Participant

Answered

Distort tool does not working

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
October 22, 2018
5 replies
17439 views

Hello,

Distort tool does not working after last update. When you select are with marquee tool and try to use distort to increase photo, it does not working.

Please advice.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer davescm

Again, there isn't a "Distort tool" in the toolbox. We'd love to help, but will need more details on exactly what you are doing.

~Barb

I suspect you mean Transform >Distort. The behaviour of transform has changed in the recent update. Where previously the shift key was used to constrain the transform , it now works the other way round and the shift key is used to unconstrain the transform.

See here :

New and enhanced features | Latest release of Photoshop CC

Dave

Gezina Uys

Participant

Please help me. I want to make photos of my scrapbook pages square. I crop the photos a little larger than 12x12 in. Then I use the distort tool to drag the corners to the 12x12in square. But the hole photo moves instead of only the corner that I am draging. What must I do to get this right. My old program, Photoshop Elements 11 did this much more easy than this 2020 Photoshop Elements.

Kukurykus

Legend

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop-cc-release-20-0-0-free-transform-tool-problem

I

innovative_ninja1674

Inspiring

I think this might be the same issue I am having.

When working on an image I almost always use: >Select All >Edit >Transform >Distort, then I drag out the corners by pointing my stylus on the little boxes at the corners. I will almost always drag out a corner, then bring in a new Guide over my image to see if I need to drag further or less.

In the latest version (Nov 2018,) once I bring in this new Guide the 'Commit Transform' action occurs, although I may want to continue adjustments before I want to 'Commit Transform'.

So, now I have to Deselect, Select All, Edit, Transform, etc., in incremental steps, which takes much longer.

One other thing. Once, >Select All >Edit >Transform >Distort has be done we were before able to drag from the center of each of the four sides of an image. This no longer works.

Please advise, if you can.

Thank you,

Derek

davescm

Community Expert

The auto commit function is not universally popular and you have just outlined another circumstance where it gets in the way.

I'm not sure what you mean on the second issue - I can still use the centre handles. Hold shift to pull them out.

Dave

davescm

Community Expert

jane-e wrote
light-trap wrote
Although I've been using Photoshop for over 10 years I don't understand what you mean by this:
" look at the cursor graphics, you will see helpful additions to the cursors to show what to expect."
Hi Derek,
I tried to take a screen shot with Grab (Mac) and after failing a half dozen times, I will try to write it. I think what Trevor is talking about it the widgets that accompany the cursor. They change depending on what you are about to do, and I always keep an eye on them.
I'm pretty sure Trevor.Dennis means watch the cursor as you work. If not, he'll come back and tell us.

Jane, I put up some graphics in another thread last week, but like you say, you can't grab the screen complete with cursors, so I faked it by making my own. Unfortunately, I can't find that thread, and I pasted the graphics to the forum, so don't still have them.

Greatly exaggerated for clarity, this is the Ctrl drag middle handle on the top and bottom sides.

Ctrl (Cmd) along has the left-right arrows to indicate that you can only drag let or right, and not up and down (Skew)
Adding the Shift removes that restriction, and is indicated as such, but the left/right arrows now longer showing.
The left and right middle handles have the same behaviour rotated 90°

Unfortunately, there is no visual aid when dragging corner handles. The cursor is the same regardless of whether Shift is pressed,

We can do this

But can only do the following by adding the Shift key to Ctrl (Cmd)

I think that lack of a visual aid is a missed opportunity, and doubly so when you consider the completely predictable confusion the changes have caused.

Try using Perspective Crop. It now has the same requirement of needing the Shift key to allow free movement of the corner handles. Now that is going to cause some consternation because there is no other way to use Perspective Crop without dragging the corner handles. So that is going to catch out new users who would probably use Free Transform one movement at a time, or if they were feeling clever, using the right click menu. That is not an option with Perspective Crop. BTW I thin I have just discovered that you can't use Perspective Crop when the document has Shape layers. You never stop learning.

So here we are getting to grips with the new behaviour, when we find it does not apply to Shape layers. I am visualising side walks covered with computer monitors outside houses with broken windows.