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[Beta] Canvas Crop, Resize, & Trim
[Beta] Canvas Crop, Resize, & Trim

An overview of the canvas crop tool and the trim function.

R
Written by Ryan Allan
Updated over a week ago

Beta: This feature is currently in Beta. If you experience any issues or would like to share your feedback, please get in touch.

The addition of the crop tool means that you can now shrink down the size of your canvas, or expand it to accommodate bigger ideas and more people.

Crop tool

Below is an overview of the crop tool and the different settings available.

Preset

The Preset setting lets you choose between specific size ratios for your crop. When you have No preset selected, you can freely adjust the crop area.

Ratio

You can adjust the height and width value of the ratio by tapping inside the respective boxes and inputting a new number. Tapping the arrow button in the middle will switch these values around.

Overlay

You can select two different overlays for your crop: Rule of Thirds or Diagonal.

Backdrop

Adjusting the backdrop slider will change the brightness of the canvas outside your crop area.

Reset - Select - Apply

The Reset button will reset your crop area to the corners of your canvas and the preset changed to original ratio.

Tapping Select will clear the crop area and lets you click and drag an area out that you want to crop to.

The Apply button confirms your crop.

How to make your canvas bigger or smaller

  1. Switch to the crop tool

  2. Click and drag the white anchor point on the edges of your canvas to the ratio. Tapping and dragging in the middle will move the crop area.

  3. When you are ready, hit the green Apply button

Alternatively, hit the Select button, then click and drag on the canvas to select the area you want to crop to. When you’re ready, hit the Apply button.

Resize your canvas in Drawing Settings

You can also change the size of your canvas in the Drawing Settings window accessible through the File menu.

To make your canvas bigger or smaller here:

  1. Open your Drawing Settings window;

  2. Input new values in the W and H boxes. The unit for these values is pixels;

  3. Set the anchor point for the resize;

  4. Hit the save button to confirm your new canvas size.

Using the anchor points

The default anchor point for resize is placed in the center of your canvas. This means that when you make your canvas bigger, it will expand outward evenly in all directions and the contents in the center of your canvas will remain in that position.

When you set the top left corner as your anchor point, the canvas will expand down and to the right, or shrink inward from those directions.

You will not lose the contents of your layer if your crop them out. You can use the Trim function to trim out any layer contents beyond the bounds of the current canvas size.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Making your canvas bigger could negatively impact the performance of Magma on mobile devices in particular.

Permissions for resizing the canvas

By default, only the canvas admins have permission to resize the canvas. You will find the permission for this in the Admin menu on your canvas

NOTE: We recommend that you only assign the Admin role to trusted people within your Artspace and on your canvas. Use the Approved role instead for assigning certain permissions to general users.

Trim layers

Cropping a canvas does not crop the layer contents. This is to protect the layers of all the participants and to allow you the flexibility to move and adjust things after cropping.

If you do want to trim your layers down to the new canvas size, use the Trim function in your edit menu. Alternatively, you can right-click or long-press on your layer in the layers panel and select Trim layer.

The trim function will only apply to your selected layer and not impact other participants’ layers.

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