Placed image fills entire work area, scaling not feasible

[Pubcrawler]

When I place a photo, without resorting to frames, the image fills the entire workspace — at three times the photo's native scale. The boundaries of said photo fall outside the workspace, and would exceed the area of my 5k screen, so I have no edge to grab onto and therefore no way of scaling the image. Is this a feature or a bug? Publisher tells me the photo is displaying at 72dpi. Is there a way to change that?

[walt.farrell]

The Place Image  tool works in two modes:

1. Click, and it drops the image onto the canvas (or into the chosen Picture Frame).
2. Click-drag, and it scales the image to the size you want.

It sounds like you're clicking. If so, for putting it directly on the canvas you might consider dragging to establish the desired size.

[MikeW]

Walt's method will work fine...it's what I generally do.

After the fact, you can also use the transform panel, just make sure the aspect ratio is locked.

You don't need to do anything about the dpi. As you reduce the size of the image, the effective dpi will rise. The effective dpi is all that really matters.

[Pubcrawler]

Thanks for your speedy reply, Walt. Yep, click-drag works. But click alone strikes me as useless unless working with tiny pictures. 72 dpi is a bizarre resolution. Perhaps there's a resolution setting somewhere but I haven't found it. Anyway, your tip works, so that's great!

 

[Pubcrawler]

And thanks too to Mike, for your suggestion. But I don't see a scaling option in the transform panel. As far as I can see, it does things such as rotate and flip. 

[MikeW]

Hi Pub,

That's on the toolbar. At the lower right of your screen, you should have the following:

I've highlighted what the lock aspect looks like when locked.

Also note that I have moved it up to the Page, etc., space as I don't use it that much so I could make more room for text style stuff. It is also available from the View | Studio menu selection.

Mike

[MikeW]

35 minutes ago, Pubcrawler said:

Thanks for your speedy reply, Walt. Yep, click-drag works. But click alone strikes me as useless unless working with tiny pictures. 72 dpi is a bizarre resolution. Perhaps there's a resolution setting somewhere but I haven't found it. Anyway, your tip works, so that's great!

 

If the header of an image actually contains a value in the DPI field, clicking on the page respects that value. If your image had say 300 dpi in the image's header, it would be placed 4 times smaller on the page with a click.

The reason I usually click-drag is because unless I have edited the image, I never know that value per se. And some applications stop such an image as yours at the page edges and so cannot take up the whole design space. There are benefits and drawbacks to that method though.

Mike

[Move Along People]

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[Pubcrawler]

I see the panel now, Mike. Thanks.

Haakoo, I tried ctrl+click+drag. On my Mac that moves the photo without scaling it. I've also tried command+click+drag, which also moves it, and option+click+drag, which duplicates it. I may have a shortcut conflict. Thanks though.

[MikeW]

Just now, Pubcrawler said:

I see the panel now, Mike. Thanks.

Haakoo, I tried ctrl+click+drag. On my Mac that moves the photo without scaling it. I've also tried command+click+drag, which also moves it, and option+click+drag, which duplicates it. I may have a shortcut conflict. Thanks though.

I'm not at a computer now. But that shortcut may be only active when placing an image.

[Pubcrawler]

I've just tried that — no difference. I'm satisfied with click+drag though.

[Move Along People]

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[Pubcrawler]

In my case, control+drag from a corner handle lets me free-rotate the photo, as well as resizing (but not from centre). In my case, if I don't click and drag on import there will be no handles showing, as the image will extend beyond the work area in all directions (or it would if it was visible beyond the work area).