selection and moved them both a touch to demonstrate. The selection is there, as is the hole it was moved from and the original rounded rectangle that made it.

 

I've not heard of a Magic Selection tool. Maybe Magic Wand ? but that selects pixel by colour range, so would not work for turning a rectangle into a selection.

[PaintNut]

Because I couldn't figure out how to do this, here is what I resorted to doing:

How to manually create rounded corners in Affinity Photo

• On a new pixel layer, make your rectangular selection and then fill it

• Select the Eliptical Marquee Tool

• Set the cursor at the desired corner of the filled rectangular selection

• Drag up a circle to the size (hold down Shift to constrain the selection to a circle) until you get a representation of the corner as you would like it

• Select>Invert Pixel Selection (Ctrl+Shift+I)

• Use the Erase Brush Tool (E) to erase out the corners

Even though I don't know the answer, I tried to post a helpful response, because that is what I would want others to do who have answers.

[PaintNut]

On 8/17/2017 at 3:42 PM, toltec said:

In Affinity photo you can draw a shape, set rounded corners, change the radius, set different corner styles, rounded, angled, concave, even individually on each corner. Then make a selection or a mask.

You can apply a shadow, a fade, 3D edges too if you want. 

I am trying to figure out how to do exactly what you describe. Would you mind explaining briefly how it is done since the solution isn't jumping out at me and most likely other's who are also new to the software?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Affinity-Inspiration]

On 8/18/2017 at 2:15 AM, toltec said:

Thinking on this further, and reading the post again, maybe you wanted to make a selection from a rounded rectangle layer?

 

Draw a rectangle, Select > Selection From Layer

 

Here I used the white rectangle to select the rounded selection and moved them both a touch to demonstrate. The selection is there, as is the hole it was moved from and the original rounded rectangle that made it.

 

I've not heard of a Magic Selection tool. Maybe Magic Wand ? but that selects pixel by colour range, so would not work for turning a rectangle into a selection.

Hi, if you are still there, or someone is, do you have a step by step on how to do this please?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, HarryMcGovern said:

if you are still there, or someone is, do you have a step by step on how to do this please?

1. Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool.
2. Draw the shape of the size you want.
3. Select > Selection from Layer (or, Select > Selection from Layer and Delete if you want to delete the rounded rectangle, too.)
4. You now have the selection, and you can do what you want with it.

If that's not what you were looking for, then please describe further what you need to do.

[smadell]

Here's what (I assume) you are trying to do.

Open your photo (in my case, it's the "Dragon Photo"). Draw a Rounded Rectangle as a new layer – use the Shape tool to do this. The rounded rectangle should be a layer above the photo. Now, drag the photo onto the rounded rectangle layer until a blue rectangle appears just below the rectangle layer in the Layers panel. You have just "clipped" the photo to the rounded rectangle. The result is shown below.

As an aside, the "magic selection" tool is probably the "Selection Brush" and the reason it failed is more than likely that your initial rounded rectangle is a vector object, and the Selection Brush will only work on a Pixel object.

[Affinity-Inspiration]

Thanks for the help guys. That’s it. I’m sure I knew, but had forgotten it. :-)

[james27]

update2020: guys, now this function is hidden in the =>"refine" button (only appears after shape tool is selected)=> then adjust the "smooth" bar to adjust the roundness of the corners

PS. you can change the "preview"=> to transparent, and uncheck the "matte edges" box to see better

[Shaf747]

Mask below will work but make sure you have the colours set to "White" & "Black"

Won's work with transparent settings.

 

[Hots]

Masking doesn't work for me.

I don't want to add a new object (shape) or layer. I want to round the corners of the original image layer without adding another layer or mask on top of it. 

The problem with masking is that, while the interior of the shape looks correct, the stroke doesn't. Instead of cropping/masking an image and still seeing pointed strokes on the corner, I need the stroke to following the rounding of the corner. i.e. the image becomes a rounded image, and any outline effects (shadow, stroke, brush style, border, ...) added to the image layer respect that rounding.

[Hots]

Hopefully this clip illustrates what I mean. You see the dark green border? That's the stroke on the original (rectangle) image layer.

Even though I have followed the method outlined above and added a rounded rectangle shape to mask the image, the masked result shows a mismatch between the outer border (which is curved, like the mask rounded rect) and the inner border (which is still rectangular, like the original image).

Properly rounding the corners of the image should also round the inside corner of the stroke, so the image actually behaves like a rounded object. Unfortunately, once the image is masked, the result doesn't itself have a separate stroke, as selecting it in the Layers panel shows the same stroke data/style as the original image. The masked (shape layer + image layer) object itself doesn't possess its own stroke. (So I cannot, for example, remove the stroke from the original image layer, and add it to the masked object -- they are one and the same in the editor.)

How might I achieve that?

[Paul Mudditt]

16 minutes ago, Hots said:

Hopefully this clip illustrates what I mean. You see the dark green border? That's the stroke on the original (rectangle) image layer.

Even though I have followed the method outlined above and added a rounded rectangle shape to mask the image, the masked result shows a mismatch between the outer border (which is curved, like the mask rounded rect) and the inner border (which is still rectangular, like the original image).

Properly rounding the corners of the image should also round the inside corner of the stroke, so the image actually behaves like a rounded object. Unfortunately, once the image is masked, the result doesn't itself have a separate stroke, as selecting it in the Layers panel shows the same stroke data/style as the original image. The masked (shape layer + image layer) object itself doesn't possess its own stroke. (So I cannot, for example, remove the stroke from the original image layer, and add it to the masked object -- they are one and the same in the editor.)

