Setting Geometry Options in Photoshop

Geometry options for your shapes (rectangle/rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon, and line) help define how the shapes look. The following sections show you what you can do with these options.

Rectangular shape geometry options
Here are the Geometry options for the rectangle shapes:
- Unconstrained: When you have this option (the default) selected, Photoshop defines the size and proportions of the rectangle as you drag.
- Square: Select this button to constrain the shape to a perfect square. (You can also hold down the Shift key to do the same thing on the fly.)
- Fixed Size: This option lets you draw rectangles only in fixed sizes. Type in a width and height to specify the exact size.
- Proportional: This option lets you define an aspect ratio, or proportion, for the rectangle. Type 3 into the W box, and 4 into the H box, and you’ll be constrained to drawing any size rectangle with fixed proportions in a 3:4 ratio.
- From Center: Select this option to expand the shape from the center point you click.
- Snap to Pixels: This option aligns the shape to the pixels on your screen.

Elliptical shape geometry options
The ellipse shape has the same options that are available for rectangles:
- Unconstrained
- Circle
- Fixed Size
- Proportional
- From Center
Of course, instead of being able to create a perfect square, you can restrain the shape to be a perfect circle. Also, the Snap to Pixels option (available for rectangles) doesn’t exist for ellipses.

Polygon shape geometry options
These are the geometry options for the polygon shape:
- Radius: You can enter the radius of a circle used to round off the corners of a polygon when you have the Smooth Corners option selected.
- Smooth Corners: Choose this option to round off the corners.
- Star: Select this option to create a star shape — that is, a polygon where the sides indent inward rather than extend outward from the corner points.
- Indent Sides By: The value entered here determines the amount the sides indent inward.
- Smooth Indents: This option rounds off the inner corners created by indenting the sides.

Line geometry options
The line’s geometry settings include whether to put arrowheads at the start or end of the line, or both; the width and length of the arrowhead in relation to the weight (width) of the line itself; and the amount of concavity in the arrowhead.