The Mesh Warp and Perspective tools allow you to distort an image or part of an image using different methods. Step-by-Step: How to Use the Warp Tools in Affinity Photo It also highlights the nine control points you can use to adjust the image, three on each side and one in the middle. The Transform panel contains the XY coordinates of the image inside the canvas, the width and height of the image, and the angles of rotation and shearing in the XY plane. With the layer you want to modify selected, select the Move Tool (or press V) from the Tools panel to activate the Transform panel. Note: If you use the Free Transform tool with a different layer than the Background layer, skip this step. You can either right-click on the Background layer and uncheck the Lock option or click on the small locker icon following the layer's name. If you want to change the geometry of your original image, you have to tell Affinity to allow the alteration of the background layer. Therefore, destructive adjustments such as geometric transformations don’t work on this layer. To prevent you from ruining the original image, Affinity locks the Background layer by default. Go to File -> Open and choose the image you want to edit. Step-by-Step: How to Use the Move Tool in Affinity PhotoĪffinity Photo allows you to apply any two-dimensional geometric transformation by dragging control points or introducing numeric values in the Transform panel. Warping – You can distort an image using a 3D mesh system of control points. Shearing – You can shift one part of the image in one direction and the rest in the opposite direction using a shifting angle between -180° and 180°.Ĭhanging perspective – It allows you to apply perspective distortions and adjust the depth of an image. Rotating – You can rotate the image in the XY plane with an angle between -180° and 180°.
Scaling – You can resize an image to new dimensions, regardless if they are smaller or larger than the original ones. With the help of a Free Transform tool, you can transform an image as follows: You have access to all basic geometric transformations plus a few three-dimensional transformations. Get my Beginner-friendly Quick Start Guide to Affinity Photo - for Free What Does a Free Transform Tool Mean?Ī Free Transform tool allows you to change the geometry of an image in any way you want without imposing any limitations It provides 2D and 3D distortions and doesn’t preserve the aspect ratio of the image. The Free Transform tool is a very good example in this sense. And once you know what a tool does, you also know where to find it in any editor. It is good because it forces you to understand the principle behind a functionality instead of learning by heart where it is in the menu.
And that’s a good thing, even if it is confusing at the beginning. Affinity Photo has the Free Transform tool, and we’ll show you how to use it.Īffinity Photo and Photoshop have many similar features, but you shouldn’t expect them to have the same user interface. They claim the program doesn’t have it, which isn’t true. However, in Affinity Photo, it looks nothing like the tool in Photoshop, and many users look for it bewildered. Affinity Photo shares the Free Transform tool with Adobe Photoshop and other photo editors.