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Crop an image in Affinity Photo


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I cannot see how to crop an image inside the whole document. I have 3 layers (images) and want to crop the boundaries of one of the 3. I see resize canvas and the crop tool want to crop the whole document but I do not see a single tool to work on a single layer.

Screen Shot 2019-08-30 at 13.10.52.png

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I am conviced there are better ways to do this.

Make a selection with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Menu Select -> Edit Selection As Layer. Switch to the Move tool and adapt the selection boundaries. Leave the mask mode, copy and paste the changed selection or invert the selection and delete.

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Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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Currently the crop tool is a document based crop so not going to be of any use to you here. You can destructively get rid of pixels though by making a selection that you wish to keep, then selecting the inverse of the selection (Command-Shift-I) and then hitting delete on your keyboard to get rid of that selection. Alternatively you could use a mask to hide the pixels so they are still there incase you need to come back to them at a later date.

Hope that helps a bit.

Best wishes,

Mark

 

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2 minutes ago, markbowen said:

you could use a mask to hide the pixels

That’s what I would do. Masking is just another name for layer-based cropping.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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For another mask-based approach: Draw a rectangle over the area you want to keep, perhaps with no fill to start so you can precisely position it. Change the fill to white. In the Layers panel, make sure the Rectangle is immediately above the layer you want to mask, then right-click on the Rectangle layer and choose Mask to Below. Or, drag the Rectangle layer onto the thumbnail of the layer you want to mask.

-- 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

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2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

For another mask-based approach: Draw a rectangle over the area you want to keep, perhaps with no fill to start so you can precisely position it. Change the fill to white. In the Layers panel, make sure the Rectangle is immediately above the layer you want to mask, then right-click on the Rectangle layer and choose Mask to Below. Or, drag the Rectangle layer onto the thumbnail of the layer you want to mask.

That’s what I had in mind when I mentioned “layer-based cropping”, but maybe @markbowen was thinking of pixel masking rather than vector masking.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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7 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

Not sure where the problem is. I´d select layer/s - rectangle select - copy - File - New from Clipboard. No? Just thinking loud.

This is what I did eventually. Thanks for all other suggestions for layer cropping and etc. this is rather more of a designer approach that I did not think about since this is a pixel editor :) 

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This is the great thing about this software, many ways to achieve the same result which is nice. Copying from another document, masking or clipping the image are all viable alternatives depending on how much or little control you want and how much you need to keep the image / edit it afterwards.

Absolutely love using Affinity products as they make you think outside the box sometimes and lots of great help on the forums from people too.

Best wishes,

Mark

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/30/2019 at 3:28 AM, markbowen said:

Currently the crop tool is a document based crop so not going to be of any use to you here. You can destructively get rid of pixels though by making a selection that you wish to keep, then selecting the inverse of the selection (Command-Shift-I) and then hitting delete on your keyboard to get rid of that selection. Alternatively you could use a mask to hide the pixels so they are still there incase you need to come back to them at a later date.

Hope that helps a bit.

Best wishes,

Mark

 

Just a clarification for us PC users. Instead of hitting the delete key, hit the backspace key or you will delete the whole layer. That is what happens on my system anyway.

They might want to fix this. :35_thinking:

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3 minutes ago, Belmont said:

Just a clarification for us PC users. Instead of hitting the delete key, hit the backspace key or you will delete the whole layer. That is what happens on my system anyway.

They might want to fix this. :35_thinking:

In my experience on Windows, Delete and Backspace operate the same.

You do need to be careful that you're working with a (Pixel) layer, and not an (Image) layer.

  • With an (Image) layer, which you would get by using File > Place or copy/paste or drag/drop to get an image into an already open document either of those keys will delete the layer.
  • With a (Pixel) layer, and a selection, either of those keys will delete the selected pixels from the layer.

-- 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

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