Cropping and selection by Aspect ratio

[Aborto]

One of the simpler but common use cases I have has proven to be much more difficult in Affinity photo than I expected and came as quite a surprise to me.

I commonly crop sections from large images to a smaller size for use as desktop backgrounds and found affinity has no option to constrain a selection box by aspect ratio, and no option to crop to selection.

While there are workarounds for both they are unnecessarily complicated for what seem like incredibly basic operations.

 

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

To be clear, you want to make a selection (which is somehow constrained to a certain aspect ratio), and then crop that selection? If that's true, is there some reason you don't simply use the crop tool, which can be constrained?

[Aborto]

Yea, cropping is simple to work around in several ways, although I still find the current implementation much more annoying to use vs the simple crop to selection in paint.net or PS.

The rectangular marquee selection tool in both paint.net and PS allows you to simply set an aspect ration to constrain the selection tool, this makes it incredibly easy to select an area to fit say a 21:9 monitor for example. The workarounds I have seen suggested to do this are crazy, I feel like its a pretty basic and critical feature to be missing from the selection tool.

Combine the two together and a fairly common simple workflow I do (open an image, select an area to fit the aspect ratio of the monitor, then crop to that selection) are exceedingly complicated vs any other image editors I have used. Paint.net takes seconds and a few clicks to complete this, I had to read walkthroughs to get it done in Affinity (I am far from an expert at photo editing admittedly).

[Christoph Daniel]

4 hours ago, Aborto said:

open an image, select an area to fit the aspect ratio of the monitor, then crop to that selection

I don't see how opening an image, selecting an area to fit the aspect ratio of the monitor using the crop tool, then crop that selection is any harder. It's just a different tool than the selection tool, but it should work perfectly for your use case.

[Aborto]

Well yea, I guess that's not really a good example, the crop tool is fine although I feel like crop to selection is a simple option that really should be there.

Constraining selection to an aspect ratio doesn't have a great workaround that I have seen, especially if you don't want to crop at that stage and just need the selection.

[Alfred]

31 minutes ago, Aborto said:

Constraining selection to an aspect ratio doesn't have a great workaround that I have seen, especially if you don't want to crop at that stage and just need the selection.

You can draw a rectangle, move or resize it while maintaining its aspect ratio, and then convert it to a selection.

[Christoph Daniel]

58 minutes ago, Aborto said:

Well yea, I guess that's not really a good example, the crop tool is fine although I feel like crop to selection is a simple option that really should be there.

Sorry, please don't take my statement as being against your original suggestion of being able to constrain selections. I'm completely with you in that I think that's a useful feature. I was just weighing in on this particular use case.

[FrankStahl]

Really, come on: This is just a convenience function, and in comparison to Photoshop, so *many* of them are just missing in Affinity Photo. For God's sake, it´s CONVENIENCE, it's not about whether you need this every single time. It's just great to have this when you need it.

I mean, I *beg* your pardon: Like in Photoshop, just two number input fields for the aspect ratio in the selection tool's toolbar. How difficult can this be? Programmingwise I guess this is about one hour's work, if at all. Same thing with being able to move selections while drawing them just by holding the space key or having the eyedroppers in the Curves tool. Lord Almighty, we are not talking rocket sience here, it's not as if these required some kind of difficult to program algorithms. These things are *really* EASY to implement. So, Serif, pray may I ask: Why dont't you?

[SaTom]

Has there been any update to this? I would have thought it a basic thing to do. I am trying to switch from Gimp to Affinity so I can learn how to use the Affinity suite but I can't find some of the basic features I usually use in Gimp.

[Patrick Gilmour]

Try this...

Enable: View>Show Context Toolbar...

You'll then see a Mode option (see attached), with lots of options...

It's all here in the Help

 

[dnathan]

Can you convert a crop selection to a selection? Selecting an aspect ratio is vital to my workflow.

[Alfred]

21 hours ago, dnathan said:

Can you convert a crop selection to a selection? Selecting an aspect ratio is vital to my workflow.

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @dnathan.

Doesn’t the following address your needs?

On 8/23/2018 at 11:16 AM, Alfred said:

You can draw a rectangle, move or resize it while maintaining its aspect ratio, and then convert it to a selection.

 

[Colin Dee]

Hi all,

Yeah, I would like to know how to convert a crop selection to a selection. I can't see how in the answer above.

Thanks.

 

[Alfred]

48 minutes ago, Colin Dee said:

Yeah, I would like to know how to convert a crop selection to a selection. I can't see how in the answer above.

If you’re referring to my answer

On 8/23/2018 at 11:16 AM, Alfred said:

You can draw a rectangle, move or resize it while maintaining its aspect ratio, and then convert it to a selection.

then strictly speaking you’re not converting a crop selection because you’re not using the Crop Tool, but you will nevertheless end up with a ‘marching ants’ selection based on the rectangular area that you’ve marked out.

