Free transform?

[paulCarp]

I bought Affinity for OSX yesterday. 

There's a few things I can't figure out yet..

1) If I select a region on the current layer, is there a way to just drag it as if it were cut

When I do this it just moves the actual selection, rather than the selected content

 

2) If I select a region, how can I perform a free transform on it?

Im able to resize, rotate and skew it using it handles on the selection bounding box. But I want to move one of the corners independently, so Im changing a rectangle into an arbitrary quadrilateral (and the content will kinda be texture mapped into that new region).

 

Thanks

[R C-R]

13 hours ago, paulCarp said:

I bought Affinity for OSX yesterday. 

Which Affinity app did you buy? Are you working with vector objects or raster images?

[paulCarp]

Hi,

 

Sorry I didn't realise there were more apps.

 

I bought Affinity Photo. Im just working with a raster image

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, paulCarp said:

I bought Affinity Photo. Im just working with a raster image

Just to be sure, when you look at the Layers panel, does the layer show as a (Pixel) layer or an (Image) layer? If you simply Open an image file you should get a (Pixel) layer. But if you Place an image file or drag/drop or copy/paste one onto an existing file (or a New Document) then you get an (Image) layer.

They behave differently, so it's important to be sure which you're working with.

[R C-R]

16 hours ago, paulCarp said:

1) If I select a region on the current layer, is there a way to just drag it as if it were cut

First, like @walt.farrell said, make sure you are working on a pixel layer. (If it is an Image layer, you can convert it by "rasterizing" it.) Then, after making your "marching ants" selection, either use Cut to remove it from the pixel layer or Copy to copy the selection to the clipboard. You can then use Paste to automatically add it as a new layer, which you can move, resize, etc. as desired.

16 hours ago, paulCarp said:

2) If I select a region, how can I perform a free transform on it?

The best way to do this is to first use the Pen Tool to draw an outline of the desired selection. To make it easier to see what you are doing, make sure "Use Fill" is not ticked on the context toolbar. You can use any of the Pen Tool options to reshape the outline (including the 'hot key' shortcut to temporarily switch to the Node tool to move or reshape any of the outline's nodes). When you get the outline the way you want it, on the context toolbar click on the "Selection" button to convert it to a marching ants selection.

An alternative is to use the Mode options that most of the selection tools offer to add, subtract, or intersect selections to build up the desired selection, but it is usually easier to use the Pen Tool method.

Of course, you can also use the Refine Selection and/or the other options on the Select menu to alter the selection, but that is probably something you will want to try out later, after you get more familiar with the basic selection stuff.

One other thing to keep in mind: a "marching ants" selection does not belong to any specific layer, so to do anything with it, make sure you have a layer selected when you use it.

[eobet]

I don't think your answer to question 2 is correct.

I think he wants the perspective tool.

The perspective tool in Photoshop is pretty restrictive, but in Affinity, it behaves like the distort tool (which is also called "free transform" in newer versions of Photoshop).

[Emfiliane]

On 7/19/2019 at 12:51 PM, paulCarp said:

1) If I select a region on the current layer, is there a way to just drag it as if it were cut

When I do this it just moves the actual selection, rather than the selected content

Once you make a selection, you should be able to command-drag it to move the underlying pixels around. Cut-past isn't necessary, unless it's completely different than the Windows version (which does this with Ctrl-drag).

[PixelPest]

2 hours ago, Emfiliane said:

Cut-past isn't necessary,

.... when it´s a Pixel layer, like walt.farrell wrote.

 

[Petrol99]

On 7/19/2019 at 3:51 PM, paulCarp said:

I bought Affinity for OSX yesterday. 

There's a few things I can't figure out yet..

1) If I select a region on the current layer, is there a way to just drag it as if it were cut

When I do this it just moves the actual selection, rather than the selected content

 

2) If I select a region, how can I perform a free transform on it?

Im able to resize, rotate and skew it using it handles on the selection bounding box. But I want to move one of the corners independently, so Im changing a rectangle into an arbitrary quadrilateral (and the content will kinda be texture mapped into that new region).

 

Thanks

The best method I've found to achieve a free transform is to create a new layer, either from the entire background or a selection.  The new layer can easily be transformed. Not sure if this addresses your question but it works for my needs.

[Federica]

On 7/20/2019 at 7:31 PM, eobet said:

I don't think your answer to question 2 is correct.

I think he wants the perspective tool.

The perspective tool in Photoshop is pretty restrictive, but in Affinity, it behaves like the distort tool (which is also called "free transform" in newer versions of Photoshop).

Thanks for this answer, this is what I was looking for like the user that posted this topic. I hope you were referring to the Prospective Filter (Layer menu-->New Live Filter Layer) or please let me know if there is another Perspective Tool somewhere in Affinity Photo.

Like the user @PaulCarp, I am moving from Photoshop to AffinityPhoto, and I used a lot Photoshop's "Free Transform" tool in the past, e.g. to adjust the wrong prospective of my pictures taken with the smartphone or for placing my graphics on the faces of a box. I think the Perspective Filter is my solution and I think it is what the user meant.