Step 24: Make Sure The Starburst Shape Is Active

To save a shape as a Custom Shape in Photoshop, we first need to make sure that the shape is currently active. As I mentioned, when a shape is active, outlines appear around the shape in the document window and a white highlight border appears around the Shape layer's preview thumbnail in the Layers palette. At the moment, our starburst shape is not active. We purposely deactivated it back in Step 22 in order to hide the shape outlines. We need to activate it again. To do that, simply click on the shape's preview thumbnail in the Layers palette:

You'll see a highlight border appear around the preview thumbnail and the outlines will re-appear around the shape in the document window:

Step 25: Define A Custom Shape

With the shape now active, go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Define Custom Shape:

Note: If you forgot to make the shape active first, you'll find that the Define Custom Shape option is grayed out and unavailable. You'll need to make the shape active and then try again.

Once you've selected the Define Custom Shape option, Photoshop will pop up a small dialog box asking you to enter a name for your new custom shape. I'm going to name mine "Starburst":

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box and save the custom shape. We can now use our "Starburst" shape any time we need it! Simply select the Custom Shape Tool from the Tools palette. It's grouped in with all of the other Shape tools in the same place where we found the Polygon Tool:

Then, with the Custom Shape Tool selected, go up to the Options Bar at the top of the screen, click on the Shape preview area to bring up the Custom Shape selection box and select your "Starburst" shape from the list. If you have "Show Tool Tips" enabled in Photoshop's Preferences, you'll see the name of the shape appear when you hover over it:

With the "Starburst" shape selected, simply click anywhere near the center of your document and begin dragging out the shape! Once you've started dragging, hold down your Shift key to constrain the proportions of the shape so you don't distort the look of it, and hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key to drag the shape out from its center rather than from the corner. Here, I've created a new document, same size as last time, and I've already added a Solid Color Fill layer (see Steps 7 and 8) to use as the background color for my effect. I'm dragging the "Starburst" shape out from somewhere near the center of the document:

Continue dragging out the shape until it fills your entire document, then release your mouse button, at which point the shape will appear filled with a solid color. To change the color, double-click on the Shape layer's color swatch in the Layers palette, just as we did in Step 23, and choose a new color from the Color Picker. Here's my effect after dragging out my shape and changing its color:

If you want to make sure the starburst is aligned perfectly with the exact center of the document, go up to the Select menu at the top of the screen and choose All, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A (Win) / Command+A (Mac). This will place a selection marquee around the entire document:

With the entire document selected, grab the Move tool from the Tools palette, or press V on your keyboard to select it with the shortcut:

Then, with the Move tool selected, go up to the Options Bar at the top of the screen and click on the Align Vertical Centers and Align Horizontal Centers icons. Photoshop will automatically align the center of the starburst shape with the center of the document:

Go back up to the Select menu and choose Deselect to remove the selection from around your document, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac). The selection outline will disappear and your starburst shape will be perfectly aligned with the center of the document:

And there we have it!

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