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

Hi Dragos,

Sorry for the frustration. Since today people expect that grabbing the corner of a window will transform it to scale, this is now the default. The attempt was to make it more intuitive. So now, constrained transform is simply transform (Cmd or Ctrl T). Now free transform is invoked with the shift key. You can still hold the option key to center.

If you would like to change it back, here are instructions.

Thanks,
Hannah

Never ever will I update PS! How is this possible, I can't even find the constrain proportion button... how do I transform now? is there a way to roll back? 

I agree with your answer completely, however it was replied in not subtheard it belongs too 😉

I'm one of the people who requested this, but the implementation is shoddy and hard to fathom.  I had assumed that Adobe would implement it either with a toggle to set your preference or with a "last used" manner, similar to masks where, if you set the rectangular marquee as additive it stays that way unless you change it.

And I agree... it needs to be consistent behaviour across all aspects of the program.  If don't need to hold shift to lock proportions, then I should NEVER require shift to lock proportions.  What Adobe has provided seems like something they just stuck in at the last minute.

I should say that the reason I asked for this change is because 99% of the time I want the proportions locked and losing the need to press the shift key, while minor, would make my process faster and require less thought.  Now it requires more thought as I have to remember that for this object I don't need to hold down the shift, but for this other one I do.  Even though I asked for this change I will be patching the config file to ensure the program has consistency throughout.

Let's try this one again, Adobe.  This update doesn't satisfy anyone.

Exactly this. They could have just fixed the problem with transform options not saving instead of making such a disruptive change.

I can certainly agree with you on the shift key, as I too constantly hover over the Shift/Command/Option/Control keys after 20+ years of PS use.

The main reason I wanted the toggle is because I use the numeric entry for 90% of my scaling. And that's mainly because when using Free Transform, most of the time the numbers reflect that the art is slightly off by .1 or .2% ALWAYS, so that's why I am constantly clicking the "maintain aspect ratio" button. The toggle would save a lot of time for everyone. It was the only request, not changing the basic behavior that is 20+ years old.

I always prefer a home run to a single, don't you? 😉

Hey, Suzanne Hemphill,

With respect to this...

<<< I don't really agree with the many who think that shift needs to be held down to maintain aspect ratio just because that's what we've always done. >>>>

We're certainly cool to "agree to disagree" on this or any topic. But I think the concern goes beyond the idea that it's "what we've always done." True, we have always done it, and it will be a pain to break the habit, but, to me, that's not the crux of it. See below for more...

<<< I have used PS since version 1 and I believe I can break that habit and feel good about freeing up the finger that holds down the shift key. >>>>

For my money—and, again, this is just for the sake of discussion, not to say you're wrong—I thought holding down Shift was SUCH an easy thing that it kind of tried to "fix" a problem that already had a solution to begin with. I mean, when we type, we hit Shift to get a capital letter in. Adding a modifier key to any task doesn't really slow you down. I am actually shocked that so many people were looking for a way to have it default to being "constrained." I have used Photoshop for 20 years and I don't think I ever once went to the  toolbar to toggle that checkbox on or off regardless of which way I wanted to do it. I was taught to work with my left hand over by the Shift/Command/Option/Control keys, and my right hand on the mouse or trackpad, and just leaning on shift when I dragged was second nature. Maybe others work in other ways.

But, more importantly, here's the bigger thing... even if we were to relearn the muscle memory, the problem is, we'd have conflicting muscle memory because if you use Indesign, Illustrator, other parts of Photoshop, Quark (if you use that), or basically any program remotely related to graphics, you'd still have to use that same Shift thing... so you couldn't really unlearn it, because it's not consistent across the board. It's not even consistent within Photoshop. (And, I do see that you did address the lack of consistency in your own post, too.)

To me, holding Shift to constrain proportions isn't even a "Photoshop Thing." It's a convention across basically all programs. It's a global thing. But...

<<<< But for those that feel strongly about it, the toggle would have been the answer for everyone! >>>>

Right. That would have been a home run, I think, no matter how you like to work. 

I do like that there is a solution with the PSUserConfig.txt thing.

<<< I do agree with the suggestion of the corner dragging being proportional and the sides/tops being non-proportional. That somehow seems logical to me. >>>

The only thing I see here as a problem is that sometimes you need to arbitrarily scale by eye and it would be an extra step to have to first drag up on the top, un-click, and then re-click and drag to the side, and then possibly more steps and back and forth if you realize after seeing the look that you need to revisit the vertical scale again. Having the corners optionally be free transform (without holding Shift) allows you to mess with the vertical and horizontal scaling together in one fell swoop.

I appreciate other perspectives on this, so thanks for sharing!

I personally preferred the traditional way of holding shift to lock proportions across the board, it was consistent and what we've been doing since the very beginning. I'm pretty confident in saying that many of us professionals feel this way. It's also a universal standard across many programs from many different developers, why change this?

However I'm here to point out that this behavior is currently very inconsistent. Smart Objects also still transforms traditionally along with the vector objects you mentioned, requiring the shift to lock proportions. Make it one way or another, this is just messy and confused right now.

It might be trivial to hobbyist but workflow efficiency and consistency is everything for us professionals. This change has amateur written all over it, on both the implementation and the reason behind it.

Why should scaling vector graphics be different than raster elements? And why didn't you just implement the toggle as we requested? This is really not what we asked for, but at least a step in the right direction.

I don't really agree with the many who think that shift needs to be held down to maintain aspect ratio just because that's what we've always done. I have used PS since version 1 and I believe I can break that habit and feel good about freeing up the finger that holds down the shift key. But for those that feel strongly about it, the toggle would have been the answer for everyone! Was the toggle just too hard to code? What was the thinking on this?

But why leave vector objects out of the new behavior? I scale a lot of vector objects, so different behaviors for different objects will be a problem. I will thank you though for saving me from clicking on the "maintain aspect ratio" icon way less! I am also thankful that you included smart objects in the new behavior, that will save me a LOT of time!

I do agree with the suggestion of the corner dragging being proportional and the sides/tops being non-proportional. That somehow seems logical to me. People would figure that out in short order without any instruction. That would solve the toggle and make most people happy I believe.

Thanks for finally addressing this issue! It's very, very close to solved, and half solved is much better than not solved at all!

Users voted on an idea that was merged into a completely different thing.

The original (as seen in the URL) was to have the lock on in the toolbar ON by default. For example, if I want to shrink several images consistently by 17.45% I have to click the lock every damn time. The original topic had nothing to do with resizing by dragging.

Look at the URL:
photoshop_numeric_free_transform_maintain_aspect_ratio_button

But the title is: 
Free Transform - ability to set Maintain Aspect Ratio as default

😞