As we are speaking about transformation Im gonna continue with transformation tricks that allow you to edit the transformation after once applied, even after you close and reopen the document.
1. Illustrator tip - In order to keep the transformation editable after once applied, make the transformation like that - instead going to some of the transformation tool go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform. Thus you can go to appearance panel and click to transform anytime you want to change the transformation.
2. Photoshop tip - You cannot do that kind of editable transformation as in Illustrator, but you can preserve the data after you apply any transformation at least. All you have to do is to convert the layer to smart object. Thus if you make it 90% smaller for instance, the data inside the smart object isn’t lost - you just apply transformation to the instance of this smart object and you can make it big as it was anytime you want without loss a pixel of information. It is possible because the original data is not in the instance, but in the smart object itself, so manipulating the instance preserving the data inside smart object untouched.