How might I achieve that?

Have you tried using the corner tool in Designer assuming you have the full suite. .afdesign files are 100% compatible with .afphoto files so you can work in either package at any time. Demo on iPad version but similar on desktop.

[Affinity-Inspiration]

Well that’s interesting.

20 minutes ago, Hots said:

Hopefully this clip illustrates what I mean. You see the dark green border? That's the stroke on the original (rectangle) image layer.

Even though I have followed the method outlined above and added a rounded rectangle shape to mask the image, the masked result shows a mismatch between the outer border (which is curved, like the mask rounded rect) and the inner border (which is still rectangular, like the original image).

Properly rounding the corners of the image should also round the inside corner of the stroke, so the image actually behaves like a rounded object. Unfortunately, once the image is masked, the result doesn't itself have a separate stroke, as selecting it in the Layers panel shows the same stroke data/style as the original image. The masked (shape layer + image layer) object itself doesn't possess its own stroke. (So I cannot, for example, remove the stroke from the original image layer, and add it to the masked object -- they are one and the same in the editor.)

How might I achieve that?

Are you working with vectors or pixels?

[Affinity-Inspiration]

That's about as simple as it gets. A rounded rectangle with an image dropped in it. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to do.

[Affinity-Inspiration]

Or maybe you could just use something like Fotor. Nifty corner rounder. Online.

[Hots]

1 hour ago, Affinity-Inspiration said:

Well that’s interesting.

Are you working with vectors or pixels?

Thanks for your reply. I checked your post below with the image of the image inside the rectangle.

First of all, the image is raster. (pixels)

I do have Designer (and have worked in vector/Illustrator before), but this entire document is a collection of raster JPGs laid out to produce another fixed-size JPEG, so Photo makes the most sense. I don't want to mix two pieces of software to do something conceptually simple. Conceptually, rounding the corners of an image Iayer shouldn't require a separate program. In Photoshop (raster), you can click an image layer, and it has corner radius as a property.

Second of all, dragging an image into a rounded rectangle in Affinity Photo doesn't embed it. It just puts the image into the layer stack as a separate object/layer, with no downsizing to fit inside the rectangle. Dragging that placed image into the rectangle on canvas also doesn't do anything. It just moves the image layer and ignores the rectangle.

By the way, your screenshot shows a different UI (Affinity Photo 2). Is this drag & drop feature/guidance exclusive to Photo 2? I have both, but this document was created in Photo, and I need to modify it in Photo to maintain backwards compatibility for other people on the team that use Photo.

[Hots]

The other thing is, I assume Affinity Photo is built with Core Animation and Core Graphics, or UIKit at a higher level. Originally, it was a macOS Apple-first app, correct?

Have you ever heard of a CAShapeLayer or UIImageView?

If you load an image into a UIImageView, and access view.layer.cornerRadius, you can change the corner radius of the image. Shadows and strokes (borders) applied to that layer then follow the rounding.

The expected behavior -- based on Apple paradigms, or Adobe Photoshop paradigms -- is that once you round the corners of an image object, its other properties -- border, shadow, stroke style -- should respect that rounding.

I would really encourage the Affinity devs to respect this paradigm/behavior.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Hots said:

Second of all, dragging an image into a rounded rectangle in Affinity Photo doesn't embed it. It just puts the image into the layer stack as a separate object/layer, with no downsizing to fit inside the rectangle.

You have to drag the pixel layer into the clipping position of the Rounded Rectangle. To do that, drag it onto the name of the pixel layer, not its thumbnail, in the Layers panel. Alternately, use Arrange> Move Inside.

1 hour ago, Hots said:

By the way, your screenshot shows a different UI (Affinity Photo 2).

That screenshot is from the iPad version, which does have a different UI, & that probably should have been mentioned to avoid confusion. But the help topic I linked to above is for the desktop version & should explain how clipping is done in the desktop version.

1 hour ago, Hots said:

I have both, but this document was created in Photo, and I need to modify it in Photo to maintain backwards compatibility for other people on the team that use Photo.

It doesn't matter at all which app (AP, AD, or APub) you or other members of your team are using, as long as they are all the same version (so all current V2 retail versions rather than a mix of V1 & V2), & you all are working with the native file format. The native file format is the same for all of them. They are 100% compatible with each other -- in fact, you can change the extension from *.afdesign to *.afphoto or *.afpub or from *.afphoto to *.afdesign, etc. & the only thing that will change is which app opens the file by default if you double-click it.

Try it yourself. In AD, use File > Open to open one of your *.afphoto files, or in AP use File > Open to open one of your *.afdesign files. Either way, the files will open & can be edited & saved & still be opened & edited in the other app with no loss of data or any changes in content. In fact, at any time you can use the File > Edit in...  options to change to the other app.

[Affinity-Inspiration]

On 8/17/2017 at 10:22 PM, heldrida said:

Hi, how to create rounded corners?
Doesn't the select tool have that functionality?  not finding how...

tried to create a new rectangle with rounded corners in a new layer, then use the magic selection tool, to then keep the selection and apply on the image, but the magic selection tool also failed.
***
if someone is reading this in the future...well...there's no such thing... so try GIMP or use reactangle with rounded corners and Mask below

Try this.

Create your rounded corners as shown previously.

Convert both layers to curves.

Select both layers, select Merge Visible.

Copy the generated image.

Exit that image and Create a New Image from Clipboard.

 

image 1. Creating the new pixel layer

Image 2. Creating your new rounded corner image. No layers.