Units in percent (%)

[vandrende]

Hi,
Would it be possible to get units in percents (%). This would be helpful for the rulers or when resizing a picture.
About layer resizing (canvas size): is it possible to link height and width, so that changing the height would automatically change the width proportionally and vis versa?

Thanks
NB! PL32 looks very good. I downloaded PL32 yesterday and played around while going through the on-line documentation.

[DJJohnson]

You can change most every dialog to any unit of measure that you want just by right-clicking on them. This also works on the rulers too, but I don't see a % option on the rulers. Though there is a % option in all the "scale" (resize) dialogs for Documents and Layers. I put buttons on my tool-bar from the options menus to call up those dialogs more easily. (Layout, Document, Scale Document, and Layer, Scale Layer)

When you use those resizing "scale" dialogs you'll notice the "Proportional" check-box. That keeps your input dimensions proportional to the original. There is also a "proportional" check-box on the tool-settings palette when using the Layer Tool. There are many ways to resize and transform a layer from there.

I hardly ever read help-files, but you might want to try that. I spent a good part of an evening trying to read most of the help-file from top to bottom. You'll be surprised at what you find in there. I'm not saying that to be a smart-aleck. In my own case I was having a hard time with all hundreds of unique features in PL32. Add in the German to English translation oddities and I thought I'd better crack open the help-file on this one. It was worth it. PL32 does more than you can even imagine.

[vandrende]

Thanks DJJohnson. Looks like it is all there, except maybe for the % unit selection for the rulers (no big deal for sure).
I actually started by reading the on-line manual, testing the features in the same time to get an overview of the SW. I'll give PL32 a try, definitely worth it.

[DJJohnson]

When I first read your question I was thinking that having a % scale on the rulers would be pretty nice. Then after seeing it didn't have one the question kept nagging at me. What would the % be relative to? In PL32 you have several base references. There's the Page size, the Document size, and then the Layer size. Would a new Layer's percent be relative to the Page or Document or does it start out at 100% as its own reference? Then lets assume that you resize a layer or document two times. Does the % scale then become relative to the last resize? It now having to be reset to 100% before any new scale change.

I've not used a program with that feature before so I'm curious how it could or would be implemented. I think it'd be a nice touch to see a visual percent-scale like that -- but HOW?

[vandrende]

The % ruler should always be 100% both sides even after resizing your picture.
One small use of the % ruler would be if you want to crop a rectangular image but keep the same ratio between height and width. To do so you would apply a rectangular lasso taking out the same % on both side. With rulers in % it is quite easy to place the cursor at let say 10% on both height and width rulers and drag a lasso ending at for instance 90% on both rulers and then apply cropping.
While writing this I actually figured out how to do it in PL32. You have to create a rectangular form lasso using relative size (which displays % units in the Form lasso dialog). But this is not as visual and straight forward than applying a proportional lasso based on the % rulers.
I personally like rulers in % so that you easily figure out proportions in a picture (1/4, 1/3, 1/2 etc...)