Crop tool true crop of an image

[CedarHouse]

Attached images of screen grab of Absolute Sizes and Unconstrained. Also Crop Ratio 1 :1. There appears to be no actual physical crop taking place in the Absolute Size as the final image of 10 inch by 10inch (3000px by 3000px) is identical to Unconstrained at 10.88 inch by 10.88inch (3264px by 3264px). There is no change in the portions of the image that should have been cropped away in Absolute Size and Unconstrained modes. In Absolute Size the area of the crop tool increases top and bottom when sizing the crop grid and initially the width does not change. Then grab the handles on the crop tool and reduce crop grid to image edges. But there is no difference between Unconstrained mode and Absolute Size only that Absolute Size is indicating that it is 3000px while Unconstrained is indicating 3264px (10.88inch) and flip images next to one another and there is no difference between them. Therefore there is no actual crop of the image. It has been bugging me as to how one can be certain that the numbers indicated in Absolute Size can be trusted to be correct. There is a crop at the sides only, but no difference top and bottom. Affinity Photo 1.7 and 404(Beta). Windows 10.

[CedarHouse]

image size 4928px by 3264px (16.43inch by 10.89inch) 16Mp camera. Crop tool used for image in Absolute Size and Unconstrained to a ratio of 1:1.

In Absolute Size set units to inches and type 10 inches in height, then 10 inches in width and then crop tool grid is far bigger than the image in height. Drag grid down to top of image and drag grid up to bottom of the image. Absolute Size indicates 10 inch by 10inch (3000px by 3000px). Click to Unconstrained and image size is 3264px by 3264px (Original height of image). Two different sizes in each mode but no physical crop in the height. In both Unconstrained and Absolute Size the actual area of the image is exactly the same.

The only way to achieve a satisfactory crop is to crop twice. One in Absolute Size for height ONLY at 10.00inch (3000px) and then click apply. Re-click the crop tool and open the crop tool, and then in Absolute Size then size for width as 10inch (3000px) but crop box goes bigger in the height. then use grab handles to drag the grid down to the top edge and drag the grid up to the bottom edge and then click apply. Come back in with the crop tool and then the Unconstrained and Absolute Size are now showing the same values of 3000px by 3000px (10.00inch by 10.00inch).

Attached images of first attempt shown that other than the sides the original crop at a ratio of 1:1 was the same in Absolute Size and Unconstrained with no crop actually taking place in the height of the image. Unconstrained is showing 3264px by 3264px (original image height before cropping) and Absolute Size was showing 3000px by 3000px but no actual difference between the two in the crop top and bottom.

[CedarHouse]

Took a little while since last post to produce a cropped image examples using my cropping twice method. Crop for height ONLY and adjust crop grid to remove the bottom of the tree trunks at the top of the image. Click Apply. Then click on Crop tool again and edit for the height. Crop grid increases in height so grab the handles and move grid to top and bottom edge.  Absolute Size is 10inch by 10inch (3000px by 3000px) and Unconstrained is now also the same. 

[Rick G]

It no longer crops as it used to. Now you have to "rasterize and trim" to get rid of the cropped out areas. I do not understand the change and questions about it went unanswered.

Find the rasterize and trim then make a macro if you do it constantly as I do

[Patrick Connor]

There is no Windows Photo beta at the moment. Topic moved.

[R C-R]

20 hours ago, Rick G said:

It no longer crops as it used to. Now you have to "rasterize and trim" to get rid of the cropped out areas. I do not understand the change and questions about it went unanswered.

There is definitely something very odd about how the Absolute Size crop feature works now vs. in earlier versions, & I think it has something indirectly to do with not being able to create crop presets that are reciprocals of existing ones:

Consider the 2 screenshots below of a 1000x1000 px file. In each of them, on the context toolbar I entered 800 for one of the values & pressed the Tab key to update the crop grid on the canvas. I have not yet clicked the Apply button. Note the grid size & particularly the ruler values for the 800 px X 1000 px crop vs. for the 1000 px X 800 px one.

 

So it would seem that for the pre-apply canvas view to make sense for Absolute Value crops, the larger crop value must be in the first size field & the smaller one in the second. 

