P: Free Transform - ability to set Maintain Aspect Ratio as default

The problem is that this item was marked as implemented when it never was. Hannah Nicollet (Quality Engineer) and Adobe failed to understand the problem, left it a mess and moved on.

Yep, that’s what was suggested months ago by many people. This is so stupid it’s embarrassing.

This is all we ever asked for!

I have no idea why Adobe felt the need to completely overcomplicate the whole thing.

What's been done instead was clearly not thought through properly or user-tested effectively. Little wonder people have moved on to using other tools.

Rob

The solution to the problem could be quite straight forward, I think:

First use the behaviour like it was until PS CC 2018.
 

Then just leave the chain-button sticky. Means, if clicked once it will also be active if one is using the transform tool (command or ctrl + T) later again.

So people who prefer the old way of pressing (shift-key) to scale objects proportional in both dimensions will have this button 'unclicked'.

All others who prefer always having scaled objects without distortions always have this chain-button 'clicked' and so don’t need to press any qualifier key (unless they want to distort deliberately).

And the icing of the cake would be a preferences setting to tell if you want to reset the 'chain-button' every time you make a transformation, or have it sticky all the time (leaving the 'chain-button' in its last user selected state.

This should make all people happy (hope I haven’t overlooked anything).

Summary:

– Make the 'chain-button' sticky (keep user selected state) (if never clicked state would be turned off like it was in Photoshop all the years, so to scale proportionally 'shift-key' must be pressed.

– Make a Preferences Setting for having the 'chain-button' always sticky or reset after every use (behaviour as it was before and is right now).

When faced with inexplicable Photoshop-behaviour Restoring Preferences after making sure all customized presets like Actions, Patterns, Brushes etc. have been saved is pretty much the basic starting point:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/basic-trouble-shooting-steps.html

Ah ok, then it is maybe a Windows10-Photoshop bug?
Maybe any other Windows Photoshop user here, who could tell, if that works with smart objects in the same way like with pixel layers or not?

I wouldn't know, what I can do for troubleshooting. From the reports I'm quite sure, it has to do with Photoshop.

(I'm working on Mac and PC and at the moment only had installed it on the Windows workstation. I will test it soon on Mac, too. )

1. Create an object and transform it (CTRL+T on windows). It's by default with maintained aspect ratio
2. Create a smart object and transform it. It's by default without maintained aspect ratio.

That is not the case on my computer (Adobe Photoshop Version: 20.0.4, Mac OS 10.12.6), both transformations behave the same namely proportionally by default. 
Shape Layers behave differently because they are Path-based, though. 

What have you done for trouble-shooting so far? 

Ok! step-by-step to reproduce:
1. Create an object and transform it (CTRL+T on windows). It's by default with maintained aspect ratio
2. Create a smart object and transform it. It's by default without maintained aspect ratio.
It means it's inconsistent and impossible to come in a "blind" intuitive workflow.

Why I'm really excited about this:
I have read this here in this thread right in the beginning as a new inconsistency bug and was desperately waiting a half year, because this is not ok for my workflow, where I switch quickly under timepressure between smart objects and pixel layers.
Ok, this can happen. But now nothing is repaired.
And that seems ignorant or lazy to me, sorry.
So much effort was put from users, me too, into collecting ideas, to make a product better and then it stays even worse. And there is really not "intelligent logic" behind this inconsistent tool.

(And I did not try, but I read from users also other objects... just to mention that there could be other transformation things needed to be checked, which are not in my personal workflow)

Smart-Objects have OTHER transformation keys than normal layers.

I apparently cannot reproduce that, please elaborate. 

How stupid, lazy and ignorant is that???????

How impolite is your choice of words? 

Stil not solved !!
It's now more than a half year ago, I installed it fresh and still not consistent!!
Smart-Objects have OTHER transformation keys than normal layers.
How stupid, lazy and ignorant is that???????
No more intuitive working!!!!