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I've made an Apple based window with live shapes in a group.

AppleGroup

And I want to to be able to scale the window up without scaling the top bar vertically but scaling horizontally like the image in the back

AppleOverSizedTopBar

I've read that photoshop doesn't have nine-slice scaling but i was wondering if I can just constrain the y axis on the top grey bar when I try to scale it out

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  • If you constrain the y axis your buttons and corners will be stretched. I'm not sure you can easily do this in Photoshop.
    – Cai
    May 19, 2016 at 12:07
  • Nah cause i'll just group the white and topbar again, and use that group for scale, and use the top group for translations. The corners won't be stretched cause they are all smart objects anyways. If I could constrain the y axis i'd pretty much get what i'd need, If I figure something out i'll post it
    – steph
    May 19, 2016 at 12:14
  • Your shapes in your screenshots are shape layers, not smart objects.. do you mean they are live shapes rather than smart objects?
    – Cai
    May 19, 2016 at 12:19
  • yeah! lol my mistake, you are totally right! They are shape layers xD I was thinking of 'vector' objects over smart objects.. But anyways you are right, they are shape layers.
    – steph
    May 19, 2016 at 12:21
  • What do you need this for? It cannot be done in Photoshop to my knowledge but I can think of a few alternatives that might help you depending on the need.
    – Ryan
    May 19, 2016 at 17:49

1 Answer 1

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I don't think you can do exactly what you are asking for in Photoshop but I have a workaround which may be helpful.

Create a new document bigger than you will ever need your window to be. I created one at 4000 x 4000 pixels. Recreate your application frame in this document without any space around it or drop shadow. Select all and go to Edit → Define Pattern...

enter image description here

Back in your original document, create your live rectangle, add a layer style with your drop shadow and your newly created pattern as a pattern fill and hit the Snap to Origin button. You can now move and resize your 'window' and the top bar will stay in place.

enter image description here

This isn't perfect, obviously your pattern isn't easily editable but you can save it as its own PSD and recreate the pattern as needed.

Another option is to use the same trick with an oversized window but place it as a Smart Object and use a mask to create the shape. This makes editing the window much easier but all resizing would need to be done on the mask.

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  • This is super great! i would have never thought of this, even though it seems now like such an obvious solution! Great Work! Thank you very much
    – steph
    May 20, 2016 at 14:38

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