Cat
Honored Contributor III

I have a lot of designs where I have created multiple versions in different colors, and often this requires swapping out an image for one that's a different color. Generally, this is pretty easy because I can use the replace image function and everything will align perfectly. But on occasion, I need to crop an image in order to make it work with the design, and in that case the replace function doesn't work so well. The replacement image isn't cropped so the alignment is all off. I have to crop it by hand, and the cropping tool doesn't give you any way to be precise, you just have to eyeball it. So, it's virtually impossible to get it lined up perfectly so that the color grouping function will recognize it as just a different color of the same image.

7 Comments
PacifierCity
Valued Contributor II

@CatThanks so much for this tidbit:

"Generally, this is pretty easy because I can use the replace image function and everything will align perfectly."

A little light bulb went off in my head when I read that!!  It will help me soooo much so I just wanted to thank you for sharing!

PC

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Marcia
Valued Contributor III

OMG, that is continually a thorn in my side! Thank you for posting – I never think to do that every time I have to deal with this! 😉

J32Design
Contributor III

Could you, until this is an option, use a shape of the correct size and mask the image with it. This way they should always stay the same size? Just a thought.

Cat
Honored Contributor III

@J32Design That's a great idea! I haven't played with masking that much, so I'm not sure how it would work if you need to chop off a significant hunk of one side of an image, but I'll experiment and see if I can make it work.

For the design I was working on (a folded sheet of paper where the image needed to crop at the fold) I solved it by putting a white rectangle on the opposite side to cover up the portion of the image in question. That'll mean that the original "parent design" won't color group with the "children" unless I re-make it, but oh well, it's not a perfect universe!

J32Design
Contributor III

@Cat   I use the masking feature when I use a larger image as an ID image. I just make a shape (round or rectangle) of the size that I need, then place the photo on top, adjust the scale of the photo to have about everything of the photo that I want fit the shape, then select both the shape and photo layer and click mask. If it is not perfect I simply unmask and adjust a bit until I have what I want.

Ah and you would need to make the photo a template before you mask it.

Cat
Honored Contributor III

@J32Design OK, I just tried it out and it worked perfectly! Somehow, I thought that when you applied a mask, it filled the inside of the shape - like I was thinking you'd need an enormous border to cover up the edges if you wanted to cut off a significant hunk of an image, but it doesn't work that way - it crops it to the outside of the shape. Thanks so much for the tip! 

Cian
Moderator
Moderator

Hi @Cat !

I'll be forwarding on this suggestion to our Team now.

Also thanks @J32Design for the helpful info 🙂

- Cian