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Is there a way to "angle" crop a picture?


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Aloha,

I was hoping someone might have the answer to my dilemma.
Excuse me if this question has been answered before...

I am hoping there is a way to crop photos on an angle rather than the default square?
Every photo I work with is squared and this has its draw backs when assembling a 3D design using multiple photos or nodes.
Mainly because during assembly, photos I lay on top of other photos/nodes tend to leave an "outline" of the squared photos edges or a "shadow" on the opposite node or main image.

No matter how much I work the lighting, angles or depth of the photo/node, 90% of the time I am in a battle when trying to get rid of the outline of the squared photo/node or the shadow it creates.
During assembly I can't really see the problem, however after render it is apparent.
What would help me tremendously is if there was a simple way to "Angle Crop" or "Multi-Angle Crop" a photo which would end my fight with the outlines and shadows.

 

The photo (Please click link below) is a basic example of an outdoor "virtual set" I am building for film, using paint.net and a 3D program for assembly.

The main photo is the grass with a transparent background, the inserted photo of a stone walkway, around its edges - outlined with a blue box frame is what I would like to do away with and apply the angled crop along the edges of the walkway.
The red lined arrows indicate where it is I would like to use the angled crop if possible?

I have lightened the photo so you can see the outline or shadow on both sides of the walkway -  It is just inside of the blue box frame, on the grass.
If angled cropping is an option my next question would be is there a way to "curve" or "bend" crop?

I hope someone has a solution as I find it hard to believe someone else hasn't encountered the same problem.

Any and all help will greatly be appreciated.
Mahalo,

 

Boda

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5BqzKfOEveKbXRraXROLTdDWjQ/edit?usp=sharing


I apologize after viewing the photo from the link in Google drive I noticed the shadow is not so apparent.
However the concept I am looking for remains the same, can one angle crop?

Mahalo...







 

Edited by BODA
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Hi. :)

 

I some reason am unable to see your image, maybe upload it to photobucket or tiny pic instead?

Either way, I'm not sure if this is the help you are looking for, but below are some suggestions.

 

Have you tried rotating your image? Menu Bar > layers tab > rotate zoom.

Or you can rotate by making a selection around your image using the "rectangle select" tool :RectangleSelectTool:, and then use the "move selected pixels" tool :MoveTool:.

If you are using Paint.net 3.5.11, right click and drag to rotate.

If you are using Paint.net 4.0, hover your cursor around the edges of your selection till curved arrows show, then click on the curved arrows and drag to rotate.

 

Also, if unwanted artifacts are the issue, then have you tried painting them out of your image? Try the clone tool with layers. Anchor your clone tool on your original layer (anchor is ctrl + click), then do the drawing/painting on the new layer. (the clone tool : http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/CloneStamp.html)

 

Edit :

Oh, by the way, to crop an image you need to first make a selection, then up just under the menu bar you can find icons for cut, copy, paste, and crop to selection :Crop:.

Remember to save images in PNG format to retain transparency.

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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I'm not sure if I understand correctly what you want.

You can use the Rectangle Select tool and then tilt and delete unwanted part of the image.

 

2gwdtg2.png

 

In order to obtain a curvature of the image may be used Gravity plug in.

 

2gw9u7t.png

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Thanks for responding,

By default any photo viewer or photo editing app will only allow you to view a square picture or crop a picture square.
What I want is to crop angles off of the square photo, so if I went searching for it on my folder I would not find
a square photo I would find it geometrical.

In my photo which you have inserted, look at the top of the walkway.
You will notice the top is more narrow than the bottom of the photo.
However, the bottom width of the photo is going to regulate the picture size leaving empty space to the left and to the right
of the top of the image. If I could crop that section out now giving me an angled photo then my shadow issues in my 3D
app would go away.

