Inspiring

Answered

Scaling hidden objects

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
August 18, 2025
2 replies
239 views

Is there really no way to scale a group that contains elements that are hidden & have those hidden elements scale with the rest of the group?

I have a logo that's built of many elements & includes contruction lines & other reference objects.

Leaving aside the pain of having to switch all of these items on & off individually, it's incredibly difficult to scale & position something when you can't just see the bit you want to see.

Layers in a folder in Photoshop scale, whether you can see them or not. Why is this not the case in Illustrator?

Or is it? Am I missing something?

Correct answer Snowdog63

Okay, so I think what I did was selected the visible items & scaled them, then revealed the hidden items & saw that they hadn't scaled, instead of deselecting everything & then selecting the group/layer node & scaling from there.

That is the correct way to do it.

On the one hand, I'm thinking "surely I'm not dumb enough to have done that" but I can't think of any other explanation. I would consider that "case closed". Thanks for the help & comments.

CarlosCanto

Community Expert

I just tried scaling a group with simple lines and rectangles and it works fine. Hidden lines and rectangles scaled correctly.

Can you share a sample file to test, or some scenario I could replicate?

Snowdog63Author

Inspiring

You're quite right. Now I just have to figure out what I was doing differently to cause the initial problem.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Snowdog63,

I understand how tricky that can be. At the moment Illustrator does not scale hidden objects the same way Photoshop handles hidden layers. To scale everything together, you would need to make those hidden elements visible first or place them in a separate layer or group that you can toggle on and off more easily.

I understand that this functionality is important to you, and I apologize for its unavailability at this time. Would you mind creating a UserVoice for this feature request (https://adobe.ly/45mvA2Z) and adding your comments there?

Doing this will help us prioritize this request, and you will be notified of any updates.

Abhishek

Snowdog63Author

Inspiring

Thanks, I'll do that.

Sometimes it's not possible to put all contruction elements in a separate group so that they can be toggled more easily.

I'm often surprised by the lack of consistency between the Adobe apps. I appreciate that often-times an App's funcionality requires different things to be in different places but as far as I can see, there is no earthly reason why this difference should be there. For me it's just plain shoddy.

Likewise the way guides act in Illustrator. Why is there any need for them to be physical objects that end up in your layers palette? You suddenly have multiple ways, places & commands to control things that should just be consistent across all apps.

Along with other choices in Photoshop, it makes the apps harder to work with & ultimately makes the work take longer.

It's almost as though the Photoshop people & the Illustrator people are hanging on to ancient roots (Aldus Freehand, anyone?) & are determined to not work together to achieve a level of consistency that would make the Adobe suite your friend instead of the enemy you keep closer.

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