Paint gives you two different ways to change the size of a picture, and they behave in different ways. The Attributes... dialog sets the size of the canvas itself: the drawing keeps its scale while the edges move in or out. The Stretch/Skew dialog changes the drawing: it scales the content by a percentage or tilts it by an angle, and the canvas adjusts to fit. Pick the first when you need an exact size in pixels, inches or centimeters, and the second when the picture itself should get bigger, smaller or slanted. Both live in the Image menu, and either can be reversed in one step.
Set an exact picture size in the Attributes dialog
The Attributes dialog shows the current size of the picture in its Width and Height fields, so you can see where you are starting from before you type anything.
- Open Image > Attributes..., or press Ctrl+E.
- In the Units group, choose Pixels, Inches or Cm. Pixels is the default unit.
- Type the new numbers into Width and Height.
- Press Okay to apply them, or Cancel to close the dialog with nothing changed.
Work in inches or centimeters instead of pixels
When you switch the unit, Paint recalculates the numbers in the two fields. For that, one inch equals 72 pixels and one centimeter roughly 28.35. Near the top, the dialog also lists Resolution: 72 x 72 dots per inch. So a picture that is 720 pixels wide reads as 10 inches once you pick Inches. If you only need to reach a printed size, choose the unit first and then type the measurement you want. The Default button puts 683 by 384 pixels back into the fields; this does nothing to the picture until you also press Okay.
What happens to your drawing when the size changes
A new size from Attributes... changes the frame around the drawing, not the drawing. Keep these rules in mind before you press Okay:
- The drawing stays pinned to the top-left corner of the canvas.
- A smaller width or height trims away the parts that sit along the right or bottom edge.
- A larger size adds blank area on the right and bottom, painted in the secondary color. To set it, right-click any swatch in the color box. The Transparency group in Image > Attributes... offers Transparent and Opaque; with Transparent chosen, the new area stays clear instead.
- The smallest size is 1 pixel per side, and fractions are cut to whole pixels.
- The whole change is one step, so Ctrl+Z brings back the old size and anything that was trimmed.
- Paint remembers the new size in your browser and opens with it the next time you load the editor.
Drag the canvas handles to resize by eye
When an exact number doesn't matter, drag the canvas instead. There are three handles: one on the right edge, one on the bottom edge and one at the bottom-right corner. While you drag one, an outline shows the size. The handles on the top and left sides can't be used. Dragging follows the same rules as the dialog: your drawing stays in the top-left corner, a smaller canvas trims the right and bottom, and added space takes the secondary color.
Scale the whole picture by percent with Stretch/Skew
To make the drawing itself larger or smaller, use the stretch fields. They work in percent, so 50 makes a side half as long and 200 makes it twice as long. Typing the same value in both fields changes width and height by the same amount.
- Open Image > Stretch/Skew. A dialog named Stretch and Skew appears.
- In the Stretch group, type a percentage into Horizontal for the width and into Vertical for the height. Both start at 100, which means no change.
- Leave the two Skew fields at 0 if you only want to scale.
- Press Okay. The canvas grows or shrinks to fit the scaled picture.
- If the result looks wrong, press Ctrl+Z to undo the stretch, then open the dialog again and try other numbers.
Slant the picture with the Skew fields
The lower half of the same dialog tilts the picture instead of scaling it. The Skew group has its own Horizontal and Vertical fields, measured in degrees and set to 0 by default. Type an angle into one of them and press Okay to lean the drawing by that amount. A positive Horizontal angle shifts the bottom edge to the right, and a positive Vertical angle shifts the right edge down. Paint then resizes the canvas around the result and paints the empty corners in the secondary color. With Transparent chosen in Attributes..., those corners stay clear. Like a stretch, a skew can be reversed with one Ctrl+Z.
Stretch or shrink only a selected area
Stretch/Skew is not limited to the whole canvas. When something is selected, the command works on that selection; with nothing selected, it changes the whole picture.
- Make the selection first with Select or Free-Form Select in the tool box, then open Image > Stretch/Skew and enter percentages or angles as above.
- To size a selection by hand, drag any of the handles around it. Unlike the canvas, a selection has handles on every side.
- Press + on the numeric keypad to make the selection twice as big, or - to make it half the size.