Non-rectangular crop

What features would you like to see in Pixelmator Pro?
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2018-11-29 01:47:47

No sure whether this is a feature request or a help request about an existing feature, but I would like to do trapezoidal cropping for perspective correction of captured papers or paintings.

Let's say I captured with my phone a painting on a wall not completely front on. Then I want to crop along the frame of the painting resulting in the normal rectangular painting after the the crop.

This is kind of the opposite of Pixelmator's Perspective transformation I know of: The Perspective transformation starts with a rectangle and distorts it into a trapezoid or similar while my Non-rectangular crop starts with the trapezoid.

Does thisalready exist?
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2018-11-29 10:26:31

A feature like this doesn't currently exist in Pixelmator Pro, but if you first correct the perspective of the image using the Perspective Transform effect and later crop the corrected version, you should get the result you're looking for — I guess the only downside is having to manually create a rectangle by moving the points in a somewhat unintuitive way, whereas the tool you'd like would let you specify which points should be moved to form a rectangle. Which does sound pretty useful for things like this, so we'll keep it in mind!
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2018-11-29 23:46:54

Thanks Andrius! Yep, this kind of crop would be really handy for "flatten" paintings, etc. Let's hope the people from the Pixelmator dev team find time to implement it soon. :-)
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2019-10-12 20:07:03

After some trials and errors, I managed to figure it out. Thanks
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2019-10-12 22:33:37

So, how do you do a non-rectangualr crop? Please tell us!

Many thanks!
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2019-10-13 18:09:36

Okay, probably not the most accurate or ideal method. I am sure someone may have a better method.

First the really skewed up image of a painting. Image

Next cropped the image keeping a little boundary around it. Switched on the grid to help alignments during the next step.

Then I went to Edit>Transform and chose the mode "Distort" (third from the right at the top) and played around until all the four sides were aligned horizontally and vertically. At this stage, the image looked more square than rectangular. I then stretched it lengthwise until the proportion matched my image i.e. 12"X9"

This was the result.

Image

Hope this helps. Waiting eagerly for the update where like Adobe Photoshop you just had to just attach the points to the four sides of the distorted image and it would do its magic.
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2019-10-14 03:16:58

Waiting eagerly for the update where like Adobe Photoshop you just had to just attach the points to the four sides of the distorted image and it would do its magic.
Yes, that's what I am looking forward to as well!

Thanks for sharing you trick!
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2019-10-14 17:05:06

Easy workaround for the (?temporary) absence of "perspective crop" for slanted or images viewed from an angle

Hi Halloleo, figured out a much easier method.

1) From the opening dialog, choose a new document. then choose the exact size of the non skewed image. In my case the painting is 12" wide and 9" high. I chose 600 pixels /inch to make it larger than my image. This will become your Background layer (coloured Pink)
Image

2) load the skewed image.
Image

3) Choose Format>Effects>other>perspective transform. You will see four pins with strings.
Image

4)Just place the edges of the skewed image to edges of the pink background canvas by moving the pins. and you are done. The resulting image is exactly 12"X9" in dimension.
Image

Hope this helps.
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2019-10-15 02:23:02

Cool. Thanks.