Improvements to the crop tool

[florianpircher]

Hello, I love working with Photomator and have been using Pixelmator for a long time as well. I just wanted to note some of the small annoyances that I notice when going through many images after a photoshoot:

The app remembers the crop ratio from the previous picture

While this may be nice for some, for me, it is rare that I want to crop multiple pictures the same way, so this feature is more of an annoyance than an assistance. I press the C key, and the image gets cropped to an aspect ratio I do not want and now have to undo.

Demo: https://xgc.io/b/pixelmator/crop-ratio-remembered/1.mp4

Present aspect ratio presets in a list, not in a popover

I like the way it’s done in Apple Photos, where the preset of aspect ratios all require just a single click. In Photomator, I have to click to open the popover and click again in the popover. I can also click and hold, which is very nice, but still requires me to reorient myself to find the option I am looking for after opening the popover – not as fast as in Apple Photos. I appreciate that Photomator allows me to add multiple custom aspect ratios, but at least my list of custom ratios is not too long (see demo movie above), and so having the options in plain sight with a single click would be better.

Provide quick switching between landscape and portrait aspect ratio

Another feature I miss from Apple Photos is that I do not need separate aspect ratio entries in the list for landscape and portrait. Instead, every aspect ratio should be available in both orientations. Currently, there is 4:5, but no 5:4, and I would need to add both 5:7 and 7:5, and both 3:1 and 1:3, and so on, making the list of aspect ratios longer than if I just needed one entry for each.

Having separate entries for landscape and portrait presets just generally does not fit my workflow. I first decide whether I want an image to be landscape or portrait and then pick a fitting aspect ratio. Seeing all the landscape presets as I work on a portrait image, for example, is just distracting.



Related: I cannot reorder the list of aspect ratios, so I currently cannot move related aspect ratios next to each other, making it a bit easier to find the entry I am looking for.

I use Photomator on two Macs, so the list on both is not the same, making it slightly more difficult to remember where each entry is in the list.

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Thanks for making Photomator!

[nigelw]

Re. remembering aspect ratio: I like that the app remembers the crop aspect ratio. I almost always want to preserve the original aspect ratio, and it saves me setting that option every single time. (Fwiw, Photos.app on macOS was finally updated to work this way too, after years of always resetting to "Custom".) Not invalidating your use case, just providing my usage scenario.

I very much agree with your comment about quick switching between portrait and landscape. I prefer the way Apple Photos handles this as well.

[florianpircher]

Not invalidating your use case, just providing my usage scenario.

I think both your and my workflow can coexist. My main issues with Photomator remembering the aspect ratio are:

1. Switching to the crop tool can be jarring. For example, when a remembered 16:9 crop is applied to an 2:3 image and I have to reorient myself and reset the crop. Like in the Demo movie linked above.
2. When the remembered crop is close to the original aspect ratio of the image, I might miss that Photomator applied a crop. Since Photomator – when entering the crop tool – animates the image to the left (away from the tools sidebar) and scales it down slightly, I sometimes even miss when a 4:3 crop is applied to a 3:2 image.

In both of these cases, Photomator remembering the preset “Original” would not cause issues. So I would be totally OK with Photomator remembering the “Freeform” and “Original” modes, just not any other modes. I believe the new Photos.app does the same.