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Vixlo 0.1

Crop, straighten, rotate and flip

The first five tools on the top panel change the frame's shape and orientation: Crop, Straighten, Rotate 90° clockwise, Flip left to right and Flip top to bottom. All five are stored beside the photograph and applied each time it is drawn; the original is never cut, turned or mirrored. Each button wears a small dot when this frame's value is not its default, and every one of them is its own line in the Changes tab.

The order the render applies them is fixed: the lens correction, then perspective, then the straighten, then the crop. That is why a straighten, a perspective change or a lens correction re-fits the crop, and never the other way round.

Cropping​

The crop tool armed with a box drawn, its handles, the thirds grid and the bar with the ratio chips

  1. Press Crop on the top panel. The bar under the frame reads Drag on the frame to set a crop, or pull a corner in.
  2. Drag on the photograph to draw the box. Take hold of a corner or an edge to pull it — the opposite side stays put — or drag inside the box to move it. A thirds grid is drawn over the box while you work.
  3. Press ↩, the bar's Crop button, or the Crop tool again to apply it. Esc or Cancel puts the stored crop back.

Nothing is written while you drag. The bar says which state the crop is in: Crop 84% × 70% · drag a corner or edge to adjust · Enter applies, Esc cancels while a box is waiting, and Crop 84% × 70% · drag a corner or edge to adjust with Reset crop beside it once it is stored. Arm the tool again on a cropped frame and the stored box comes back with its handles, so it can be adjusted rather than redrawn.

Choosing a ratio​

The bar carries aspect-ratio chips: Free, Original (the photograph's own shape), 1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4 and 16:9, plus a swap for the five fixed ones, so 3:2 becomes 2:3. There is no separate portrait button; a portrait ratio is a landscape one swapped. Choosing a ratio re-fits whatever box is on screen to it about its own centre, as a draft that still needs ↩. The ratio then holds through a corner or edge drag. It stays chosen for the rest of the session as you step through takes, but it is a preference about how the tool draws, never a setting on the photograph.

tip

The crop is a composition choice, not a delivery size. The long edge for export lives in the Export dialog, reached from Export at the right end of the top panel, beside Before / after.

Straightening​

The straighten tool armed: a line dragged along a horizon, the fine grid, and the bar with the Angle slider

  1. Press Straighten on the top panel. A fine grid appears over the photograph and the bar reads Drag a line along a horizon or an upright, or set the angle below.
  2. Drag a line along something that ought to be level or plumb — a horizon, a doorframe, a lamp post. Vixlo works out the rotation that makes it so, aiming for level or plumb, whichever the line is nearer. The bar reads Straighten +2.4° from the line · Enter applies, Esc cancels.
  3. Press Apply — the button in the middle of the frame, ↩, or the bar — to commit it, or Esc or Cancel to take the line down.

Or drag the Angle slider on the bar, from −45° to +45°, reading to a tenth of a degree; the frame follows live and the value is written when you let go. On a frame already straightened, a new line asks for a further correction on top. Reset straighten puts it back to 0.

While the tool is armed the crop is set aside and you see the whole rotated frame, empty corners and all, the way the crop tool shows you what you are leaving out. Put the tool away and the crop is back, re-fitted if you changed the angle. Every change of angle, Reset straighten included, re-fits the crop to the largest rectangle with no empty corner in it, and so does every change to the perspective or to the Lens corrections section. Each of these replaces a crop you drew by hand. A crop you make afterwards stands until one of them changes again. Arm the crop tool on a straightened frame and the empty corners show outside your box: that is the frame you are cropping, and it is bigger than the one the camera made.

If the bar reads Still reading the photograph — straighten needs its proportions to fit the crop, the frame has not finished decoding; give it a moment.

In Vixlo 0.1

Crop last. Changing the angle (Reset straighten too), changing the perspective and letting go of any slider in Lens corrections all throw away a crop you drew by hand and put a re-fitted one in its place. ⌘Z brings your crop back, but the safe order is to straighten and correct first and draw the crop when the frame is the shape you want. Lens: corrections, vignetting and perspective has the lens side.

Rotating and flipping​

Rotate 90° clockwise turns the photograph a quarter turn, one button, one direction. Press it four times and you are back where you started; three presses is the counter-clockwise turn.

Flip left to right mirrors the frame across its vertical axis; Flip top to bottom across its horizontal axis. The two are independent.

On a frame you have turned or flipped, the straighten line and the perspective guides still mean what they look like they mean: a line you draw level on screen comes out level on screen.

The top panel with dots on Crop and Rotate 90° clockwise

Each of the five is its own line in the Changes tab, where any of them can be taken off the frame on its own — the crop without the rotation, the flip without the crop. See Changes, Versions and History.