Stretching an image

[charliescoffee]

I'm trying to simply "stretch" an image, a jpeg or other image, increase it's size either vertically or horizontally WITHOUT changing the size on the other dimension. I understand to do this I have to hold alt and stretch but that doesn't work. I used to do this ALL the time but with a recent update, it's no longer possible. I have to do this ALL THE TIME and I don't understand why it's so difficult. How do I make this happen?Xara Stretch Problam.xar

[Chris M]

Everybody else seems to suggest turning all sorts of things off, but I simply hold the ALT key whilst dragging. There must be several reasons why I'm wrong, and I'll be the first to say I don't need to do this on a regular basis, but what can I say? It works for me and it's simple.

[Initiostar]

The boundary/frame in your example is part of the image; it will stretch/ distort as part of the image. Crop the boundary from the image and apply a line colour (width to match).

You can now apply the standard Alt +drag handle and the boundary/ frame remains proportionally the same whatever stretch you apply. Works v17.0.



Gary

[handrawn]

in selector tool, if you right click on the lock aspect ratio padlock and untick 'smart transform' it should go back to what yoou are used to [mostly]

holding the alt key down as chris mentioned will make it behave 'the other way' up to a point

[Chris M]

There are quite a few things that are discussed here on TG that never really sink in for me. The squishy squashy is one of them. Using a bleach transparency to colour things that won't accept a fill is another.

Xara is capable of doing things that I'll never use enough to fully grasp...or forget 2 sleeps after a moment of clarity.

[wizard509]

in selector tool, if you right click on the lock aspect ratio padlock and untick 'smart transform' it should go back to what yoou are used to [mostly]

holding the alt key down as chris mentioned will make it behave 'the other way' up to a point

To add to this also uptick smart transform.

[charliescoffee]

Xara help says to hold the Alt key but holding or pressing it using left or right click and dragging doesn't work for me. Perhaps I don't understand cropping the border, but when I tried this it also didn't help. I unselected the smart transform option under the padlock and that doesn't work either. I really don't understand why this change was made, but it's very frustrating for me. I need to fit a jpeg into a particular space very often and stretching it along one dimension is the easiest way for me to do this. The images are abstract stuff so changing the aspect ratios isn't a problem but I'd like to retain the entire image anyway. There must be a way to accomplish this. Any other ideas?

[handrawn]

in selector tool make sure the [far left] button 'show selection bounds handle' is on

also just in case, make sure you do not have 'show fill edit handles' button enabled

[Initiostar]

The image has a black border which is integral to the image; therefore any disproportionate stretch will change that border:



The fact that it has a black border means you need to remove it to make any sense of disproportionally stretching that image.

I have attached a XAR which may help. The on/off smart handles can be counter-intuitive at first, but to achieve what you are looking to do generally, then they and lock, need to be off.

Hopefully, this works?

Gary

[charliescoffee]

Thanks, but even with the “show selection bounds handle” on and the “show fill edit handles” button not enabled and the “smart Transform” option not selected, I still can’t get the image to stretch properly. I wonder if there isn’t something wrong with my software, although I have downloaded the program recently to replace one I lost in a computer crash and I get the same result. I have Xara on two computers and I get the same result on both.

I understand that the black border (either a black rectangle under the other image or a line around it, I forget which) will expand proportionally, that’s not a problem for me. Besides, I’ve tried to stretch the image both with the black and without. Just to be clear, the problem isn't just with this particular image, I can't get the stretch I'm looking for with any jpeg image. Vector images I've created will stretch "properly." I attached this image merely as an example.

When you guys try stretching my image in the .xar file I attached, do you get the same result I get? Or, does the image stretch in just the desired direction?