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Can't figure out how to crop a photo to drop in a Designer file.


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I've tried everything except, obviously the right process, to simply crop a photo in Affinity-Photo and place it in an Affinity Designer file. I've been over and over and over the tutorials and it makes no sense to me. I've used various versions of indesign and photoshop for twenty-five or more years. Maybe my brain is just glued shut. I want so much to learn both Affinity programs but it's just not going well. All of the videos just confuse me more and more. It seems like it should be such a simple thing to do. Just a case of "old dog, new tricks" what a disappointment.

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Hi, exurbanite7,

As one who  sometimes wonders how many brain cells are still firing, much less still plastic, I have lots of "D'oh!" moments.

I don't have a good camera, just the one in my iPad. Open photo in AP, select crop tool, crop and/or rotate, and export so as to not overwrite the original. 

iMac 27" Retina, c. 2015: OS X 10.11.5: 3.3 GHz I c-5: 32 Gb,  AMD Radeon R9 M290 2048 Mb

iPad 12.9" Retina, iOS 10, 512 Gb, Apple pencil

Huion WH1409 tablet

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Thanks. I stumbled through it with accidental success two times, but have lost the thread again. Somehow I just don't understand the sequence of events. I don't see the progression stated anywhere in all the tutorials I've tried. The mind is so used to photoshop perhaps I just can't get it. I'm giving up to go check my stock of razor blades. Thanks again for the try.

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12 minutes ago, exurbanite7 said:

Thanks. I stumbled through it with accidental success two times, but have lost the thread again. Somehow I just don't understand the sequence of events. I don't see the progression stated anywhere in all the tutorials I've tried. The mind is so used to photoshop perhaps I just can't get it. I'm giving up to go check my stock of razor blades. Thanks again for the try.

Why not start off a bit simpler, place the photo directly in Designer and use the Vector drop tool to crop it in place.

Half the number of programs, half the learning curve. That’s my motto.

There is a Place Tool on the Draw Persona Tools panel. Looks like a Photo (below the wine glass). Click on that and open your image from disc. If you drag with the pointer that appears, you can size the Image as you place it on the page.

The crop Tool looks like, er, a crop tool, and is directly below the Place Tool. After you place the image, select the crop tool and crop away.

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

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7 hours ago, exurbanite7 said:

I've tried everything except, obviously the right process, to simply crop a photo in Affinity-Photo and place it in an Affinity Designer file.

Just guessing, but what is probably tripping you up is cropping in Affinity Photo is non-destructive, meaning the cropped out part is not discarded so you can revert to the un-cropped photo later using the Document menu > Unclip Canvas command. To make it destructive & really discard the cropped out part, you can use the "Rasterize ..." command from the Layers menu.

So one way of doing this is to do the crop, rasterize the layer, copy that to the clipboard, & (optionally) undo the rasterize step to preserve the non-destructive crop. Then in Designer, you can use the Paste command to add the destructively cropped version from the clipboard to your Designer document.

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, R C-R said:

what is probably tripping you up is cropping in Affinity Photo is non-destructive,

I should not matter. I tested and cropped an image in AP, saved as afphoto, placed in AD. Appeared as cropped and image was not recoverable with AD crop tool. Behaviour was the same with copy/pasted image.

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If you crop an image in AP and immediately copy and paste it in AD you will get the uncropped image in AD

To get the cropped version you need to Rasterise the image just before the copy and paste operation

 

If you crop an image in AP and save it as an afphoto file, placing that file in a AD document will give you the cropped version, which will also be an embedded document

That embedded document can then be edited directly, and if you edit it and add an Artboard the cropped parts of the image are recoverable by immediately resizing the Artboard.

Note: I say immediately as trying to do it later was causing my AD (latest beta) to crash.  Probably a bug there somewhere

(I am on Windows)

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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2 hours ago, Fixx said:

I tested and cropped an image in AP, saved as afphoto, placed in AD.

Like @carl123 said, that embeds the Affinity Photo document in the Affinity Designer file.

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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1 hour ago, carl123 said:

If you crop an image in AP and immediately copy and paste it in AD you will get the uncropped image in AD

How quick you have to be? :-) I get always cropped version.

There is a difference though if image in AP appears as image layer. Then it copies uncropped. Normally though when you open image in AP it opens as pixel layer.

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7 minutes ago, Fixx said:

How quick you have to be? :-) I get always cropped version.

Are you selecting the cropped photo layer in Affinity Photo, copying it to the clipboard from there & then, after opening Affinity Designer, pasting it into your Designer document? 

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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24 minutes ago, Fixx said:

How quick you have to be? :-) I get always cropped version. 

 

By immediately I mean don't perform any other operations on the file ( which may automatically rasterise it)

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Are you selecting the cropped photo layer in Affinity Photo, copying it to the clipboard from there & then, after opening Affinity Designer, pasting it into your Designer document? 

Actually crop, select all, copy > AD, paste. Copying a layer copies uncropped.

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23 minutes ago, Fixx said:

Actually crop, select all, copy > AD, paste. Copying a layer copies uncropped.

Interesting. Apparently the 'select all' step causes a rasterized version of the cropped file to be placed on the clipboard, even if the Affinity Photo file is a single layer one.

EDIT: And maybe stranger still, if you just draw out a selection marquee (rectangular, elliptical, or any shape drawn with the freehand selection tool), don't select any layer, & use "Copy Merged," then if you paste into Affinity Designer you get a pixel layer that contains just the flattened area from the selection.

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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@haakoo, on my Mac it is not possible to select any of the paste options unless there is already an open document in the Affinity app. All those Edit menu options are greyed out, as they should be since there is no document to paste anything into.

However, 'new from clipboard' works fine.

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 minutes ago, haakoo said:

It seems you need to have the setting "Prefer metafile to raster from pasting from external aplication " in the general tab, selected in both programs

There is no such setting in the Mac versions:

1601831887_ADgenprefs.jpg.df8adab330c2a85def7c7a6d467ef072.jpg

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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Yes. I'm a mac user. Wow, had no idea this would be so complicated. I'm sorry to say it, and it doesn't make me any less upset with Adobe, but editing a photo and dropping it into inDesign was so much easier. I think Serif is doing a great job and I'm rooting for them. Having used Adobe for many years the biggest upset is losing access to thousands of personal and client files. In semi-retirement, I just don't have enough money to pay them on a monthly basis. Was doing fine using OS 7.5/CS4 until I had to finally upgrade to High Sierra. Oh well, so what, old folks are expendable. Boo, hoo!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks to all for the suggestions. The more I try to work with both programs, the more tutorials I read or watch, the more mired I get in confusion. I'm just not getting either program, much less how they interface. There seems to be nothing intuitive about the processes that gets through to my brain. I suppose the real problem is 25 years of using Adobe and having some misguided conception that the programs would be somewhat closer in process than they are. I was so hoping it would work out because I can't afford to use adobe any longer under their monthly fee sustem. I'm old and useless anyway, so time to accept my obsolescense. Time to hitch a ride on an ice flow if I can find one.

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