All good answers, well frustratingly no... they fail to mention that the solution only works if the current transform is at it default. They fail to mention how to get back to the default state and save and restore states.
To get the default transformation state
ctx.setTransform(1,0,0,1,0,0);
To save and restore all states
ctx.save();
ctx.transform(10,0,0,2,200,100); // set some transform state
ctx.globalAlpha = 0.4;
ctx.restore(); // each save must be followed by a restore at some point
and they can be nested
ctx.save(); // save default state
ctx.globalAlpha = 0.4;
ctx.save(); // save state with alpha = 0.4
ctx.transform(10,0,0,2,200,100); // set some transform state
ctx.restore(); // restore to alpha at 0.4
ctx.restore(); // restore to default.
setTransform completely replaces the current transformation. while transform, scale, rotate, translate, multiply the existing transform with the appropriate transform. This is handy if you have an object attached to another, and want the transformation of the first to apply to the second, and additional transforms to the second but not to the first.
ctx.rotate(Math.PI /2); // Rotates everything 90 clockwise
ctx.rotate(Math.PI /2); // Rotates everything another 90 clockwise so that
// everything is 180 from default
ctx.translate(1,1); // move diagonally down by 1. Origin is now at 1,1
ctx.translate(1,1); // move diagonally down by 1. Origin is now at 2,2
ctx.translate(1,1); // move diagonally down by 1. Origin is now at 3,3
ctx.translate(1,1); // move diagonally down by 1. Origin is now at 4,4
ctx.scale(2,2); // scale by 2 everything twice as big
ctx.scale(2,2); // scale by 2 everything four times as big
And an alternative that does not require the default transform state of ctx
// scaleX, scaleY are scales along axis x,y
// posX, posY is position of center point
// rotate is in radians clockwise with 0 representing the x axis across the screen
// image is an image to draw.
ctx.setTransform(scaleX,0,0,scaleY, posX, posY);
ctx.rotate(rotate);
ctx.drawImage(image,-image.width / 2, -image.height / 2);
Or if not a image but a object
ctx.setTransform(scaleX,0,0,scaleY, posX, posY);
ctx.rotate(rotate);
ctx.translate(-object.width / 2, -object.height / 2);