Maintaining aspect ratio when resizing objects in Illustrator?

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FOCUS!!
Use your training to bend it to your will......

wayne k
guam usa

Nice illustration Wayne!

I have learned to move small objects with my mind but I have trouble remembering which key I want to press.(ironic eh?)

 

[signswi]

I have zero problems holding shift to proportionally resize, your left hand shouldn't ever be off home row anyway. Plus this particular key behavior is two decades old, surely you can form a minor muscle memory in two decades.

If you think about it you're modifying the dragging motion of a particular point which logically would stretch the box if not constrained through a modifier. Having proportional drag be default makes less metaphorical sense and confuses the notion of point dragging.

 

[Rick]

I have zero problems holding shift to proportionally resize, your left hand shouldn't ever be off home row anyway. Plus this particular key behavior is two decades old, surely you can form a minor muscle memory in two decades.

If you think about it you're modifying the dragging motion of a particular point which logically would stretch the box if not constrained through a modifier. Having proportional drag be default makes less metaphorical sense and confuses the notion of point dragging.

I have been a production monkey for very large jobs, one problem with the shift key and lazy designers is that, in a hurry, they prematurely release the key. I have seen this way too many times where a type face is stretched some lame miniscule amount, but enough to question the designers intent when getting files ready for production. Especially system signage. I think some of these nit picky complaints are lame, some have a little validity. It would be nice to have a choice of maintaining the ratio without a shift key. Like I stated before, I rarely drag to size. I numerically resize. But my pinky hovers over that shift key anyways.

 

[signmeup]

I have zero problems holding shift to proportionally resize, your left hand shouldn't ever be off home row anyway. Plus this particular key behavior is two decades old, surely you can form a minor muscle memory in two decades.

If you think about it you're modifying the dragging motion of a particular point which logically would stretch the box if not constrained through a modifier. Having proportional drag be default makes less metaphorical sense and confuses the notion of point dragging.

You'd think after 2 decades Adobe could figure it out and make it so that you pressed a shortcut key for the 1% of re-sizing tasks that needed to be distorted in 2 directions at once and pressed nothing for the 99% of the time it needs to remain un- distorted... you know... like all the other software makers do.

Try this just for giggles... click and drag an objects side handle. It only makes your object wider. Now try a top handle... it only makes your object taller. Isn't that enough? Do you really need to distort almost everything in 2 directions at once?

I mean... how often do you really want to distort a font in 2 directions at once? I guess if you actually do want to distort your objects when re-sizing them more than 51% of the time then the Adobe method makes perfect sense.

 

[sar bossier]

Please fill out and submit if you feel the need ...

O.M.G.!!!! :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: bwahahahahaha! Can I steal this form, PRETTY PLEASE???

 

[signswi]

You'd think after 2 decades Adobe could figure it out and make it so that you pressed a shortcut key for the 1% of re-sizing tasks that needed to be distorted in 2 directions at once and pressed nothing for the 99% of the time it needs to remain un- distorted... you know... like all the other software makers do.

Try this just for giggles... click and drag an objects side handle. It only makes your object wider. Now try a top handle... it only makes your object taller. Isn't that enough? Do you really need to distort almost everything in 2 directions at once?

I mean... how often do you really want to distort a font in 2 directions at once? I guess if you actually do want to distort your objects when re-sizing them more than 51% of the time then the Adobe method makes perfect sense.

Irrelevant, metaphor consistency is the point.

Takes about 2 seconds to write a script for a "toggle proportional resize" keyboard shortcut, you probably could have remapped your entire adobe suite by the time the OP was written .

 

[signmeup]

Takes about 2 seconds to write a script for a "toggle proportional resize" keyboard shortcut, you probably could have remapped your entire adobe suite by the time the OP was written .

So write me one then.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

So write me one then.

Here's what I use. I find it much easier/precise than doing it with a mouse. What I hate most, is that while you're resizing, it always snaps to where you don't want it to.

If you want to see everything inside your bounding box as you resize, shortcut ctrl+h to hide all the lines that hover above everything and block your view.

