Do you like to use shapes on your layouts, but don’t like being restricted to the default shapes in Photoshop? The solution to that is to make your own custom shapes – and it’s easier than you’d probably think! There are really only two steps: (1) define a path for your new shape, and (2) turn that path into a custom shape.
As with many things in Photoshop, there’s more than one way to accomplish something, and defining a path is no exception. Today I’m going to show you how to make a simple shape using the pen tool. If you already have something that you’d like to make a shape from, you can check out this tutorial which will show you how to define a path from an existing digital scrapbooking embellishment.
I happen to like stars, especially the kind with uneven points. This kind of shape is especially easy to draw with the pen tool since it’s made up of straight line segments. The first step is to select the pen tool (the one that looks like the nib of a fountain pen) and make sure that “paths” is selected. You’ll notice that the cursor now looks like the pen tool icon and should have a little “x” next to it. You’ll see it in PS when you have the pen tool selected, but the cursor won’t show up in the screen shot.
To make the shape, simply click the mouse on all the angles of the star shape. In this screen shot each small square was a click of my mouse with the pen tool. These are called the “anchor points”. To close the shape, simply click on the first anchor point again (thhe cursor will change from a pen with the “x” to a pen with an “o”).
Now that the path is defined, it’s a simple matter to make the path into a custom shape. Simply select “edit > define custom shape”.
You’ll get a dialog box telling you to name the shape. Type in a name and click “ok” and you’ve just created a custom shape!
There are many things you can do with a custom shape – you can clip a paper to it and make an embellishment for your digital scrapbook page, you can make it into a text path and either fill it with text (see this tutorial) or have your text follow the outline of the shape (tutorial coming soon), or you could use it to make custom photo masks. Do you have another use for custom shapes? Share it with us in the comments!
