Crop tool question.

[TomM1]

Is it possible to set the cropping area on an image by dragging the cursor across rather than being limited to grabbing the nodes on the crop box?

[walt.farrell]

Not if you're cropping using the Crop Tool, because you start out with a crop box, and dragging will just move the box.

But if you wanted to do a masking kind of crop you could drag a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool and use that for your cropping.

[carl123]

3 hours ago, TomM1 said:

Is it possible to set the cropping area on an image by dragging the cursor across rather than being limited to grabbing the nodes on the crop box?

If you mean crop to selection in Photo persona then no

But once you activate the crop tool, hit the Reset button to put you in Unconstrained mode (just in case you enter in another mode) then you can drag the cursor, from any point within the currently defined crop area, to define a new crop area.

If you mess up dragging out the crop area you want, then just hit the Reset button to have another go 

[TomM1]

Yes, I would like to be able to drag the cursor from any point to define a new crop area.

One can do this with unconstrained and original ratio but I would like it to happen when choosing one of the common ratios in the drop down.

For example, choose 1:1 then drag out a square rather than searching for the handles.

 

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, TomM1 said:

For example, choose 1:1 then drag out a square rather than searching for the handles.

Specifically for that one, it's easy to find a side handle. Just drag it toward the middle of the image. You'll end up with a square that you can then reposition.

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, carl123 said:

But once you activate the crop tool, hit the Reset button to put you in Unconstrained mode (just in case you enter in another mode) then you can drag the cursor, from any point within the currently defined crop area, to define a new crop area.

Thanks for that, Carl. I hadn't discovered that before.

Note, though, that you need to hit Reset even if you're already in Unconstrained mode. If you simply start in Unconstrained mode and try to drag you move the existing crop box, as I mentioned. Hitting Reset is what allows you to create the new box by dragging.

[TomM1]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Specifically for that one, it's easy to find a side handle. Just drag it toward the middle of the image. You'll end up with a square that you can then reposition.

Yes, of course that works and it is a minor issue. But if you are cropping a photo of a square oil painting it is easier to start at the corner of the painting, within the photo, and drag until the square crop matches the shape. If I hadn't become accustom to this in another software I would not have mentioned it.

[Fixx]

I feel the normal behaviour would be that crop area would be moved only from the crop box edge line and rotated only from near corner points. All other cursor positions would start a new crop area (*wish*).

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Fixx said:

I feel the normal behaviour would be that crop area would be moved only from the crop box edge line and rotated only from near corner points. All other cursor positions would start a new crop area (*wish*).

Why? If I start out with a crop box that is smaller than the image, I might well want to just move that box around on the image to compose my crop. I would do that by clicking in the interior of the box (cursor is a 4-way move symbol) and dragging the box itself. That is a very useful behavior.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Fixx said:

I feel the normal behaviour would be that crop area would be moved only from the crop box edge line and rotated only from near corner points. All other cursor positions would start a new crop area (*wish*).

I feel that the "normal behavior" should be whatever is most consistent with the rest of the app's UI, even if it is considerably different from the behavior of other apps.

So in that respect, moving the box from anywhere inside it is fine, but several other things are not, including the need to click the reset button to start a new selection, rotating it from anywhere outside the box instead just near its control handles, & most of all there being no 'stickiness' for the crop mode.

[Fixx]

10 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Why? If I start out with a crop box that is smaller than the image, I might well want to just move that box around on the image to compose my crop. I would do that by clicking in the interior of the box (cursor is a 4-way move symbol) and dragging the box itself. That is a very useful behavior.

That is just to get rid of the default crop box which covers whole image area. I there was no default "all selected" box in the beginning then move from anywhere would be ok. Default "all selected" has though some merits, like often you just need to cut one side off, leaving others untouched – when crop tool can go beyond the image borders (enlarging canvas) this may be useful. Though if there is a snap to canvas border this should not be a problem either.

[ncJohn]

On 8/1/2019 at 1:25 AM, TomM1 said:

Yes, I would like to be able to drag the cursor from any point to define a new crop area.

One can do this with unconstrained and original ratio but I would like it to happen when choosing one of the common ratios in the drop down.

 

 

Isn't this how it was in previous versions? For me, this is the ideal; easy and intuitive.

[ncJohn]

On 7/31/2019 at 11:43 PM, walt.farrell said:

But if you wanted to do a masking kind of crop you could drag a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool and use that for your cropping.

How does that work?

In my specific situation that I use very often, I enlarge the image so that it's larger than the screen, then put the cursor in one corner and drag to the opposite corner, then crop. But when I use the Rectangle Tool, the whole image shifts when I get close to the opposite corner, so it doesn't work at all.

 

[walt.farrell]

26 minutes ago, ncJohn said:

In my specific situation that I use very often, I enlarge the image so that it's larger than the screen, then put the cursor in one corner and drag to the opposite corner, then crop. But when I use the Rectangle Tool, the whole image shifts when I get close to the opposite corner, so it doesn't work at all.

Don't enlarge the image that much?

[R C-R]

58 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Don't enlarge the image that much?

Seems like a good idea to me. 

[ncJohn]

57 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Don't enlarge the image that much?

Then the composition is gone. Anyway, I figured out how to solve my issue (by reading previous posts more closely) but I can't figure out how to use the Rectangle Tool for cropping like you were talking about.

 

 

[PixelPest]

Use the rectangle as a mask: select raster image and drag it onto rectangle in Layers Panel. Or if rectangle (need a fill color) is over image select it and call Mask to Below.

[ncJohn]

15 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

Use the rectangle as a mask: select raster image and drag it onto rectangle in Layers Panel. Or if rectangle (need a fill color) is over image select it and call Mask to Below.

The first part about "drag it onto rectangle in Layers Panel" I don't understand. The part about using "Mask to Below" is very interesting. I like that! Thanks

[PixelPest]

Maybe you get the idea:

[ncJohn]

28 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

Maybe you get the idea:

Okay, yes, I got it. Very cool! Thank you.