For anyone else having the same problem in the future, what I did was add the following UIScrollViewDelegate protocol:
- (void)scrollViewDidZoom:(UIScrollView *)scrollView {
UIView *subView = [scrollView.subviews objectAtIndex:0];
CGFloat offsetX = (scrollView.bounds.size.width > scrollView.contentSize.width) ? (scrollView.bounds.size.width - scrollView.contentSize.width) * 0.5 : 0.0;
CGFloat offsetY = (scrollView.bounds.size.height > scrollView.contentSize.height) ? (scrollView.bounds.size.height - scrollView.contentSize.height) * 0.5 : 0.0;
subView.center = CGPointMake(scrollView.contentSize.width * 0.5 + offsetX,
scrollView.contentSize.height * 0.5 + offsetY);
}
i found the answer here: Center content of UIScrollView when smaller
so that the image would be centered after zooming instead of applying the offset that was initially applied. worked like a charm. now when I zoom, none of my image is cut off on either page control, and I can center the image at the beginning of the view.