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Known Participant
December 7, 2021
Open for Voting

Free transform's bounding box needs a relative orientation / rotation tool

  • December 7, 2021
  • 6 replies
  • 1966 views

When using free transform, scale, skew, distort, warp, ect. we are stuck with only being able to use the bounding box's square 90 degree default orientation. I think we need to be able to rotate the orientation of the bounding box without rotating the object so that we can perform transforms at angles other than true vertical and horizontal.

 

Like for example if I want to make box man longer when he's square with the canvas, easy peasy.

 

 

But if I want to do the same transform when hes at an angle, it wont work the same and ends up skewing him instead of just streatching him longer.

 

If we could rotate the transform box to match the objects orientation then we could easily do transforms at any angle, but currently the only way seems to be to rotate, apply transform, scale, and then rotate to its original position. This makes it currently a destructive guess and check process, and for smart objects requires rasterizing before the first rotation since the bounding box doesn't reset once rotations are applied. 

I find myself needing this feature a lot, and I feel like it could be tied in with the transform box's refrence point some how, like rotating the refrence point would rotate the box without rotating the objects inside.

6 replies

Participant
January 6, 2024

Often thought about this! Keeping a pre-rotation copy for resizing is a routine. Adding this feature feels obvious; in Illustrator, the bounding box stays aligned unless manually reset.

Participant
December 7, 2023

In 2023, it's surprising that there's still no capability to rotate the bounding box for easy transforms. Procreate has had this feature for years. Adobe focusing to much on AI then giving us features we would actually use...

Participant
March 7, 2023

I've thought this so many times! I usually end up having to keep a copy of the layer prior to rotating it just in case I decide to resize it later. It seems like a no brainer to add this feature. I think in Illustrator the bounding box stays aligned with the object unless you tell it to reset.

JJMack
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 8, 2021

What do you want in addition to what you now have this?

 

 

JJMack
Legend
December 7, 2021

Use the percentage fields at the top.

EuanWilliamson
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 7, 2021

You may manage to do what you wish using the skew transformation.

It may depend on the object.

 

Best regards, Euan.