Transform Selection - Aspect Ratio Lock/Unlock

[Gregory Burns]

Well, something's different now. I used to be able to apply an elliptical marquee selection, then right click, select "transform selection", and pull on the left/right/top/bottom center handles independently to move each of them. Now when I try that, it responds as if there's an "aspect ratio lock" applied. So, when I pull on the left handle outwards, the top and bottom sides move out a proportional amount, unbidden. If I pull the top up, the left and right sides move out as well. I want each to happen independent of the others. Worked fine last time I used it (weeks ago), now it has the wonderful new unwanted behavior. Anyone know what the fix is?

[Gregory Burns]

I see that now by default the "lock aspect ratio" checkbox is checked when initiating a "transform selection". Doesn't matter if I uncheck it though, as even though the check disappears, the behavior remains. Any suggestions? Next step will be uninstall/reinstall PS I guess.

[gener7]

To revert to the legacy transform behavior, do the following:

1. Use Notepad (Windows) or a text editor on Mac OS to create a plain text file (.txt).
2. Type the text below in the text file:
   
   TransformProportionalScale 0
   
   
3. Save the file as "PSUserConfig.txt" to your Photoshop settings folder:
   • Windows: [Installation Drive]:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2019\Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 Settings\
   • macOS: //Users/[User Name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 Settings/

[kristinbitler]

Thanks for the info. I struggled with this for a couple of hours. Your solution was quicker than downgrading, which I will do if I run into more issues.

[terrys30580497]

This works, thank you so much. I'm wondering, where is this check box everyone is talking about  located?

I dont seem to have one, or understand what I'm looking for?

Could someone post a screen shot?

[gener7]

See bottom reply.

[Gregory Burns · Accepted solution]

Interesting. This occurred with 20.0.1. I thereupon downgraded to 20.0.0. Same problem. Went backwards further to 19.1.7 (you can do this by using the CC app, selecting the app you're interested in, in this case PS, then next to the open/upgrade button click the little down arrow at the right of it and select "manage", and you can then get older versions installed). The 19.1.17 works properly. Well, at least it works the way it used to. It doesn't irrevocably lock the aspect-ratio control regardless of the checkbox settings (apparently indicated by the blue outline of the selection box). But, while in 19.1.7 I thought it might be interesting to see if the aspect-ratio lock checkbox worked properly. No. It doesn't. But it "doesn't" in a different way. If you check the box and grab a side handle (versus a corner handle) it auto-magically unchecks itself and doesn't enforce a lock on the aspect ratio. Eh, broken in both versions, but in different ways. I love doing Adobe's bug-checking for them. Especially when I'm rushing a deadline and something suddenly doesn't work properly. Guess I'll use the downgraded 19.1.7 until they get the 20.0.X versions fixed (guess that'll be 20.0.2 if we're lucky).

[MacAwesome88]

THIS IS SO F***** ANNOYING THAT I NOW CANNOT TRANSFORM MY SELECTION OF A SIMPLE RECTANGULAR SELECTION NON-PROPORTIONALLY.!!!. I'M WORKING ON VERY IMPORTANT CUSTOM DESIGNED GREETING CARDS FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

I WANT TO THROW MY LAPTOP AT ADOBE!  YOU BETTER GET THIS FIXED IN THE NEXT WEEK MORONS.. I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU PUT OUT CRAP LIKE THIS!  I'M SHUTTING DOWN MY ADOBE WORK-FLOW RIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS,, JAN 1ST MOVING TO AFFINITY. YOU GUYS SUCK!

THIS IS DISGUSTING! PHOTOSHOP 2019.0.1 - TRIED EVERYTHING POSSIBLE.

[Gregory Burns]

Yeah, you and me are screaming the same thing. Roll it back to 19.1.7 and it should work properly (AKA PS CC 2018). I spent 4 hours today trying to figure this out before I tumbled to the "roll backwards to prior version" solution. Pity. You'd think a big company like this could have quality assurance policies that would minimize or eliminate this type of issue. I pay $600 a year (well, actually my company does) for the subscription service, every year, year after year, and this type of cluster-f**k pops up at least once a year. Go figure...

