Scale or flip a layer

As with other transformations, scaling of a layer occurs around the anchor point of the layer. If you move the anchor point away from the center of the layer, the layer may move when you flip it. Some layers—such as camera, light, and audio-only layers—don’t have a Scale property.

You can scale a layer beyond the composition frame.

For information on scaling exponentially, as with a zoom lens, see Use Exponential Scale to change the speed of scaling.

To flip a layer is to multiply the horizontal or vertical component of its Scale property value by -1. A layer flips around its anchor point.

To flip selected layers, choose Layer > Transform > Flip Horizontal or Layer > Transform > Flip Vertical.
To scale a layer proportionally in the Composition panel, Shift-drag any layer handle.
To scale a layer freely in the Composition panel, drag a corner layer handle.
To scale one dimension only in the Composition panel, drag a side layer handle.
To increase or decrease Scale for a selected layer by 1%, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you press + or – on the numeric keypad.
To increase or decrease Scale for selected layers by 10%, hold down Alt+Shift (Windows) or Option+Shift (Mac OS) as you press + or – on the numeric keypad.
To scale an entire composition, choose File > Scripts > Scale Composition.jsx.
To scale and center selected layers to fit in the composition frame, choose Layer > Transform > Fit To Comp.
To scale and center selected layers to fit the width or height of the composition frame, while preserving the aspect ratio of the layer, choose Layer > Transform > Fit To Comp Width, or Layer > Transform > Fit To Comp Height.
To scale a layer proportionally in the Timeline panel, select the layer, press S to display the Scale property, click the Constrain Proportions icon to the left of the Scale values, and enter a new value for the x, y, or z scale.
To activate the Constrain Proportions icon and match the height to the width, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) it.
To scale to a specific set of pixel dimensions, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the Scale value in the Timeline panel, choose Edit Value, and change the units to pixels in the Scale dialog box. Select Include Pixel Aspect Ratio to see and adjust dimensions in terms of the composition’s pixel aspect ratio.

Scaling down a raster (non-vector) layer sometimes causes a slight softening or blurring of the image. Scaling up a raster layer by a large factor can cause the image to appear blocky or pixelated.

Adobe Photoshop provides fine control over resampling methods used for scaling of images. For fine control of resampling, you can export frames to Photoshop to change the image size and then import the frames back into After Effects.

Though it's not very well suited for movies, the content-aware scaling feature in Photoshop is very useful for extending and scaling still images. This feature can be useful when repurposing images for wide-screen formats that were created for standard-definition formats.

For a list of plug-ins that provide high-quality scaling—including some designed to create high-definition images from standard-definition sources—go to the Toolfarm website.

For a script that scales multiple compositions simultaneously, go to the AE Enhancers forum.