Look at the photo from the link. In the final render I don't want the yellow part at all.
I need just the walkway itself, not the top that is transparent, this is where the shadow problem occurs when I add the walkway
to a picture in my 3D app, the transparent part of the photo when tilted, then dropped on the grass leaves the shadow on the grass from the square photo.
I have yet to see a diamond or pyramid shaped picture when searching or viewing photos, they are all square.
removing the background in the square around the object is half the battle, removing the transparent section of the square is the problem.

thanks,


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5BqzKfOEveKZ3Z5XzI3MVk2ejA/edit?usp=sharing






 

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The problem is, there's no way to save an image in any shape other than rectangular.  You can crop it by selecting the angled area you want and choosing the Crop command, but you'll have to save it in a format that supports transparency (.PNG or .GIF) in order to see it that way on your file system.  Even then, the image will still be saved as rectangular; the other pixels (that don't form the angled shape you want) will simply be transparent.

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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Thanks Dave,

I know that if a tool was made and I believe it will one day evolve, the pixels would rack back or rake on angles along a straight edge.
Where the tool would be most effective is if it could count or even reduce the pixel size along such a rake or angle providing a better
illusion 
of being a straight edge.

Really all I am trying to do is get a better result out of my .png files incorporated into a virtual setting.
I am finding that the word "transparent" when it comes to a png or gif is limited due to a noticeable thin line along the flat square edges.
Working in 3D software you can only do so much with a flat square object because at some point those edges will show when rotated.

I guess until this tool is available in most photo editing apps I will have to make do or design 3D walkways, now there's some hours.....
Consider this question answered then by you, that is unless someone has devised a method or created such a tool and yet to respond.

Mahalo,

 

Boda

 

 

 

Edited by BODA
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Yeah, that's really an issue with your modeling program more than with Paint.NET.  Sorry about that.

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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Maybe you could try finding tutorials about your molding program, you might find an answer buried in them.
Or try to find an online community or forum that's for your molding program and ask them your questions.

 

(If your program is blender, you can pm me and I will try to give you links to a few nooby tutorials I recently found (I have interest in blender but haven't tried it yet). However, since blender is an outside program here on these forums (it's not paint.net) anything about it will need to be kept limited and pm only.)

 

I hope you find a solution to your issue. Good luck. :)

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Mahalo Cc,

 

You have been trying to help me and I have yet to respond, I apologize.

In fact I have gone to forums pertaining to my software and situation, which by the way is "Maxon Cinema 4D - R15."
The same gets repeated from the moderate to advanced users, it is in the lighting and placement.
This much I already knew but I had a vision of seeing a neat tool to crop on geometrical angles, to no avail, but I was hopeful, still am...
Can you imagine, you search through your numerous images or personal photo stock and instead of seeing flat squares for every picture you
see thumbnails of all kinds of weird shapes. Makes me wish I was a code writer and not a novice digital artist.

I am interested in reading the links you found so yes if you could provide those that would be great!
Maybe something is hidden within the Blender forum.
Like I said before, my only other option is to start creating 3D objects such as the walkway in question, but I frown on losing my assembly
time to such a lengthy task/s.

For all the tool developers who read this consider what it is I am trying to do and maybe give it a try and develop a geo-angle cropping tool?
​It would take using a flat image to a whole new level, I bet even Microsoft would buy something like that.

Mahalo Cc!

Aloha nui,

Boda





 

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This plugin is about as close as you're going to get composition tool.

As has been pointed out, digital images have a rectangular aspect. Your only way to alter this is to rotate the image or alter the image edges within a larger transparent canvas. The aspect will still be rectangular, it will just appear different.

Of course you will need to save the image in a format which supports transparency - like PNG.

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I have made many different shaped crops and the way I solve the problem I believe you are asking about is to save it on a background that is the exact same color of where you are posting it.  Here is an example of a sig I made for another site that uses a tan color for the background; 

 

                                                        th_1-b-150x398_zps2e24ddd3.png

 

 

For a place like this forum that uses a white background I made this;

 

                                                        th_metalsig-c-200x500_zpsda721dde.png

 

 

To cut the corners off an image,zoom out, use the Move selected pixel tool to activate the control points ( blue arrow ) , then use the Move Selection tool ( the white arrow ) and rotate or move the control points to cover the part you want to save, then Edit/ Invert Selection and then hit Delete. Now add a background of the same color from the place you are posting , merge and save. You could also save with no  background but would have to be saved as a png or gif.

 

                                                              http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/21233-skullbonz-art-gallery

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