[MacAwesome88]

Amen Brother.. they can take their Adobe MAX show and shove it! They're getting as bad as Microsoft, (the rigmarole I went to With them about OneNote Not syncing properly for months.) Their support was Dreadful Telling me to create a guest account And deleting Extensions That were 10 folders deep which didn't work anyways. Whoops I digress But anywho, Yes You did the right thing Reverting to 19.1.7. ~ Robert

[Dr. Ayman Raafat Ph.D]

to unlock the aspect ratio lock for the transform selection you can press shift key while moving the corners ,

good luck

Ayman

[Unseen_Perspective]

Adobe has updated how it works and not let us know... Hold shift and it releases the aspect ratio when moving an edge..

[Dr. Ayman Raafat Ph.D]

thats the confusing to press shift to release the aspect

[SherribyDesign]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I was getting pretty annoyed with holding down the ctrl key to try to readadjust the photo and getting skewered results. Not sure what Adobe was thinking by changing such an important tool.  

[emilyd69735342]

OMG, thank you!!!

[ChrisLeicester]

Thank you! That works perfectly! Why on earth doesn't Adobe just provide information about these bizarre and unintuitive changes? I've lost count of the number of times I've had to revert to using the freeware GIMP instead of Photoshop to do something - I thought I was paying Adobe a lot of money for something better, but I'm wondering if I'm wasting my money now.

[EIF]

Thanks Bro! Love you! Been looking for the answer for an hour!

[mayan55119272]

Thank you, Ayman! This works!

[Gregory Burns]

Genr7's solution works, though the check-box then is broken in a different way (aspect ratio lock creates the selection as X-Y axes both equal in size; apparently can't handle them being unequal). But I hate having to work to discover band-aid fixes that require specialized approaches. It's kinda like the preferences file you get set up just the way you like it, and then something changes and you have to delete it and start all over again. Would be nice if things simply worked the way they were supposed to...

[royston1]

I've been using Photoshop since 1997 and I make my living from coding up HTML/CSS which often comes in PSD. I was not able to find out myself that corner of selection has to be dragged with SHIFT. It's not intuitive. I was dragging sides, not corners of selection and nothing worked.

Feature suggestion #1 to Adobe - Please put a toggle on the toolbar to toggle the enforcing ratio on "Transform Selection".

Feature suggestion #2 to Adobe - Currently, when selection is transformed, CTRL does nothing. ALT scales from the centre and CMD skews. Let's map the CTRL to disable the ratio lock.

To give some context to people who wonder why does anybody need selection transformed at no particular ratios - it's needed when you want to slice the image into pieces like this:

[gener7]

I think your explanation would get better traction here: Photoshop Family Customer Community where the product managers are.

We're basically volunteer support and guidance for Photoshop troubleshooting and techniques for both new and old users.

Gene

[Creative_Creecher]

Adding shift to make this work is fine.  WHat is not is that I should still be able to uncheck the toggle button that has the lock chain icon on it.  That should still work even if the shift key now makes this work also.  Bad User Experience Adobe!

[davescm]

I'm not sure why this thread has come to the top of the forum list again, but for completeness, in current versions you can use Preferences >General >Use legacy free transform  if you prefer the older behaviour

Dave

[gener7]

As of CC2020 v21.0.2, and CC2019 v20.0.8, checking on "Use Legacy Free Transform" will bring back the old way ('Legacy' in computing terminology) of holding down the Shift key to proportally scale the Free Transform box.

[katerila11]

Thanks for this! 

I'm wondering why they keep changing small things like this with every update?! Whether the aspect ratio is locked by default or not doesn't have such a huge impact on the performance of Photoshop IMO, it just annoys all of us long-time users who now have to adapt to the new default or go look for legacy settings. Isn't there anything more important the Photoshop team needs to work on?!