Inspiring

Question

ALT+SHIFT for constraining proportions latest couple of versions

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
August 8, 2025
3 replies
353 views

Can someone explain why we can no longer scale and constrain proportions from the center when using ALT+SHIFT and utilizing the top, bottom, left or right transform handles? It works only when you grab the corner handles.

This is silly. Grabbing a box that is not a corner and using ALT+SHIFT only transforms to the middle on that single access which is basically what should happen when using SHIFT.

I spend more and more of my day trying to resolve "feature" changes and bugs to these programs.

Windows 64-bit

26.9.0 release

Windows

Bojan Živković11378569

Community Expert

I can confirm the same behavior in the 26.10 release. Side handles will not scale proportionally even when Shift + Alt is held down and “Use Legacy Free Transform" checked.

Resetting preferences does not help.

Parksite KarlAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for your response Anshul, but that is not the behavior on my platform.

With Legacy Free Transform disabled (unchecked) holding Shift and Alt does transform from the center from any handle, but it DOES NOT constrain proportions. Since forever, SHIFT is used to Constrain PROPORTIONS. Adobe made the change probably back in the version you suggest where SHIFT no longer contrains proportions, hence the Use Legacy Free Transform. However, when that is checked using the side handles with SHIFT and ALT does not scale to center with constrained proportions. There is no way to scale to the center the way the behavior had always been.

Make sense?

Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Thanks for your patience, and apologies for the earlier confusion, @Parksite Karl. I re-checked this behavior with Photoshop 22.2, the current 26.10 release, and the 26.11 beta. In all three versions, the results are consistent:

With Legacy Free Transform enabled:

Corner handles: Shift+Alt scales proportionally from the center.
Side handles: Shift+Alt scales from the center, but do not constrain proportions.

With Legacy Free Transform disabled (default):

Corner handles: Shift+Alt scales from the center, but do not constrain proportions
Side handles: Shift+Alt also scale from the center, but do not constrain proportions.

So what you’re seeing is expected, and this hasn’t been changed in recent years. Thanks, @Bojan Živković11378569, for calling it out and taking the time to test it on your end.

Best,
Anshul Saini

Parksite KarlAuthor

Inspiring

@Anshul_Saini and @Bojan Živković11378569

Thank you both.

So this does confirm that the behavior does not exist which makes little sense to me. If SHIFT is the modifier to scale proportionally in Legacy Free Transform, then why does ALT and SHIFT not scale from the center when using the side handles. Especially when Legacy FREE transform is disabled, grabbing the side handles scales proportionally?

Why does SHIFT not scale proportionally when grabbing the sides but it does on the corners - forgetting the ALT modifier.

Legacy FREE Transform enabled

Grab a corner handle and stretch --> No Constrain

Grab a corner handle with SHIFT and stretch --> YES constrain

Grab a side handle and stretch --> No Constrain

Grab a side handle with SHIFT and stretch --> NO CONSTRAIN

Why?

Noel Orridge

Community Manager

Hi @Parksite Karl! Thanks for reaching out! I totally understand how changes in familiar tools—especially something as central as Transform—can feel disruptive, especially for long-time users who have built their workflow around certain features.

If you're finding the new transform behavior a bit tricky, you can easily bring back the classic way by enabling Legacy Free Transform. Just head to: Edit > Preferences > General. Then check the box for “Use Legacy Free Transform.”

This should help restore the behavior you're used to!

Also, feel free to check out this Helpx article for more info on transforming objects in Photoshop forming objects in Photoshop—it’s a great resource.

Thanks a bunch!

Noel

Parksite KarlAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Noel,

Thanks for the reply.

Use Legacy Free Transform is already checked. It still behaves wrong. Essentially using one of the flat sided transform boxes (not the corners) ignores the inclusion of ALT in the procedure and only scales on whatever axis I am manipulating. That is a new feature?

Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Hi @Parksite Karl,

Thanks for following up and sharing the details. I tested this and here’s what’s happening:
With Legacy Free Transform enabled in Preferences:
• Corner handles work with Shift+Alt to scale proportionally from the center.
• Side handles, however, only scale along their axis (vertical or horizontal).

With Legacy Free Transform disabled (the current default):
• Both corner and side handles will scale proportionally from the center or corner when using Shift+Alt.

So the difference you’re seeing is expected based on whether Legacy Free Transform is turned on. If you want side handles to behave the same way as corners (proportional scaling from the center with Shift+Alt), you’ll need to turn off the Legacy option under Preferences > General.

I checked that this behavior has been present since PS 20.0 and hasn’t been changed since then.

Let us know if that resolves it for you.

Best,

Anshul Saini

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