Absolute Beginner's Guide to Digital Photography

The Free Transform tool is capable of all these actions, but it’s often more difficult to

work with than a dedicated command. For this reason, Photoshop and Elements

include each command separately.

■ Scale. Enlarge or shrink a selection by dragging its corner horizontally and

vertically. Press and hold down Alt+Shift to adjust the entire image symmetri-

cally (see Figure 9.15). Press and hold down Shift to retain the aspect ratio as

you scale one corner. Now choose Image, Resize, Scale.

CHAPTER 9 BASIC EDITING WITH PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS AND iPHOTO 125

FIGURE 9.15
The Scale tool is
often used in
conjunction
with the Info
palette.

■ Skew. Transform a rectangular selection into a parallelogram by dragging

one corner horizontally or vertically. Choose Edit, Transform, Skew.

■ Distort. Freehand distort an image with this command by dragging a corner

(see Figure 9.16).This command is often used to place images on other

objects as textures. Choose Image, Transform, Distort.

The options bar provides more precise changes to images by enabling you to enter

specific degrees for rotation, pixels for scaling, or measurements that Distort should

use. Also, if you need to nudge an image one way or another, enter a small value in

the options toolbar instead of trying to perform the function freehand.