Making Basic Shapes in Photoshop

When we create vector objects in a program like Photoshop, they are comprised of paths, which are in turn made up of anchor points and straight and curves segments, or lines. You can make these paths with the Pen tool or with the Shape tool. The Shape tool can create five different kinds of basic shapes. Photoshop also has a custom shape tool that lets you use preset shapes or create shapes of your own design. To access the Shape tool, press U on your keyboard to select the currently active shape, or press Shift+U to cycle through the available shapes. Simply press U once and then choose the shape you want from the icons that appear on the Options bar. These include rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon, and line tools.

The Options bar shows icons for the Pen tool, Freeform Pen tool, and Shape tool whenever any of these tools are active. You can switch back and forth between Shape and Pen tools by clicking the appropriate icon in the Options bar.

Choosing a preset shape to create
When you create a shape, you can place the shape on its own layer, which is called a shape layer. The advantage of a shape layer is that, as with any layer, you can keep the elements residing in that layer separate from the rest of the image. You can put several shapes in a single shape layer, and you can control how the shapes interact with each other when they overlap. (Some options include making the shapes appear to have been added together, subtracted from, and so on.) Photoshop links shapes in a shape layer to a vector mask, which can show or hide portions of an image. You find out more about shape layers and vector masks later in this chapter. Here’s a list of shapes you can create:

- Rectangle/ellipse: The rectangle and ellipse have no special parameters on the Options bar; however, they both behave much like their counterparts among the selection tools. For example, you can hold down the Shift key while dragging a shape to produce a perfect square or circle; hold down the Shift key plus the Alt key (Option key on the Mac) to draw the shape outward from the center. You have other geometry options that let you determine how you draw the shapes (unconstrained, fixed size, from center, and so forth).

- Rounded rectangle: This shape has the same options as the rectangle shape, with the addition of a box in which you can type the radius of the circle used to round off the corners of the rectangle.

- Polygon: This shape includes a box in which you can enter the number of sides you’d like for the polygon, in the range of 3 to 100, as well as geometry options.

- Line: You can give the line shape a width from 1 to 1000 pixels and assign a layer style and/or fill color. You can also enter parameters for an arrowhead at either or both ends. I explain that option in more detail later.

- Custom: You’ll find numerous preset custom shapes to choose from. As with any shape, you hold down Shift to constrain proportions or Alt (Option on the Mac) to draw from the center out. See the section on geometry options later.

Choosing a shape mode
Here’s a list of ways in which you can create a shape (all options are found on the Options bar):
- Shape Layers: Click this icon to create the shape in a new layer of its own. When you choose this mode, icons appear in the Options bar that let you choose a layer style and/or fill color. Shape Layers is a good choice if you want to keep your shapes in separate layers so you can manipulate them further. The shapes remain scalable until you change them into pixels by choosing Layer➪Rasterize➪Shape.
- Path: Click this icon to create the shape on an existing layer. The shape appears as a path that you can edit by using the Pen tools and the Paths palette.
- Fill Pixels: Click this icon to create a shaped area filled with the foreground color. This option doesn’t produce a vector shape, but instead fills the shape with pixels. The process is similar to filling a selection created with the Rectangular or Elliptical Marquee or painting on your canvas with a painting tool. When you choose this mode, the Options bar includes choices that let you specify a blending mode, the transparency of the filled area, and whether you want the area anti-aliased. You cannot edit the shape created with this option.

Drawing a preset shape
Follow these steps to draw a preset shape in your document:
1. Access the Shape tool by pressing U.
2. Choose the mode of shape you want to draw from the three icons in the Options bar.
3. Select your options — both in the Options bar (if any) and in the geometry options drop-down palette, which also resides on the Options bar.
4. Drag with the mouse in the document to produce the shape you’ve defined.
The shape appears in the image window. If you chose the Shape Layer mode, it will also appear in the Layers palette in its own layer. A generic shape icon (a rectangle filled with your foreground color) appears in the image column, and the shape itself is shown in the mask column as a vector mask.

Drawing multiple shapes in a shapes layer
After you’ve created a shape layer, you can draw additional shapes in the layer, adding to the vector mask associated with that layer. You can add, subtract, overlap, and intersect shapes in exactly the same way you do with selections.
You can combine and join two or more shapes, subtract one shape’s outline from another shape, create a shape only from the areas that overlap, and so on. Four state buttons on the Options bar, similar to their counterparts when a selection tool is active, let you choose from these modes.

Hold down the Shift key to temporarily switch to Add to Shape Area while drawing a new shape. Hold down the Alt key (Option on the Mac) to temporarily switch to Subtract from Shape Area. This works just like adding or subtracting selections.