Cropping and straightening

About cropping

Use cropping for practical reasons or aesthetic reasons equally. For instance, an unwanted object or person can be excluded which might otherwise detract from your desired image. Aesthetically, you can balance image content in your composition so that it is more appealing to the eye.

Affinity Photo lets you crop unconstrained or to original or custom aspect ratios. For print or web delivery, you can specify common print sizes (e.g., 6" x 4") or create pixel-accurate custom crop regions, respectively.

If snapping is active, the crop area can snap to page edges and guides when being resized or moved.

Original

Portrait

Straightened

16x9

Absolute

6x4

Crop modes

When cropping, you may wish to work unconstrained or to specific ratios or absolute dimensions. These are some of the options available:

Unconstrained—The crop area can be sized freely.
Original Ratio—Retains your image's original aspect ratio.
Custom Ratio—Uses the adjacent input boxes to set the ratio—width in the left box, height in the right box. Can be saved as a preset.
Resample—Use the adjacent Width and Height settings to set dimensions for the crop area at your chosen measurement Units and DPI. This is a great way to crop to a chosen print size (e.g., 10in x 8in) with print-ready resolution, e.g. a DPI of 300.

You can crop to absolute pixel dimensions by entering pixel width and height values adjacent to the Mode setting.

Straighten mode

When activated, dragging on the page will orient the photo to align it with the drawn line. We recommend using a reference within your photo such as the horizon or the edge of a building.

Compositional overlays

If you're cropping to remove unwanted subject matter in your image, compositional overlays can be ignored. However, if you're looking for better composition, one of several overlays can be used.

Thirds Grid—Shown by default, the Rule of Thirds grid's intersection lines can be positioned over an object of interest in your image.
Golden Spiral—Size and position the grid so the inner origin of the spiral is centered over the subject of interest; this balances the composition naturally. Also known as Fibonacci Spiral or divine proportions.
Diagonals—Position two objects of interest under the diagonal line intersections to balance the objects against each other.

You can quickly toggle between these overlays by pressing O.

Holding hides the crop area overlay.

To crop an image:

From the Tools panel on the left, select the Crop Tool.
From the context toolbar, select a crop mode from the Mode pop-up menu.
Adjust the context toolbar settings.
Drag a corner or edge handle on the grid to resize the grid to suit, then reposition the grid by dragging within it.
From the context toolbar, click Apply.

To uncrop the cropped image:

From the Document menu, click Unclip Canvas.

To straighten an image:

From the Tools panel on the left, select the Crop Tool.
From the context toolbar, select Straighten.
Drag on the image to define the new alignment.
From the context toolbar, click Apply.

To save crop settings as a preset:

Adjust the context toolbar settings.
From the context toolbar, choose Presets, click the menu and select Create Preset.
Type a name for the crop preset and (optional) choose a category to put it in, then click Create.

To delete a crop preset:

From the context toolbar, choose Presets.
Right click a preset and choose Delete Preset.

To manage, import and export presets:

From the context toolbar, click Presets. Click the menu, then select Manage Presets.
- To create a new preset category for custom presets, click Create Category. Type a category name then click Create.
- To delete a preset, right click it and choose Delete Preset.
- To restore the original presets if they have been altered or deleted, click Restore Master Presets.
- To restore a single original preset to its default settings, right click the preset and choose Revert user changes.
- To export a single preset, right click the preset and choose Export preset.
- To export your custom presets to back them up, click Export User Presets and choose an export location and file name.
- To import custom presets, click Import Presets and choose a valid .aftoolpresets file.
- To filter presets based on type, click the Filter combo box and choose from the crop types available.