Scale image to absolute percentage

[aleskl]

I'm assembling panels of multiple images in Illustrator CS5. The images are similar, but of slightly different sizes, therefore I put each image in a clipping mask, so the final sizes of clipped images are the same, so they can be arranged in a grid. The magnification of the images should be exactly the same, for example, I scale all the images to 5% and then I put them in a clipping mask.

I've made a grid of 2 x 2 images and then reused this grid, to put a different set of images inside the clipping masks. The four images in the initial grid were scaled to 5%, but when I relink an image inside the clipping mask and choose a different one, the scaling changes - as seen in this screenshot to 4.708% for this particular image:

So my question is: is it possible to re-scale the image(s) to exactly 5%? I tried Object-Transform-Scale, but the initial value is always 100%, so I would have to calculate percentage for each image separately, like 5/4.708*100% for the one in the screenshot. Is it possible to use an absolute scaling percentage for image transformation?

[Ton Frederiks]

If the images are the same pixel size, the scaling will not change.

If they are not they will be scaled to the dimension of the file they replace.

[aleskl]

Thank you Ton,

the problem is exactly that the images have different pixel sizes. Do you know if the images can be scaled to the same DPI?

[Ton Frederiks]

I don't know how you would scale to a specific resolution (ppi), and even that would not solve your problem.

I wonder why you need that specific percentage, if the image fits inside the clipping mask, should that not be fine?

I also wonder why you scale to 5%, this will result in files with a very high resolution, a 72 ppi file would become 1440 ppi...

[aleskl]

Hi Ton,

I'm afraid you're right, I did not find an option to scale an object to an absolute percentage or to specific DPI.

The problem is that all the clipping masks have the same dimesions, but the images are of different sizes - I'm using clipping masks to crop away a narrow ouside border of each image, so with some images I would crop off a small outer area, whereas with others I would cut away more. The important thing is that the final images need to be of the same magnification. The final DPI is irrelevant, but it needs to be the same for all images.  I'll try to prepare an illustration what I have in mind and post it later.

[Jacob Bugge]

Ales,

As I (mis)understand it, to have the same resolution you can only rescale each manually (such as 500/4.708 in the OP image mentioned), but I believe that in all/most/many/some cases you will also need to adjust the position of the image to clip the desired part, so manual work on each may be required anyroad.

[aleskl]

You're right, the images would need manual intervention anyway. Is there perhaps anything similar to "Reset scaling"? That would be helpful for me: first I would reset the image size to its original and then I would scale it to 5%.

[Ton Frederiks]

Maybe InDesign will give you more control over fitting, cropping images.

[aleskl · Accepted solution]

Hi Ton,

the frame fitting options are not a solution - it will only fit or fill the frame, you don't have control over scaling of the object. But it is InDesign that is the solution, so thank you for pointing me in this direction.

So the solution for absolute scaling of objects (inside a clipping mask) is to do it in InDesign:

I have an image placed inside a rectangular clipping mask (the mask is defining the final printing size of the image). I need to arrange several images together, all of them should be printed at the same size AND the same magnification (this can be expressed as effective PPI). The source images are of slightly different sizes, so when I want to replace (relink) an image with a different image, the PPI will change, because the new images will be fit in size of the container of the old image. The scaling percentage will change, as seen below (the absolute image scaling factor should be 5%, the effective PPI should be 1440):

I can access the image inside the clipping mask by double-clicking it two times (1. to select the image container, 2. to select the image itself). The image will appear in an orange selection rectangle and the absolute scaling will be visible in the ribbon (marked with a red box). Here I can replace the values with 5% and I have a perfectly correct magnification for the new image also:

I wish Illustrator would have this extra control over the scaling of objects, but if it can be done in Indesign it's fine too.

Cheers and thank you all for your input!

[augustr]

I only have CC so that's all I can speak to, but in CC (and perhaps older versions) there is an option to do just this.

In the links panel, highlight the link you want to change the setting for, and click on the "additional options" button in the upper right of the panel (the three horizontal lines). Click on "Placement Options", and voila! The resulting panel gives you a number of ways to fix this problem from a drop-down.

Hope this helps.