No, you cannot. The scaling of the target object is changed from the smallest scale value to the current value of the target (usually it's the normal value - 1.0). If you would like to have the target scale to a another scale value, you only have to change the scaleX and scaleY values before applying FlashEff (in he Flash IDE you can use the Transform panel or by using AS3 code: target.scaleX = 1.5; target.scaleY = 1.25;)