Cropping an image to a layer.

[pauland]

Albacore, this is not about me creating new artwork, it's about what others have supplied to me.

If they wish to supply artwork as a PSD I am fine with that. I think that you have misunderstood how I use PS with flash - I am talking about moving assets from PS ( or AI! ) to Flash CS6, not using Photoshop to create flash output. All of the features you mention with AI export for flash is also possible when importing PSD content to flash.

At a secondary level, I want to become more familar with the PS and AI toolset, so knowing how the best way to find the size and position of layer content inside PS was important to me.

This isn't about converting me from using PS to AI or Xara.

You should already be aware that I've been using Xara for donkeys years!

I appreciate the heads up and under other circumstances I might well be following your advice.

Paul

[Albacore]

Well we are prickly today! In my info panel so long as a you have the marching ants around the object the info panel will give you the info(Select ---- Select All. Ctrl+A) or if it is a vector shape and it is selected that too will give you the info. I was trying to be helpful because you mentioned client and Flash and that means deadlines.

[pauland]

Sorry, I wasn't intending to be prickly at all - It wasn't intended to read like that at all. I explicitly added the last line to make it clear I appreciated your advice. I guess it didn't work. :-(

Select all doesn't really work - it selects the whole canvas on these designs ( possibly because originally they used masks against a solid shape that filled the whole canvas ).

Thanks to all the contributors on the thread - I have now a usable workflow to get the size and position of the panels - it's not a single click type solution, that I anticipated, but fine none-the-less.

I am really grateful that people take the time to help out. My posts are about trying to explain my exact situation rather than have a go at anyone. I completely understand and agree with the suggestions to use vectors rather than raster, etc, but since I don't generate this artwork myself, and I already get the point about Vector, it doesn't quite fit this particular scenario.

So, I don't mean to be prickly at all and I do appreciate everyone's contributions here.

On the flash side, I never use Xara, PS or anything else besides the Flash IDE to make flash projects. My flash projects have a large amount of scripting in them and manipulation that really needs a timeline to organise the more complex manipulations. In this particular project I have a graphic element that scoots across the screen revealing text behind it, so there is masking of the text and co-ordination of the mask with the movement of the graphic and there is easing of the movement - not a linear speed. The client makes comments about the speed so I change the timing. All this would be a major problem with a product like Xara.

I am not knocking Xara - it has strengths and weaknesses and it has always been weak at animation - though people do do clever things with it - because it has no timeline.