Affinity Photo Help: Pixel selections from shapes

[carl123]

1 hour ago, Colin Dee said:

Yeah, I would like to know how to convert a crop selection to a selection. I can't see how in the answer above.

You really need to be more specific in what you are trying to do to get an accurate reply. At the moment it's just guess work as to what you want

"I would like to know how to convert a crop selection to a selection" is a tad vague

Can you give a real-life example of something you need to do?

You can upload screenshots if that helps

[Colin Dee]

11 minutes ago, carl123 said:

You really need to be more specific in what you are trying to do to get an accurate reply. At the moment it's just guess work as to what you want

"I would like to know how to convert a crop selection to a selection" is a tad vague

Can you give a real-life example of something you need to do?

You can upload screenshots if that helps

Thanks for your reply.

The thread is about "Cropping and selection by Aspect ratio" and that is what I would like to do.

The Marquee tool doesn't allow this and the solution I queried was "You can draw a rectangle, move or resize it while maintaining its aspect ratio, and then convert it to a selection." So my question is "how to convert a crop selection to a selection"?

[Colin Dee]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

If you’re referring to my answer

then strictly speaking you’re not converting a crop selection because you’re not using the Crop Tool, but you will nevertheless end up with a ‘marching ants’ selection based on the rectangular area that you’ve marked out.

Affinity Photo Help: Pixel selections from shapes

Thanks for your reply.

I guess I would just like to know how to use the Marquee tool with a fixed aspect ratio. 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Colin Dee said:

The Marquee tool doesn't allow this and the solution I queried was "You can draw a rectangle, move or resize it while maintaining its aspect ratio, and then convert it to a selection." So my question is "how to convert a crop selection to a selection"?

What is confusing us (at least me) is:

1. You mention a quote, "you can draw a rectangle, then convert it to a selection".
2. You then say, "so my question is how to convert a crop selection to a selection".

In step 1, you are talking about rectangles. In step 2, about crop selections. They are entirely different things. Rectangles use the Rectangle Tool. Cropping uses the Crop Tool.

Also, Cropping does not use "selections".

[walt.farrell]

47 minutes ago, Colin Dee said:

I guess I would just like to know how to use the Marquee tool with a fixed aspect ratio. 

You can't; it doesn't work that way.

But if you describe what you are trying to accomplish, in detail, we may have some suggestiions for you.

[Alfred]

46 minutes ago, Colin Dee said:

I guess I would just like to know how to use the Marquee tool with a fixed aspect ratio.

You can drag out a marquee with the Move Tool but there is no “Marquee tool” as such.

The Crop Tool offers a ‘Custom Ratio’ option. My post about converting a rectangle to a ‘marching ants’ selection was in response to a question about making a selection without also performing a crop. You just need to choose between the two methods, depending on the result you want.

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, Alfred said:

but there is no “Marquee tool” as such

There is a Rectangular Marquee Tool as one of the pixel selection tools.

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

There is a Rectangular Marquee Tool as one of the pixel selection tools.

Oops. So there is!

[Colin Dee]

39 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You can't; it doesn't work that way.

But if you describe what you are trying to accomplish, in detail, we may have some suggestiions for you.

I want to do the same as the title to this thread "Cropping and selection by Aspect ratio".

In Photoshop I would open a file, click the marquee tool, click fixed ratio in the Style setting, set the width and height (6 x 4 for example), make the selection then copy/paste to a new file.

[John Rostron]

Could the following do what you want:

Make your selection approximately using the Rectangle Tool.

Use the Transform Panel to enter the exact dimensions you need. Note that you could enter the desired width in the W box and then enter (say) 2*w/3 in the H box. This would give you a 3:2 aspect ratio.

John

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Colin Dee said:

I want to do the same as the title to this thread "Cropping and selection by Aspect ratio".

In Photoshop I would open a file, click the marquee tool, click fixed ratio in the Style setting, set the width and height (6 x 4 for example), make the selection then copy/paste to a new file.

Cropping is easy.

1. Select Crop Tool.
2. Select either Original Ratio or Custom Ratio. If custom, specify the ratio.
3. Adjust the size of the crop box using any of the handles. The aspect ratio will be preserved.
4. Adjust the position of the crop box by moving it to compose the image.
5. Apply the crop.
6. If you want it to be destructive, do Rasterize & Trim.

Or you can use Resample mode, where you specify the final size you want, and then adjust the handles,. The aspect ratio is maintained, You can move the crop frame to compose. Then press Apply.

Selection is not the same as Cropping. If Cropping is the goal, I would recommend using the Crop Tool instead of a Selection tool. (As I did near the beginning of this thread.)

But if you want to Select, you can use the approach @John Rostron suggests just above.

Or you can use his approach, but using the Rectangular Marquee Tool to make a selection, then set its size in the Transform panel (as he described), move the selection to do your composition, then Copy, and File > New from Clipboard.