Custom Shapes in Photoshop

Photoshop custom shapes allow you to easily draw all sorts of graphic elements with various looks that can be very useful for web design.

Throughout the one that we are publishing in .com we have already commented on several occasions what the . We saw different types such as polygonal shapes, lines, etc. Now we’ll cover custom shapes and how to install new shapes in Photoshop, to expand the models we can use in our design.

Custom shapes are a set of items that can be drawn on web pages, with typical silhouettes that we may need in a design, to add creativity or meaning to the images we compose. There are various elements of nature, such as animal silhouettes, leaves, snowflakes, fire, footprints, everyday items such as umbrellas, telephones or symbols such as signs, arrows…

All these symbols can be drawn with the mouse, selecting the shape we want and clicking and dragging on the image canvas. The variety of custom shapes that Photoshop has in its installation is pretty good to begin with, but we can also extend it with shapes made by other people.

Note: Custom shapes are the most important and perhaps the most commonly used shapes in Photoshop. For this reason we can find references in different manuals and texts on the Internet simply as forms, or shapes in English.

Draw a custom shape

The custom shapes tool can be selected from the toolbar, under the shapes icon.

If we have any of the shape tools selected, we can also quickly access custom shapes through the shape tool options.

1. We can select the tool in a personalized way.
2. Click on the down arrow next to the currently selected shape
3. We select any of the shapes that we have installed in Photoshop.

Once the desired shape is selected, we click on the image canvas and drag with the button pressed to any other point of the image. At the moment of dragging we will see how the shape begins to be drawn on the image. While holding down the mouse button we can alter the dimensions of the shape by dragging with the mouse. At the moment that we are satisfied with the appearance of our shape, we can release it and we will see that the shape is created in a new layer.

Note: Let’s look at a couple of hotkeys for the shape that you might associate with the hotkeys that were already explained when we looked at selections: Keep aspect ratio: if we want the shape to keep the proportions of width and height so that they are as they were initially designed, that is, so that it does not deform by stretching to the width or to the height, we can keep the Shift key pressed while we make the shape.

Center the shape: With the alternative fast key (ALT) we can place the shape in the center of the place pressed when starting the drawing of the shape.

As explained in previous articles, for example at , custom shapes are created as paths, so once we have them drawn on the image, they can be modified as we please. Also, when increasing or reducing their size, they do not deform, because the paths are vectorial.

You can try altering the dimensions of a shape with the “Edit – Free Transform Path” menu (Hotkey CTRL + T). You can also change any small detail of the shape with and its complementary tools.

Custom shapes have in common with other Photoshop shapes a number of other settings and styling options, which can be accessed through the options panel and which we’ve already explained in previous articles.

In the next article we’ll learn how to get new custom shapes and install them in Photoshop.