Add drawing space without stretching your picture

Choose the operation that matches the task

Use canvas resizing when you need more room around an existing drawing. Use scaling when the whole picture must become smaller or larger. Use zoom when you only need a closer view while editing. These operations can look similar on screen, but they change different things.

Before a major change, download a copy of the current drawing. That gives you a version to return to even if the limited undo history no longer contains the earlier state.

Change the drawing area with Attributes

Image > Attributes changes the canvas's pixel dimensions without scaling its existing strokes. When enlarging through Attributes, the current image remains at the upper-left and extra space appears to its right or below. Shrinking the canvas can trim pixels at those edges.

The handles around the canvas also change the drawing area's size. The chosen edge determines where space is added or removed, so a left or top handle behaves differently from adding space on the right or bottom. This is not a dedicated command to crop to a selection. Save first if important content lies near an edge.

Scale the pixels with Stretch/Skew

Image > Stretch/Skew asks for horizontal and vertical scale percentages. Enter the same percentage for both dimensions to preserve the proportions of an image, provided neither result exceeds the canvas limit. Leave both skew values at zero unless you intentionally want to slant the picture.

For a 1200 × 800 source, 50% horizontal and 50% vertical gives 600 × 400. Using 50% horizontally but 100% vertically gives 600 × 800, so the picture becomes narrow and distorted. Scaling down discards detail; enlarging the smaller result afterward cannot recreate it.

Proportional example
Original: 1200 × 800 pixels
Horizontal scale: 50%
Vertical scale: 50%
Horizontal skew: 0°
Vertical skew: 0°
Result: 600 × 400 pixels

Zoom changes the view rather than the download

View offers 100%, 200%, 400% and 800%. These settings enlarge the editing view without multiplying the exported image's pixel dimensions. Return to 100% to judge whether a small label is readable at its actual size.

Check Image > Attributes for the width and height that describe the drawing area, then reopen the saved file to inspect the result. A large on-screen view is not evidence of a high-resolution output.

Prepare oversized images before importing

The current editor limits each canvas axis to 4096 pixels. Import caps width and height independently, so an image larger than that limit can change proportions. For example, a 6000 × 3000 source is drawn into 4096 × 3000, rather than proportionally reduced to 4096 × 2048.

Resize a copy proportionally in a suitable image application before opening an oversized source here, and keep the original large file. Also keep scaled results within the limit on both axes. A smaller working copy is useful for a quick visual explanation but cannot retain all of the source's detail.

References