[Przemysław]

21 hours ago, Rick G said:

It no longer crops as it used to. Now you have to "rasterize and trim" to get rid of the cropped out areas. I do not understand the change and questions about it went unanswered.

Find the rasterize and trim then make a macro if you do it constantly as I do

This way of cropping without rasterise & trim also affects other tools such as inpainting (it takes data from outside of the canvas) or creating colour palette from document (it takes colours from cropped off area).

It took me a while to get used to it, and I still keep forgetting about this weird behaviour.

[Dan C]

On 6/25/2019 at 6:53 PM, CedarHouse said:

Still confused on the function of the crop tool absolute. Start an image at say 4500px by 2550px and then click on Custom Ratio and this indicates as 30 by 17. Also Original Ratio is 30 by 17.

Unconstrained shows 4500px by 2550px. Change Absolute to say 4000px by 2550px and then crop box increases outside of image boundary at the top and bottom and click on Custom Ratio and ratio has changed to 80 by 51. Unconstrained now shows 4000px by 28868.8px also outside of the image at the top and bottom.

Would it not be better to allow the unconstrained crop selection to have access to other unit values than just pixels. Leave the Absolute as a ratio selection that also shows the units when the crop box is changed in size. At the moment in the BETA and full 1.7 recent release there is no way of knowing the size of the crop box in the Absolute Mode. I was trying to determine what the Dictionary definition of what Absolute actually meant. can only find limited information (Complete or perfect). Windows 10 1.7 in beta 404 and in recent 1.7 version.

On 6/25/2019 at 7:25 PM, CedarHouse said:

There seems to be links in the crop tool from the Unconstrained, Original ratio, custom ratio and Absolute Size. The Absolute size is the only selection that allows other units to be used which is very useful. But currently the Absolute Size selection maintains the full width of the image but only changes the height of the crop box. So an image currently 16.6 inches wide stays at 16.5 inches wide when changing the width to 14.5 inches. When changing the width then the height increases outside of the image which is reflected in the Unconstrained as an increase of pixels in the height but the pixels in the Absolute Size do not change in the height and stay the same. The action does not seem logical. Would it be better to allow the Unconstrained to have access to all the other units and then one can set the picture to what ever size the user would like to use. The Original ratio generally always shows the original size as a ratio only. Could that not have a reset option to allow one to revert back to the original size. Custom Ratio changes as sizes are changed either in Absolute Size or Unconstrained. So Custom Ratio gives the ratio if one wants to know the ratio to create another personalized ratio to use at another time.

Currently in Unconstrained I need to revert to a calculator to work out pixel sizes in either millimetres or inches in both height and width to determine the pixel sizes I require  to enter to get the cropped image that I require. This manual calculation was not necessary in previous version of Affinity Photo until this 1.7 version was introduced. Windows 10 Version beta 404 and 1.7

Hi CedarHouse

I've quoted your other 2 posts into this thread also to keep everything together and avoid multiple staff members responding to a similar query.

I'm currently investigating your issue and I'll respond here asap with any information I have, thanks for your continued patience here.

[Dan C]

I can confirm that our QA team are aware of a bug that causes the crop area to display larger than it should, this is logged with our developers to be fixed asap.

In regards to Absolute Size cropping, I recommend checking out the following post from Gabriel -

 

[CedarHouse]

Thanks for the support information it is much appreciated. I have learned a lot about Affinity Photo via the forum discussions. Pretty well everyone on this forum are extremely helpful to others and is much valued. Many forums seem to degenerate into a moaning and complaints forum that does not happen (rarely) on this forum. Everyone has their own take on how they use their images. I find it difficult to work in pixel units. Prefer to work in millimetres or inches to size images. Current changes in version 1.7 to image cropping sizes did not appear to matter for rectangular images but becomes more pronounced for a 1:1 ratio of rectangular image. I am generally following the sizing of images using A3 paper or 16 inch by 12inch paper for printing at 300 DPI. in accordance with the Masters of Print Competition Rules by the PAGB (Photographic Alliance of Great Britain). Website PAGBuk/Competitions. Part/Section 2.4. Do not always follow the dimensions as I sometimes vary how I want to display the image on either A3 or 16inch by 12inch for effect. Mostly working in printed media rather than web images. 

 

PAGBMastersofPrint.pdf