06 Transforms Adjustments

Ch. 06 🔄 Transforms & Image Adjustments

What you'll learn: Quick flips, rotations and scales, the on-canvas Transform overlay (Scale / Rotate / Shear / Distort / Perspective), the Move tool with Smart Guides, and DRAW's image-adjustment dialogs (Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Sat, Levels, etc.).

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Quick Transforms — Flip, Rotate & Scale

🎯 Goal: Transform layers and selections quickly.

These are the no-dialog shortcuts you'll reach for hundreds of times a session.

Action	Shortcut	Icon
Flip Horizontal	H
Flip Vertical	Ctrl+Shift+H
Rotate 90° CW	>
Rotate 90° CCW	<
Scale Up 50%	Ctrl+Shift+=
Scale Down 50%	Ctrl+Shift+-

All of the above operate on the active selection if there is one, otherwise on the active layer (or the multi-selected layers). For canvas-level flips that move every layer at once, use the corresponding entries under the Image menu.

Transform Overlay — Scale, Rotate, Shear, Distort, Perspective

🎯 Goal: Use the interactive on-canvas transform tool.

Open it with Edit → TRANSFORM… (or via the Command Palette). Note that Transform is not a toolbar tool — it's a temporary overlay you commit or cancel.

The overlay supports five modes; switch between them with yhe menu bar items and use the corresponding hotkeys:

1. Scale — drag handles. Shift locks aspect ratio.
2. Rotate — drag outside the bounding box. Shift snaps to 15° increments.
3. Shear — drag the box edges to skew.
4. Distort — drag each corner independently.
5. Perspective — Shift enables a special wall / floor projection.

The overlay frame and handles are themeable in THEME.CFG. Press Enter to apply (full undo step is recorded), Esc to cancel without modifying anything.

Move Tool & Smart Guides

🎯 Goal: Reposition layer content precisely.

The Move tool (V, ) translates the active layer (or multi-selection). Modifiers:

• Drag — move.
• Arrow keys — nudge 1px (10px with Shift).
• Alt+Drag — clone stamp; the original stays where it was and the dragged duplicate becomes a new layer.
• Ctrl+Arrows — resize.
• Shift+Click — auto-select the topmost layer under the cursor.

Pro-tip: If you have an active selection, you can clone in Selection mode while holding Ctrl+Alt

Smart Guides

When you move a layer, DRAW can render Smart Guides — temporary alignment lines that snap to canvas edges, canvas centers, and other layers' edges. This makes pixel-perfect alignment between sprites trivial.

Toggle	Shortcut
Show Smart Guides	Ctrl+Shift+;
Snap to Smart Guides	Ctrl+;

Smart-guide colors and opacity are themeable.

Image Adjustments — Color Correction & Effects

🎯 Goal: Apply per-layer color adjustments.

DRAW has two flavors of adjustment: dialog-based (with live preview, scrollable parameters) and one-shot (instant, undoable).

Dialog-based (live preview)

• Brightness / Contrast — Change the values and intensities of colors.
• Hue / Saturation — Rotate the colors on the color wheel and make them more or less colorful.
• Levels — Black point, White point, Gamma.
• Color Balance — Shadows / Midtones / Highlights.
• Blur — Gaussian, adjustable radius.
• Sharpen — adjustable intensity.

Hover any slider and use the mouse wheel for fine control.

One-shot

• Invert (RGB negative)
• Desaturate (luminosity grayscale) (note you can use Ctrl+Shift+Alt+G to toggle Gray Scale Mode preview ON or OFF)
• Posterize (N levels, with optional dithering)
• Pixelate (block size)
• Remove Background

Every adjustment preserves the alpha channel and is undone in a single Ctrl+Z.

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➡️ Next: [Chapter 7 — Text System](07 - Text)