To use my action, open your action pallette, go to load actions, and load it. Now double click each action and assign an f-key shortcut if you like. I have mine on f6/f7 for example, and this particular action I've created goes up/down by 1%. Upscale is 101%, downscale is 99%.

The good thing about actions is, you can change that if you want. Maybe you want more of a jump? So record an action that is 105/95.

If you like buttons, you can change your action pallette to button mode and click on a button.

Enjoy.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

My apologies, disregard the above attachment - made a mistake in the scale up command.

Corrected actions set attached.

 

[James Burke]

Pat who???

Signlab keeps it auto-locked as well. It get's confusing jumping between programs. Thank goodness for expletives, cuz I think that's about all you can do is cuss about it! Minus well get used to it.

Big Ditto...I just learned to deal with it.

JB

 

[Dee Reynolds]

Wow, all of this over the shift key and its use to constrain proportions when scaling objects? It's not even a complaint of mine and even if it was a complaint it would be FAR from the biggest complaints I have with Adobe Illustrator.

Here's three things I dislike in Illustrator (I have repeated these gripes before).

1. The method of aligning objects and anchor points is not so great. The function isn't as terrible as it used to be, but it needs improvement. If you want to align two objects yet keep one of the objects locked in place it takes no less than three very careful clicks to get the job done. If you click too fast or something you get plunged into Flash style isolated object editing mode. Aligning anchor points can be especially tricky. Object alignment is easier to do in Corel and Flexi -although they reverse the order on what object gets locked. Just shift-click objects into a selection and the last object (Corel) or first object (Flexi) will be locked in place. At least Illustrator has some method to allow an object or anchor point to be locked in place as an alignment reference. In older, pre-CS versions of Illustrator all of the objects selected for alignment would relocate to a new, averaged position. That really really sucked.

2. The art board could be bigger. 227" X 227" is the maximum layout size. Corel's work space can go roughly 400% larger. And Flexi can go even larger than that, although it's rare I need a 2000" wide work space. Sometimes you need to fit an elevation of a large building in there.

3. Illustrator is only geared for sizing text for the printed page. Dedicated sign making applications allow for setting letter sizes ACCURATELY according to capital height. I think Illustrator needs to add capability for sizing text according to cap height in a variety of measuring units (inches, pixels, centimeters, etc.). At least I have a JavaScript plug in that will let Illustrator do what I want, but it's strange how it works.

Wow. Its 2023 and Illustrator has not changed any of these problems!

 

[JBurton]

I figured myront dragged this horse out to beat some more? Dee, have you met myront, you two would get along.

Please fill out and submit if you feel the need ...

This was freaking hilarious

 

[Bobby H]

Wow. Its 2023 and Illustrator has not changed any of these problems!

You're quoting a post I wrote 12 years ago.

In 2011 Adobe Illustrator was at version CS5.5. Since then we've gone thru CS6 and a decade's worth of Creative Cloud releases. The newest full version of Illustrator (v 28.0) and other Adobe apps) will be released next week, timed with Adobe's annual MAX conference.

Some of my complaints you quoted have been addressed to varying degrees. The normal max canvas size is still 227" X 227," but a new large canvas document type allows Illustrator layouts up to 2275" X 2275". I still don't like the alignment behavior where an extra click is involved to automatically lock a key object in place. On the other hand Smart Guides solves some of those issues. In version 24.3 they introduced font height options (something I can take a little credit for via my feature requests in Adobe's forums). Text objects can be sized by the default Em box method, ICF box, capital letter M-height or lowercase letter x-height. The M-height and x-height options are very useful for sign design and even layouts meant for pixel-based displays such as LED message centers. Type can be made more pixel-perfect to make baselines and cap lines match the pixel grid precisely.

I am still bumping requests to allow text objects to be aligned to other objects using their baselines. CorelDRAW has been able to do that for a long time.

 

[Kemik]

I tend to use the Transform tool more than click to enlarge, only because I am a perfectionist and I can't stand when an object is 6.5002" when it should be 6.5" wide!
That being said, the shift key thing doesn't bother me, but I've never really used Corel for anything other than to convert a file.