Transforming Pixels in Photoshop

Although you may consider the distortions on the Transform menu somewhat mundane when compared to the fun and flashy Liquify command, I’m sure you’ll find them a lot more practical and useful in your daily digital-imaging chores.

Here’s how to transform a selection:
1. Create your selection.
I’ll leave this task up to you; just use your now well-honed selection expertise. You can also apply transformations to a layer or to multiple layers.
2. Choose Edit➪Transform.
If all you want is a single transformation, this command is adequate. However, if you want multiple transformations, you’re wise to stick with the Free Transform command, which I cover later in this section.
3. Choose a transformation type from the submenu:
- Scale: Increases or decreases the size of your selection
- Rotate: Freely rotates your selection in either direction
- Skew: Distorts your selection on a given axis
- Distort: Distorts your selection with no restrictions on an axis
- Perspective: Applies a one-point perspective to your selection
- Rotate 180°, 90° CW (Clockwise), or 90° CCW (Counterclockwise):
Rotates the selection by specified amounts
- Flip Horizontal or Vertical: Flips your selection along the vertical and horizontal axes, respectively As soon as you select your desired distortion and release the mouse button, a box called the bounding box, or transform box, surrounds your selection, complete with handles on the sides and corners. Note that you don’t get a bounding box with the Flip transformation (which just gets applied to your image).
4. Depending on which transformation type you chose in Step 3, drag a handle.
- Scale: Corner handles work best for this transformation. Press Shift to scale proportionately. Press Alt (Option on the Mac) to scale from the center.
- Rotate: Move your cursor outside the bounding box. When the cursor becomes a curved arrow, drag CW or CCW. Press Shift to rotate in 15-degree increments.
- Skew: Drag a side handle.
- Distort: Drag a corner handle.
- Perspective: Drag a corner handle.

Choosing Rotate 180°, 90° CW, or 90° CCW or Flip Horizontal or Vertical will just execute the command. Handledragging isn’t necessary. Photoshop executes all the transformations around a point called the reference point. The reference point appears in the center of the transform box by default.

You can move the center point anywhere you want, even outside the bounding box. In addition, you can set your own reference point for the transformation by clicking a square on the reference point locator in the Options bar. Each square corresponds with a point on the bounding box.
5. You can choose a second transformation type from the Edit➪Transform submenu, if desired.
If you’re an ultraprecise type of person, you can also numerically transform the selection by entering values in the Options bar.

Be sure to execute all your transformations in one fell swoop if possible. In other words, don’t scale a selection now and then five minutes later rotate it and then five minutes later distort it, because every time you apply a transformation to an image, you are putting it through an interpolation process. Interpolation recalculates the pixels. When you transform a selection, Photoshop either adds or deletes pixels. You want to try to limit how many
times you interpolate an image because it has a degrading effect — your image will start to appear soft and mushy. The only exception is flipping or rotating in 90-degree increments. These commands are interpolation free.

6. After you have transformed your selection to your liking, do one of the following: Double-click inside the bounding box; click the Commit button in the Options bar; or press Enter (Return on the Mac).
To cancel the transformation, press Esc or click the Cancel button in the Options bar. Your image is now magically transformed. Note that if your image isn’t on a layer, you can leave a hole filled with the background color after your image is transformed.

To repeat a transformation, choose Edit➪Transform➪Again.