Photoshop Tutorials: Photoshop Custom Shapes

Step 4: Lower The Opacity Of The Shape Layer

To fix the problem of Photoshop blocking our object from view as we try to trace around it, simply go to your Layers palette and lower the opacity of the shape layer. We can see here in my Layers palette that I currently have two layers - the Background layer on the bottom which contains my gingerbread man photo, and the shape layer above it, named "Shape 1". I can tell that the shape layer is selected because it's highlighted in blue, so to lower its opacity, all I need to do is go up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette and lower the value. I'm going to set my opacity to about 50%:

Now that I've lowered the opacity of the shape layer, I can see my gingerbread man easily through the shape color, which is going to make it much easier to continue tracing around him:

Step 5: Continue Tracing The Object

With the gingerbread man now visible through the shape color, I can continue tracing around him with the Pen Tool until I've completed my initial shape:

If I look at the shape layer in my Layers palette, I can now see the shape of the gingerbread man clearly defined:

So far, so good. We've traced around the basic shape of the object, and depending on the shape you're using, this may be enough. In my case though, my gingerbread man shape needs a bit more detail. At the very least, I think we should include his eyes and mouth in the shape, and probably even his bow tie and the two large buttons below it. So how do we add these details to the shape? Simple. We don't! We subtract them from the shape!

We'll see how to do that next!