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Of course, you can ignore the height. Just don't enter any number and let be in there whatever is in. You are talking about an unconstrained crop, so why do you even care about the numbers in there?

I agree on displaying pixels-only values, tho. That's something, which a user should decide, not the app. But you can enter any other values (like "15 cm"), which—annoyingly—are converted into pixels as you mentioned already. 

But the whole cropping procedure isn't really affected by that too much. You can move the crop and resize it vertically to any desired size (variable height), maintaining the width you set.

I still don't see your problem with creating an unconstrained  crop with a given width, except for Affinity's weird choice of insisting in pixels.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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The problem is exactly what you just described - I can't have an unconstrained crop in centimetres. An unconstrained crop should still be able to have one dimension - as Photoshop has had since I started using it circa 1992.

AP doesn't allow this as it REQUIRES both parameters as detailed in my original post. I get you don't see it as an issue, that doesn't mean it's not an issue for others. It's a basic function which should be available if it expects to compete with PS.

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Ok, I tried it now as I was curious, what your problem really is. Just to find out your problem doesn't exist at all actually.

Seriously, did you even try to use mm/cm or whatever unit you want to use? Of course, it might require some common sense to set the crop tool's units to centimetre in the toolbar in order to crop in centimetres. Do it and be happy. No switching back to pixels whatsoever. You don't even have to prepare the document's units for this. 

Since you wanted to draw the crop (see your initial complaining post), there's absolutely no difference as to "workload". In both procedures, you have to set the height manually—in photoshop by drawing the crop area, in affinty by resizing the preset height. So why do you even care about the preset height in affinity's setup? Zero / nothing / random number—neither matters nor has any advantages or disadvantages for the procedure.

I still don't see what your problem is, honestly. 

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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32 minutes ago, kimtorch said:

I can't have an unconstrained crop in centimetres

Agreed. We should be either able to change units in the context toolbar, or the unconstrained mode should respect the selected ruler units.

33 minutes ago, kimtorch said:

An unconstrained crop should still be able to have one dimension

No, that's what the Original and Custom Ratio modes are about.
However, same applies as above: we should be able to select the units we want.

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12 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

I still don't see what your problem is, honestly. 

It's very specific, and I'd likely wouldn't even come across it myself, but I do see it now.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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5 minutes ago, loukash said:

Agreed. We should be either able to change units in the context toolbar, or the unconstrained mode should respect the selected ruler units.

Check the toolbar after selecting the crop tool. You can pick whatever units you like. And Affinity will respect your choice.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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21 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

Check the toolbar after selecting the crop tool. You can pick whatever units you like.

aph_crop_units.thumb.png.0c95a6e55dddac4af2d90decd59ecde4.png

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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Well, it works flawlessly in Windows 10, APh 1.9.2:

crop.png.90a8a54a6bec73e184d3882d55f374a4.png

[EDIT: Mode is "Resample", but works for other modes similarly]

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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Wasn't this about the crop tool in Designer instead of Photo? It is indeed completely useless and does not work as expected at all..
The one in Photo works just fine..

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4 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

Well, it works flawlessly in Windows 10, APh 1.9.2:

[EDIT: Mode is "Resample", but works for other modes similarly]

No, it doesn't work similarly for other modes. On the Mac the unit is only available in Resample. It may be a bug, but it definitely doesn't work on Unconstrained  as Loukash's screenshot shows.

And in Resample you can't do it with a single dimension, the 'crop' is constrained to a two parameter ratio.

For people working on a few web images or designing small flyers or posters it may not matter too much but when you're producing hundreds of pages each week and you want standardised widths for all images this sort of thing makes a difference. It's also why the lack of scripting is such an issue for professional workflows. Ironically if scripting was available the cropping could possibly be worked around.

AP is trying to compete with Photoshop so it needs to be able to do all the basics. Preferably do them better rather than not at all.

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5 minutes ago, kimtorch said:

No, it doesn't work similarly for other modes.

It does on windows as far as it affects the units. I just forgot to switch it, but I tested it.

Of course, resample mode doesn't allow editing just either width or height, that wouldn't make any sense, would it?

6 minutes ago, kimtorch said:

AP is trying to compete with Photoshop so it needs to be able to do all the basics.

Kinda, I guess. Although the advertising might sound different, I think it's rather exaggerated. The main target of the Affinty suite (as the apps are are now) can only be enthusiastic hobbyists and some sectors of professionals. It might be great for artists, but it's simply too wonky for intense print production in so many ways and almost unusable for preparing designs for plotting/engraving/cutting.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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On 4/8/2021 at 12:56 PM, kimtorch said:

On the Mac the unit is only available in Resample.

Exactly.

