css transform scale doesn't scale parent element

Question

I have 2 image with a link, i'm tring to scale them down to 50% of original image size, each image has a different size

if i add a back border i can see that image is correctly scaled down to half size but A tog is in original size

I'm also using bootstrap 3 in this page

.header-tit-logos a {
    display: inline-block;
}
    
.header-tit-logos img {
    -ms-transform: scale(0.5);
    -webkit-transform: scale(0.5);
    transform: scale(0.5);      
}

<div class="header-tit-logos">
<a href="http://www.mylink.com" target="_blank"><img src="static/images/img1.png" alt="img 1" width="60" height="117"></a>
<a href="http://www.mylink.com" target="_blank"><img src="static/images/img2.png" alt="img 2" width="145" height="54"></a>
</div>

Answer 1

Comment from by @Paulie_D seems to be spot on and the simple answer I was looking for:

transform:scale() is an entirely visual effect. It does not actually change the size of the element.