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A Shortcut to Constrain Transformations

This tip was sent to Tip of the Week email subscribers on November 20, 2014.

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Most of the time you probably want to constrain an object’s proportions when you change its size or scale via the Control panel. And of course it’s easy to do that by leaving the little chain buttons selected.


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But you can also constrain proportions even when the chain button is deselected, just by holding Command/Ctrl while you apply new width, height, or scale values. That way you can leave the constraining behavior off and only invoke it when you want it.

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Editor in Chief of CreativePro. Instructor at LinkedIn Learning with courses on InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, and Affinity Publisher. Co-author of The Photoshop Visual Quickstart Guide with Nigel French.
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