Shaderlight forums

Hi,

We have always tried to prevent the scaling of area lights, due to the way they are represented internally. Changing the size of an area light after creating it can affect its brightness in unpredictable ways, so we disable the scale handles on area lights. This isn’t behaviour that should have changed between versions of SketchUp, though.

Note that it is possible to subvert the protection, by placing the area lights in a component and then scaling the containing component, which Shaderlight is unable to prevent. We don’t recommend doing this, though, or the brightness of the light may change unexpectedly. If you decide you need a different sized area light after creating it, the best option is to delete it and create a new one of the desired size.

I hope that helps,
Shaderlight support

Hi
although it is not recommended to scale arealights - just as Kfoojones has described it above - I sometimes need to do this as well and use this little trick: I make a copy of this particular arealight. When I select both arealights then, the scaling handles are available then.
Don´t forget to delete the copied arealight after scaling   ;-)

Understood. Thank you for the quick response. I did not realize it will affect the light source in such a way. 
Also, thank you Egie,  I will try that trick, with the mindset that I need to respect the original light source.

just to make that a bit clearer - as long as I’ve made just small area light adjustments by scaling, there have never been problems at all. You should avoid however to scale in a unproportional or krotesque way or scale…
Nevertheless, Kfoojones is right, of course :-) but sometimes you have to cheat a bit because everything has to be done very quickly and there is no time to make everything new and tidy ;-))

I never cheat in Sketchup!...lol!
thx, Egie.