Elements: Zooming in by clicking just off the canvas with the zoom tool moves the image off screen

With the Zoom Tool selected, uncheck Resize Windows to Fit and see if that helps.



MTSTUNER

I tried that after your suggestion and it alters the way in which the image progresses off the screen but does not eliminate the phenomena. I tried all four combinations of selections for resize window to fit and Zoom all windoows with no succes.

This is not confined to my computer as I found the same phenomena when usinng our camera clubs equipment.

Yeah i've seen that happen on pse 8 and cs4/cs5 on windows.

Anyway that seems to work for me (unchecking the resize windows to fit), but
everyone seems to get different results and i agree it shouldn't do that.

Usually i don't even click on the image to zoom, i just drag the zoom tool on the image (makes a box around the area to zoom in on), release the mouse button
and then use the scroll wheel to fine tune.

The size of the box determines the zoom percent.



MTSTUNER

Thanks for your input at least unchecking Resize Windows to Fit does reduce the effect.

My problem is that I am having trouble getting rid of 10 years or more of habit. These days it is usually an accidental click of the mouse when going for another control (My hand does twitch a bit.)

Anyway I don't see why the program should do anything when clicking off the image and I can not think of a single occasion when I would like it to behave that way.

I have just looked at an old copy of Picture Publisher. It behaves as you would instinctively expect. It does nothing with a click off image. After clicking on the image if the zoomed image is smaller than the window it is centred otherwise it moves the point clicked to as near the centre as possible while still fitting the screen. What could be better or more simple?
Even Paint that comes with Windows works the same on zooming in. By default it even shows the area that will be shown in the zoomed image.

So I ask myself "Why does Elements get it so mixed up?"

I wasn't sure at first but I think I've got a handle on what you are describing and how to get back to the behavior you are used to. The clue was the versions you listed and what's changed recently. It's not the Zoom tool that's changed, but the Elements interface.

With Elements 8, we started using a tabbed interface. The image document window now docs with the rest of the application frame, in the same way the panels do. This changes the relationship of the document boundaries and the work area around it. The work area is infinite and the image's position is not locked within it. In the older "floating window" setup, the image is fixed to the center of the document window. So, in a floating window, when zooming, it always tries to fit the document within its boundaries, with no blank space (if possible). In a tabbed window, there are no boundaries and you can loose the image to the blank work area.

To get things working like they used to, make sure the "Allow Floating Documents in Full Edit Mode" option is enabled under Edit>Preferences>General. Then, to undock a document window, you can either click and drag on the document tab, pulling it away from the application frame surrounding it. Or you can also use one of the commands under the Arrange menu (next to Help, looks like some boxes within a box). One easy command there is the "Float All in Windows" option.

This does not solve the problem. In E7 I can work in an environment that apart form the Tabs looks like the Tabbed Windows in E9.

I do not like working in floating windows as they have their own idiosyncrasies which make them troublesome to use in general editing.

The net result is that your solution does not allow me to work as I have in previous versions of Elements.

The Tabbed Windows are totally under the control of the programmer. I cannot believe that it is impossible to know where an image is in a Tabbed Window. Surely the image can be placed where ever the programmer chooses. The fact that the image is placed where it is after zooming is because it was not programmed to do otherwise.

This can be demonstrated by loading an image and fitting it to the screen using Fit Screen.

Select the Zoom In tool and click on the image within a few pixels of the edge. Most of the screen contains no image after the zoom. The big problem is that the image is no longer under the cursor so a second click sends it even further off screen.

Reset the image to fit the screen and place the zoom in tool cursor in a similar position close to the edge of the image. Don’t click but use the mouse wheel to zoom in. The image simply zooms about the point under the cursor.

Clearly in the second case the programmer has nearly got it right. I say nearly because it still insists on zooming the border round the image rather than fitting the zoomed image to the screen.

By the way when using the mouse wheel the amount of zoom is not displayed correctly in the tool bar of the Zoom tool although it does correct itself if another tool is selected before returning to the Zoom Tool.