Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Recommended Posts

AFFINITY PHOTO - WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT FOR THE DESIGNER TO CONVEY INSTRUCTIONS CLEARLY? FOR EXAMPLE, IN LAYMAN'S TERMS, CROP MEANS TO DELETE A SELECTED AREA OF AN OBJECT. WHERE IS THE ASSOCIATED DELETE COMMAND? I AM TRYING TO DELETE SELECTED EXISTING TEXT. PRESSING DELETE DOES NOTHING!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@bjeaston, I think that you will find that, in layman's terms, to crop means to take a harvest from a product. In photographic jargon, it means to trim off exess from the edges.  The Photo crop tool does just that. How does this relate to your problem of deleting existing selected text? Could you be more specific in what you are trying to do?

New users often find that if deleting a selection does not work it is because of one of the following:

  1. The layer you are deleting from is an (Image) layer (it will have (Image) after the layer name). In this case,  delete will delete the entire layer.
  2. Your selection is on one layer, but this is not the active layer.

Is your text on a separate text layer? Or is it part of an image? How did you create the selection?

 

John

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, bjeaston.

As John said, it would help to know more about your problem. For example, are you talking about trying to delete text from a text frame? Or text from an image where you've made a selection and have a marquee (marching ants) around the text? Or something else?

But my guess would be that you are working with a layer that is shown as (Image) in the Layers panel, rather than being shown as (Pixel). That could happen if you did not directly Open an image, but dragged it onto an existing Photo document, for example.

And if you are working with an (Image) layer, you will need to rasterize it before you can operate on it as you want. You could right-click on the layer in the Layers panel and choose Rasterize.

-- 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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the swift response.

I am designing a cover for a paperback book, as attached. On the left is a block of text that appears on the back cover. As a previous MS Publisher user, it was a simple matter of using CROP on the selected image and remove the unwanted sections of it. I can select it using the Crop Tool, but from thereon in, can find no way of deleting it. I can overtype using a superimposed Text Frame,  but not highlight and replace the existing text.

Nor can I see it mentioned in the Layers panels on the right of the screen. It is frustrating because I am so near yet so far away. The apparent absence of an Undo symbol is causing me no end of a problem when I go wrong.

LittleCarWentBeepBeepB.afphoto

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, bjeaston said:

Thanks for the swift response.

I am designing a cover for a paperback book, as attached. On the left is a block of text that appears on the back cover. As a previous MS Publisher user, it was a simple matter of using CROP on the selected image and remove the unwanted sections of it. I can select it using the Crop Tool, but from thereon in, can find no way of deleting it. I can overtype using a superimposed Text Frame,  but not highlight and replace the existing text.

Nor can I see it mentioned in the Layers panels on the right of the screen. It is frustrating because I am so near yet so far away. The apparent absence of an Undo symbol is causing me no end of a problem when I go wrong.

As I guessed, that is an (Image) layer:

image.png.a21c7b989b043a2a96c2c127cc059f82.png

You would need to right-click on that layer in the Layers panel and choose Rasterize to make it an editable pixel layer.

But cropping affects the entire document, and removes the areas outside of the crop box. So that doesn't sound like what you want.

If you need to remove some of the text you could select it using the Rectangualr Marquee Tool (after you rasterize the layer) and then press Delete, and that part of the image will be removed. But that will leave a gap in the image that you will need to deal with.

Ideally, if you're planning to work on the text parts of your project you would have them in Text form, not image form, so they would be directly editable.

-- 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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If all you wanted to do was delete the panel on the back cover along with its text, then just select the layer InLookerBackCover, and delete it (press delete).

John

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Walt, I've done the rasterization, and now need to get it into text format, but the initial selection of the text Frame suddenly spreads over half the total area. I tried filling it, but had to reduce opacity to see the original layout.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're trying to delete all the text, do as John suggested just above your post.

If you're trying to delete part of the text, you may have trouble as it is not text, but an image of text.

Can you provide more information on exactly what you want to do to that block of text? It may be better to delete the complete block (using John's instructions) and completely recreate that block of text by providing a rectangle of an appropriate color as a background, and using the Frame Text Tool to completely redo the text, keeping just what you want, and putting it on top of the colored rectangle.

-- 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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm getting there slowly, by cross-checking Affinity specific problems, plus following YouTube tutorials. I've found the way to resize by pressing a lock symbol, which prevents auto-resizing. That's one down. The next was to rasterize, and then place an empty text box on the left side of my future book cover. This allowed me to see the 'Inlooker Back Cover' that John Rostron could see but I couldn't. Then I deleted it by putting it in the dustbin., before adding the required text. John's layman's description of the CROP command as being the' harvesting' of what is selected was not helpful. Coming from Publisher, which has a fatal flaw in it, the descriptions used are understandable, like cropping  = cutting out unwanted areas of an image. I still cannot see how to use the CROP tool. Now I have published my book cover to Amazon, and will alter it later, when I get to grips with text colors and providing a darker background to the text, in a block. Alpha is an intriguing product, but it is riddled with idiosyncrasies. My overall impression is that I've chosen the wrong product, but I didn't know about Designer, etc. It is overkill. Also, some of the tutorials are naive, like showing the main Affinity work area recolored black, which means that I cannot see what is being done. The clue comes when the designer changed the minute text to white, but didn't say how. I may have to stick with MS Publisher for the straightforward tasks of book assembly, then transfer the lot across for PDF export. The presentation of tools and other components is excessively dark and small. It's going to test my eyesight to the extreme on a Windows PC.

Regards,

Barry

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, bjeaston said:

The presentation of tools and other components is excessively dark and small. It's going to test my eyesight to the extreme on a Windows PC.

You may need to adjust your Windows settings, especially display scaling, to increase the size of application icons and text.

-- 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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.