diff --git a/docs/release-notes/0.10.1.md b/docs/release-notes/0.10.1.md
index 80e982be..ff4e59a4 100644
--- a/docs/release-notes/0.10.1.md
+++ b/docs/release-notes/0.10.1.md
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 ```{rubric} Bug fixes
 ```
 * updates the behavior of `_check_gpu_X` for `require_cf`. It now only works for `pearson_residuals` calcs and corrects instead of throwing an error {pr}`154` {smaller}`S Dicks`
+* Fixes the behavior of `pp.scale` with `mask_obs` and `max_value`. Now only the masked part gets clipped {pr}`158` {smaller}`S Dicks`
 
 ```{rubric} Misc
 ```
diff --git a/src/rapids_singlecell/preprocessing/_scale.py b/src/rapids_singlecell/preprocessing/_scale.py
index 70a90c80..b826f98d 100644
--- a/src/rapids_singlecell/preprocessing/_scale.py
+++ b/src/rapids_singlecell/preprocessing/_scale.py
@@ -87,22 +87,21 @@ def scale(
 
     if isinstance(X, cp.ndarray):
         X, means, std = scale_array(
-            X, mask_obs=mask_obs, zero_center=zero_center, inplace=inplace
+            X,
+            mask_obs=mask_obs,
+            zero_center=zero_center,
+            inplace=inplace,
+            max_value=max_value,
         )
     else:
         X, means, std = scale_sparse(
-            X, mask_obs=mask_obs, zero_center=zero_center, inplace=inplace
+            X,
+            mask_obs=mask_obs,
+            zero_center=zero_center,
+            inplace=inplace,
+            max_value=max_value,
         )
 
-    if max_value:
-        if zero_center:
-            X = cp.clip(X, a_min=-max_value, a_max=max_value)
-        else:
-            if isinstance(X, sparse.spmatrix):
-                X.data[X.data > max_value] = max_value
-            else:
-                X[X > max_value] = max_value
-
     if inplace:
         _set_obs_rep(adata, X, layer=layer, obsm=obsm)
         adata.var[str_mean_std[0]] = means.get()
@@ -114,7 +113,7 @@ def scale(
         return X
 
 
-def scale_array(X, *, mask_obs=None, zero_center=True, inplace=True):
+def scale_array(X, *, mask_obs=None, zero_center=True, inplace=True, max_value=None):
     if not inplace:
         X = X.copy()
     if mask_obs is not None:
@@ -129,14 +128,26 @@ def scale_array(X, *, mask_obs=None, zero_center=True, inplace=True):
     if zero_center:
         X -= mean
     X /= std
+    if max_value:
+        if zero_center:
+            X = cp.clip(X, a_min=-max_value, a_max=max_value)
+        else:
+            X[X > max_value] = max_value
+
     return X, mean, std
 
 
-def scale_sparse(X, *, mask_obs=None, zero_center=True, inplace=True):
+def scale_sparse(X, *, mask_obs=None, zero_center=True, inplace=True, max_value=None):
     if zero_center:
         X = X.toarray()
         # inplace is True because we copied with `toarray`
-        return scale_array(X, mask_obs=mask_obs, zero_center=zero_center, inplace=True)
+        return scale_array(
+            X,
+            mask_obs=mask_obs,
+            zero_center=zero_center,
+            inplace=True,
+            max_value=max_value,
+        )
     else:
         if mask_obs is not None:
             # checking inplace because we are going to update the matrix
@@ -147,7 +158,10 @@ def scale_sparse(X, *, mask_obs=None, zero_center=True, inplace=True):
                 X = X.copy()
 
             scale_rv = scale_sparse(
-                X[mask_obs, :], zero_center=zero_center, inplace=True
+                X[mask_obs, :],
+                zero_center=zero_center,
+                inplace=True,
+                max_value=max_value,
             )
             X_sub, mean, std = scale_rv
             mask_array = cp.where(cp.array(mask_obs))[0].astype(cp.int32)
@@ -188,4 +202,8 @@ def scale_sparse(X, *, mask_obs=None, zero_center=True, inplace=True):
             )
         else:
             raise ValueError("The sparse matrix must be a CSR or CSC matrix")
+
+        if max_value:
+            X.data[X.data > max_value] = max_value
+
         return X, mean, std
diff --git a/tests/test_scaling.py b/tests/test_scaling.py
index b5d7afbc..a204fc97 100644
--- a/tests/test_scaling.py
+++ b/tests/test_scaling.py
@@ -28,6 +28,11 @@
     [1, 0, 1, 0],
     [0, 0, 0, 0],
 ]) # with gene std 1,0,1,0 and center 0,0,0,0
+X_scaled_original_clipped = np.array([
+    [-1, 1, 0, 0],
+    [1, 1, 1, 0],
+    [0, 1, 1, 0],
+])  # with gene std 1,0,1,0 and center 0,2,1,0
 
 X_for_mask = np.array([
     [27, 27, 27, 27],
@@ -56,6 +61,16 @@
     [27, 27, 27, 27],
     [27, 27, 27, 27],
 ])
+X_scaled_for_mask_clipped = np.array([
+    [27, 27, 27, 27],
+    [27, 27, 27, 27],
+    [-1, 1, 0, 0],
+    [1, 1, 1, 0],
+    [0, 1, 1, 0],
+    [27, 27, 27, 27],
+    [27, 27, 27, 27],
+])
+
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("dtype", ["float32", "float64"])
 def test_scale_simple(dtype):
@@ -121,3 +136,25 @@ def test_clip(zero_center):
     if zero_center:
         assert adata.X.min() >= -1
     assert adata.X.max() <= 1
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    ("mask_obs", "X", "X_scaled", "X_clipped"),
+    [
+        (None, X_original, X_scaled_original, X_scaled_original_clipped),
+        (
+            np.array((0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0), dtype=bool),
+            X_for_mask,
+            X_scaled_for_mask,
+            X_scaled_for_mask_clipped,
+        ),
+    ],
+)
+def test_scale_sparse(*, mask_obs, X, X_scaled, X_clipped):
+    adata = AnnData(csr_matrix(X).astype(np.float32))
+    adata0 = rsc.get.anndata_to_GPU(adata,copy= True)
+    rsc.pp.scale(adata0, mask_obs=mask_obs, zero_center=False)
+    cp.testing.assert_allclose(adata0.X.toarray(), X_scaled)
+    # test scaling with explicit zero_center == True
+    adata1 = rsc.get.anndata_to_GPU(adata,copy= True)
+    rsc.pp.scale(adata1, zero_center=False, mask_obs=mask_obs, max_value=1)
+    cp.testing.assert_allclose(adata1.X.toarray(), X_clipped)