Written by Steve Patterson. In the previous tutorial, we learned the essentials of working with shapes and Shape layers in Photoshop. In that tutorial, we learned how to add simple rectangles and ellipses, as well as stars, starbursts and direction arrows, to a document using Photoshop's five geometric Shape tools - the Rectangle Tool, the Rounded Rectangle Tool, the Ellipse Tool, the Polygon Tool, and the Line Tool.

Having tools that allow us to easily draw circles and squares is great, but what about more interesting shapes? What if you wanted to add, say, a heart shape to a wedding or engagement photo, or the shape of a dog or a cat to a pet store logo? How about shapes of flowers and leaves, snowflakes, music notes, or a copyright symbol to add to your images? Photoshop actually ships with all of these shapes and more, and lets us add them to our designs just as easily as adding circles and squares. Adobe calls these more complex shapes custom shapes, and we draw them using the tool we'll be looking at in this tutorial - the Custom Shape Tool.

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The Custom Shape Tool

You'll find the Custom Shape Tool nested in with Photoshop's other Shape tools in the same spot in the Tools panel. By default, the Rectangle Tool is the tool that's displayed, but if you click on it and hold your mouse button down, a fly-out menu will appear listing the other tools that are available in that spot. The Custom Shape Tool is at the bottom of the list:

If you already have one of the other Shape tools selected, you can quickly grab the Custom Shape Tool from the Options Bar. You'll see a series of six icons, each representing a different Shape tool. The Custom Shape Tool is the last icon on the right (it's the icon that looks like a blob):

Choosing A Custom Shape

Once we have the Custom Shape Tool selected, we need to choose the shape we want to draw. A shape preview thumbnail will appear in the Options Bar to the right of the Custom Shape Tool icon. The thumbnail displays the custom shape that's currently selected:

To choose a different shape, click on the preview thumbnail. This will open the Shape Picker which displays all of the shapes we currently have to choose from. Photoshop actually comes with many more shapes than the limited number we're presented with at first. We'll see how to load in the other shapes in a moment:

To choose a shape, simply click on its thumbnail, then press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to close the Shape Picker. Or, double-click on the thumbnail, which will select the shape and close the Shape Picker for you. I'll choose the Heart shape:

Choosing A Color For The Shape

Once you've chosen your shape, select a color for it by clicking on the color swatch to the right of the word Color in the Options Bar:

Photoshop will pop open the Color Picker so we can choose the color we want. Since I selected a heart shape, I'll choose red for my color. Click OK when you're done to close out of the Color Picker:

Select The "Shape Layers" Option

As I mentioned in the previous tutorial, Photoshop lets us draw three very different kinds of shapes with the Shape tools. We can draw vector shapes, which are resolution-independent and fully scalable without any loss of image quality (the same type of shapes we'd draw in a program like Illustrator). We can also draw paths, which are just outlines of shapes, or we can draw pixel-based shapes where Photoshop fills the shape with colored pixels. In most cases, we want to be drawing vector shapes, and to do that, we need to have the Shape Layers option selected in the Options Bar. It's the left icon in a group of three icons near the far left of the Options Bar:

To draw the shape, click inside the document to set a starting point, then keep your mouse button held down and drag away from the starting point. As you drag, Photoshop displays an outline of what the shape will look like:

Release your mouse button to complete the shape, at which point Photoshop fills it with the color you chose in the Options Bar:

Drawing A Shape With The Correct Proportions

Notice, though, that my heart shape looks a bit distorted. It's wider and shorter than I was expecting it to be. That's because by default, Photoshop makes no attempt to keep the correct proportions or aspect ratio of the shape as we're drawing it. I'll press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) on my keyboard to undo the shape so I can try again.

To draw a custom shape with the correct proportions, click in the document, keep your mouse button held down and begin dragging out the shape as you normally would. Once you begin dragging, press and hold your Shift key on your keyboard and continue dragging. As soon as you press (and hold) the Shift key, you'll see the outline of the shape snap into its proper aspect ratio:

When you're happy with the size of the shape, release your mouse button, then release your Shift key (make sure you release the Shift key after releasing your mouse button). Photoshop again fills it with color:

I'll again press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) on my keyboard to undo the shape, then I'll choose a different shape by clicking on the preview thumbnail in the Options Bar to open the Shape Picker. This time, I'll select the music notes:

To draw the music notes, I'll click inside the document to set a starting point and, with my mouse button held down, I'll begin dragging away from the starting point. As soon as I've started dragging, I'll press and hold my Shift key to force the shape into its correct proportions as I continue dragging:

I'll release my mouse button to complete the shape and Photoshop fills it with the same color I chose for the previous shape:

Next, we'll learn how to change the color of an existing shape, and how to load in all of the additional custom shapes Adobe included with Photoshop!

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