Free Transform reshapes part of a layer: the pixels you have selected. Scale them, move them, skew them or rotate them by dragging, see the result as you go, and nothing changes until you apply it. To rotate, flip or scale a whole layer, or every frame at once, use the Transform card in the Effects panel instead.

Starting a transform

1. Select some pixels with Box Select, Polygon Select or the Magic Wand (see Selections).
2. Click transform Transform in the selection bar, or press Ctrl + Alt + T (Cmd + Option + T on a Mac).

Handles appear around the selection, and the selection bar shows the size and angle, a quality choice, Apply and Cancel. Until you start a transform the selection tools work as usual, so drawing a new selection right next to an old one never grabs a handle.

What each drag does

Scale

Drag one of the eight square handles. Hold Shift on a corner to keep the proportions, and Alt to scale around the pivot (the centre, unless you moved it). Drag past the opposite side to mirror the pixels.

Move

Drag inside the box, or press the arrow keys to nudge it 1 pixel at a time (Shift: 5 pixels).

Skew

Drag just outside the middle of an edge, where the pointer turns into these two opposing arrows (upright ones on the left and right edges). The opposite edge stays where it is. Hold Shift to snap to clean pixel-art slopes: 1, 2 or 3 pixels across per row, or one pixel across every 2 or 3 rows.

Rotate

Drag anywhere else outside the box. It turns around the pivot. Hold Shift to snap to angles that give clean pixel lines: 0°, 26.6°, 45°, 63.4°, 90° and so on.

Pivot

The ring with a cross, at the centre of the box, is the point it rotates around (and scales around with Alt). Drag it to move the rotation point. It snaps to the centre and the handles; anywhere else it snaps to pixel centres and corners, so quarter turns stay exact. Hold Ctrl (Cmd on a Mac) to place it freely. Moving the pivot never moves the pixels, and each new transform starts with it in the centre.

You can mix them: scale, then rotate, then move, before you apply.

Nearest, cleanEdge or Bilinear

The choice in the selection bar sets how the pixels are redrawn when they are scaled, skewed or rotated:

• Nearest (nearest neighbor) copies the nearest pixel, so every pixel stays hard and exactly as it was. Rotated or scaled lines can come out jagged.
• cleanEdge, the default, is made for pixel art. It rotates and scales with clean lines: stair-stepped edges are redrawn as straight slopes, and it never adds colours that were not in the art.
• Bilinear blends neighbouring pixels into soft edges. Use it for smooth, anti-aliased cursors.

While you drag or nudge, the preview shows cleanEdge as long as it can keep up with the pointer. On a large selection or a slow device it shows Nearest while you move and cleanEdge as soon as you pause or let go. Apply always uses the choice in the bar.

Moving, mirroring and quarter turns copy the pixels exactly with any choice.

cleanEdge was created by torcado and is used under the MIT license.

Applying or cancelling

The bar shows the size, the angle and any skew as you drag.

Apply (Enter) keeps the result, and one Undo takes it back. Cancel (Esc) puts everything back exactly as it was. Release the mouse before applying: Apply waits until a drag ends.

While a transform is open, everything else waits until you apply or cancel it (zooming and panning still work); a small notice with Apply and Cancel tells you why. Your tool stays selected and is ready again afterwards.

If the result runs off the canvas, the editor asks before applying, because pixels outside the canvas are lost. Choose Transform anyway to apply, or Cancel to keep adjusting.

Moved pixels never erase

Selected pixels are drawn over whatever they land on, the same as a paste. The empty part of a selection leaves the art under it alone, see-through pixels such as a glow or a soft edge blend over it, and solid pixels replace it. Moving a selection without transforming it works the same way.

Tips for pixel art

• Hold Shift. The snapped angles and slopes are the ones pixel artists draw by hand, so lines come out as even stair-steps.
• Pick Nearest to keep every pixel. With Nearest, a skew only slides each row (or column) sideways by whole pixels: nothing is lost or doubled, so to lean a line, skew it instead of rotating it. cleanEdge instead smooths the slanted edges into clean lines.
• Make all your changes, then apply once. While the transform is open every drag starts again from the original pixels, so adjusting costs nothing. Each Apply redraws the pixels, so many small applied rotations wear the art down.
• Rotate the larger sizes. A 128 px drawing has room for a clean rotation; the same turn on a 32 px drawing loses detail whichever choice you pick. Small sizes may need a little touching up by hand afterwards.
• Rotations by 90° are exact, also around a moved pivot (it snaps to pixel centres and corners for this). For a quarter turn of a whole layer, the Effects panel's rotate buttons do the same.
• Turn a pointer around its tip. Drag the pivot onto the tip, then rotate: the tip stays where it is. Otherwise, move the hotspot back onto the tip afterwards.

What it does not do yet

• It changes the active layer on the current frame only. To change every frame, use the Effects panel's Transform card.
• It needs a selection. To transform a whole layer, select it first (Ctrl / Cmd + A).
• It has no warp (bending lines into curves) and no perspective.