Cropping and straightening
Cropping removes unwanted areas of your image for either practical reasons or better composition. Straightening simply means correcting a crooked image.
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.
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.
- Absolute Dimensions—Use the adjacent input boxes to set absolute dimensions for the crop area. Set your Units if needed. Can be saved as a preset.
- Presets—A combination of commonly used, and custom saved, presets are presented for ease of use.
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.
![Crop Tool]()
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 reposition the grid to suit.
- From the context toolbar, click Apply.
To uncrop the cropped image:
- From the Document menu, click Unclip Canvas.
![Crop Tool]()
![Straighten Tool]()
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, click the Mode pop-up menu and select Add Preset.
- Type a name for the crop preset, then click OK.
The new preset will appear at the bottom of the Mode pop-up menu.
To delete a crop preset:
- From the context toolbar, click the Mode pop-up menu and select the preset you wish to delete.
- Click the Mode pop-up menu again and select Delete Preset.
