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How to rotate canvas in Affinity Photo on desctop PC


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Hi,

I'm new to use Affinity Photo and Affinity Design. Till now I used Photoshop. I'm missing some function in Affinity. Can someone tell me how to rotate the canvas in Affinity Photo and how to change the Brush size with the mouse like Photoshop.

 

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Document > Rotate to rotate the actual document (canvas).

 

Press Alt then both mouse buttons. Drag left or right to adjust the brush size, drag up or down to adjust brush hardness.

 

 

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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2 hours ago, Takis2017 said:

Thanks for you information the tip with the Alt key ist very good, but Docoment and Rotate I can only Rotate 90 degre in each direction. I like to rotate my canvas so that it is mor easy for my to draw.

 

 

Well, Document > Rotate rotates the actual canvas.

 

If you want a temporary rotation for drawing purposes, try View > Rotate. You can rotate in 15 degree intervals but bear in mind it does not rotate the actual canvas. If you save the document it will not be saved rotated.

 

catr.jpg.94bddeef9b40d0ea36be4e9bec2fd0d4.jpg

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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You can rotate the canvas in any angel. I don't have a mouse, (as in, I dont know how to do it with the mouse) so I use two fingers on the trackpad.

- Affinity Photo 2.3.0
- Affinity Designer 2.3.0
-Affinity Publisher 2.3.0

 

MacBook Pro 16 GB
MacOS Sonoma 14.1.2

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13 minutes ago, Madame said:

You can rotate the canvas in any angel. I don't have a mouse, (as in, I dont know how to do it with the mouse) so I use two fingers on the trackpad.

 

According to the Help files and my PC you can't.

 

90 degrees for document rotation and 15 degrees for view rotation. And that is all I can do in practice on a Windows desktop PC. What are you using ? I would like that facility.

About canvas rotation

Being able to rotate the canvas is beneficial for a number of applications:

  • Brush and fine detail work
  • Product design (e.g., product box/packaging layouts with content at 90/180 degree angles)
  • Tablet-assisted design (drawing at angles)

To rotate the canvas:

  • From the View menu, select Rotate Left or Rotate Right. The canvas will be rotated in 15 degree increments.

From the same menu, select Reset Rotation to reset the canvas back to its original rotation.

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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What I like to do is to add the following shortcuts (there is already a use for the Ctrl + 4, so I delete it first. It's on the same list):

Shotcut.png

Best regards!

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46 minutes ago, owenr said:

 

I can freely rotate the view with my Mac trackpad, but the rotation is limited to 15 degree increments with a mouse.

 

Oh no. Now I have trackpad envy >:(

 

Wonder if there are any similar PC trackpad options?

Windows PCs. Photo and Designer, latest non-beta versions.

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With the crop tool, you can rotate the document, but not the canvas. Click just outside a corner and rotate. Was it just my imagination, but I thought that in the past I had rotated a document by clicking on the move tool and entering a rotate angle in the Transform panel. It certainly didn't work an hour ago. Or was that just in Designer?

Edit: Warning! This method works but it is destructive.

John

Edited by John Rostron

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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Another way to rotate the document (but not the canvas) by any amount is to use Filter > Distort > Equations. You need to choose Polar Coordinates, then for the t= formula enter t+pi*fraction.  t represents the Angle (Theta) and fraction is the fraction of the half-circle you want. Simply entering t+pi rotates the angle by 180 degrees. Entering t+pi*0.5 rotates it counter-clockwise by 90 degrees.

You will need to expand the canvas size before rotation (use Document > Resize Canvas) and click on the small square in the centre of the grid of nine. Just doubling the size will suffice. Afterwards you can get rid of the excess by entering Document > Clip Canvas.

Edit: Warning! This method works but it is destructive.

John

Edited by John Rostron

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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On 3/14/2018 at 0:51 PM, John Rostron said:

Was it just my imagination, but I thought that in the past I had rotated a document by clicking on the move tool and entering a rotate angle in the Transform panel. It certainly didn't work an hour ago. Or was tht just in Designer?

In Designer you can rotate an artboard, either in the Transform panel or in the workspace by hovering the Move Tool pointer near a corner handle until it turns into a curved double-headed arrow & then dragging. That is probably what you are thinking about.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 11 months later...
23 minutes ago, Frank Jonen said:

Yeah the canvas rotation bug doesn't ever seem to get fixed. It's highly annoying that on a normal working setup you're crippled with step-rotation. Why it doesn't have a key combo that you can hold while dragging to rotate is beyond me.

What makes you think that it's a bug, rather than simply missing function that you'd like it to have?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

What makes you think that it's a bug, rather than simply missing function that you'd like it to have?

That is exactly what it is -- a function missing completely from the Windows versions, & implemented in the Mac versions only via trackpad gestures.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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2 hours ago, Frank Jonen said:

It only works with a single specific piece of hardware despite being easily adapted to other input devices via key+scrollwheel functions. 

That still doesn't mean it's a bug. Bugs are errors that cause a function not to work as it was planned/designed. Serif did not intend to implement canvas rotation as you'd like it, therefore it's a missing function that you'd like to see implemented; not a bug.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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7 hours ago, Frank Jonen said:

It only works with a single specific piece of hardware despite being easily adapted to other input devices via key+scrollwheel functions. 

A key+scroll wheel feature would also be one that only works with a single specific piece of hardware, that being a mouse with a scroll wheel. As far as "being easily adapted," only the developers can say how easy that actually would be.

But regardless, it is a missing feature, not a bug. Knowing the difference is important because if you want to see this feature added to the Windows versions, you need to post that to the feature request forums, not the bugs forums.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 4 months later...

Ideally, this should be a modifier that can be used with a pen.

  • Alt + right click + pen drag = Resize brush
  • Alt + pen drag = Color picker
  • Control + right click + pen drag = Rotate canvas view

I'm sad that the Windows version of Affinity only has the 15 degree rotations from a menu, but it's at least better than nothing.

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  • 4 months later...

I would also love to be able to rotate the canvas freely with some key modifier + pen movement.

Is this already on a roadmap somewhere and if not, what do we have to do in order for the Affinity team to evaluate this?

Check out my Youtube Channel about vector art:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHRE-TL1-AeVBMtxRTmRa8Q

 

Want to see a magic trick for making isometric designs in Designer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGtK3KG_nRM

 

My Graphic Tablet

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1 hour ago, Phillipp said:

I would also love to be able to rotate the canvas freely with some key modifier + pen movement.

Is this already on a roadmap somewhere and if not, what do we have to do in order for the Affinity team to evaluate this?

We don't know what changes Serif plans to make in the future.

They watch the Feature Requests & Suggestions forum to see what new functions users are requesting. You could post there, or perhaps find another request that someone else made that you can concur with.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 5 months later...
On 11/24/2019 at 3:43 AM, Phillipp said:

I would also love to be able to rotate the canvas freely with some key modifier + pen movement.

Is this already on a roadmap somewhere and if not, what do we have to do in order for the Affinity team to evaluate this?

+1 to this, as well. A free rotation tool that could be hotkeyed would be amazing.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I have switched to affinity software and bought all apps and pc software, and I'm really happy with it, but just realized that affinity photo does not have a quick free rotation of the canvas implemented, but only at intervals of 15° which also for some reason creates just a bad quality images, as in bad anti aliasing or something. That is a function that is essential for use with the pen and tablet, I can't believe this is not existent :( please add it, as it is right now is very limiting.

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