On 4/8/2021 at 12:56 PM, kimtorch said:

when you're producing hundreds of pages each week and you want standardised widths for all images this sort of thing makes a difference. It's also why the lack of scripting is such an issue for professional workflows. Ironically if scripting was available the cropping could possibly be worked around.

For specific scenarios, however, you still have other "workarounds", which I'd rather call other workflows. (Vive la différence!)

For example:
If you're always cropping to 15 cm width, create a blank vector rectangle with 15 cm width and save it as an asset.
Add a simple macro and you've got your half-scripted workflow that requires just a few clicks to execute:

 

In other words:
Plan ahead if you want to get the job done with your new tool of choice now.

Edited by loukash
replaced *.mov with *.mp4

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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3 hours ago, Xzenor said:

the crop tool in Designer […] is indeed completely useless and does not work as expected at all

Hm.

Perhaps it's just me, but the vector crop tool in Designer works just as I'd expect it from a vector crop tool.

Is it possibly slightly redundant because essentially you can also use any random vector shape or even an artboard to crop your content as well?
Well, yes, somewhat.

Select any crop object – no matter how it was originally created – in the Layers panel, convert it to curves, select the Node tool and edit its form freely as you see fit.
Switch back to the Crop tool to see its cropping bounding box and handles again.

As a "bonus", the Crop tool directly converts an object's selection box to a cropping rectangle, so it saves quite a few clicks if you'd have to recreate that box manually.

So, even if it's just me, I'm fine with it.
There are many ways to crop in the vector domain, and the Crop tool is just one way to get you there.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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9 hours ago, kimtorch said:

2) have Unconstrained crop appear in Centimetres despite have Centimetres select as units in Transform panel. If I type 15cm into the Custom Ratio fields it simply reverts it to Pixels.

The Custom Ratio fields expect a pair of plain dimensionless numbers, not numbers plus any length units like "15cm" or 200px."

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Another post, another workarou… er, workflow:

 

Edited by loukash
replaced *.mov with *.mp4

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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7 minutes ago, loukash said:

another workarou… er, workflow

However, there's a weird bug:

The Transformation panel cannot count properly when it comes to marquee selections!
Note that while I have typed "15 cm", the panel field then displays "1869.799772 px" (yes, I have 6 decimal places active; that's not the point here).
But 1869.8 px @ 300 ppi = 15.822507 cm!

Say what?! 

If you then type "15 cm" into the field again, the second transformation will be correct: 1771.653543 px = 15.00000 cm

Oh boy… :/

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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Hello,

I have the same problem with crop tool (in fact with most tools). I have just installed Affinity Photo (v. 1.9.2) on a new Mac Mini M1. I open a photo click on the crop tool and move over to the image. But, as soon as I get the image 'window' the crop tool icon changes to the hand icon and as I move the image moves. The same thing happens with many of the tools. I suspect this is a Big Sur compatibility issue. I am trying Affinity only because Lightroom and Photoshop also have issues of compatibility with Big Sur.

So generally I am not a happy bunny having just invested in the new mac and its new OS.

 

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  • 3 months later...

I have a persistent problem with the crop tool in Affinity Photo. Every time that I use it it leaves a fine while line on at least one side of the image.  This is not a problem created by cropping outside the frame. Sometimes, even recropping to remove it creates another. I have never had this problem with Photoshop. I am using Windows 10.

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  • 2 years later...
On 7/20/2020 at 5:16 AM, Juanjo Haro said:

Yep, there is not cropping tool, is a masking tool and is a hell working with it, is some part of the image is beyond the borders all of it is exported...

 

On 7/20/2020 at 5:34 AM, MEB said:

Hi Juanjo Haro,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
As i explained above the vector crop tool is Affinity Designer is object based - is that the app you app you are using? It works by masking the object with a vector shape so you can still recover parts of it if needed. If exported only the visible part should be exported (not the hidden parts/whole object). How are you exporting the object? Are you using the Export command, the Export Persona? Can you give us more details about what you are doing please? A screenshot with the Layers panel visible and the object selected would help. Thanks.

Did this ever get figured out? i too have the same problem. I made a map with an invitation on it , looked great , when i exported to print , it exported a file 47"x32" when the card i designed was 5x7 , it was importing everything outside of the cropped portion of the map. Any ideas?

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49 minutes ago, caseyrtomberlin said:

Did this ever get figured out? i too have the same problem. I made a map with an invitation on it , looked great , when i exported to print , it exported a file 47"x32" when the card i designed was 5x7 , it was importing everything outside of the cropped portion of the map. Any ideas?

Which application are you using, and how did you crop? Can you provide a screenshot of the application window showing the design and the Layers panel, and also one showing your Export options?

-- Walt
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