Dotted line with Photoshop CC

How to make a dotted line with the Photoshop CC program, from any shape.

We haven’t covered this topic before and there are some tutorials on the internet that cover it but with mechanisms from older versions of Photoshop that are a bit more complex, so I hope these notes are helpful.

In itself, the work is very simple, since Photoshop CC allows you to create a dotted line with the outline of a shape. It’s the most comfortable way I’ve found to make a dotted line, although I’m sure there are other ways. The dotted line can have several characteristics that we can configure through the use of the tool and that we will explain in this article. In our case we will start from a form that we can generate in various ways that we will also explain.

one way generation

The most comfortable way to generate a shape is using the shapes tool, which includes several variants, line, square, polygon, etc.

In addition, you can also create any shape from a path. This is an operation that you should start with the Pen Tool.

This tool allows us to create fully customized paths by creating various points and dragging to create all kinds of curves.

To generate the shape from your path you can, with the pen tool still selected, right-click and select the “Define Custom Shape” option.

You can then give the shape a name in the dialog.

Thereafter you will have this shape among your custom shapes.

Another option that you have to generate the shape is to select the shape tool and then in the tool options, in the drop-down selector place “Path” and then click on the “Shape” button.

That creates a layer with the shape itself of your path.

Generate the dotted line from the shape

Once you have the shape already created, by means of any of the mechanisms that we have discussed, you can create its layout with the desired dotted line. This is the easiest part.

In the shape tool you select “Shape” in the dropdown field. Then you will find the shape options, among others those that allow you to create a path. You can choose the thickness of the dotted line and the stroke options in a dropdown.

You can then choose whether you want a dotted line or a dotted line (with dashed line segments). You can also indicate if the segments of the line have a rounded edge or if they should be with right angles, if the edges are straight or rounded, etc.

Also, you’ll see a “more options” button where you can select a number of other things, such as the length of each line segment, the length of the gaps between segments, etc.

From the shape you have, you can now work and finish adjusting to your needs. It is vector so you can increase or decrease.

If, once you have it ready, you still want to modify it in more detail, you can transfer the shape to a bitmap and continue editing, although without the possibility of vectorial work, so enlarging or reducing it can cause it to lose quality. To do this you can rasterize the layer. You do this with the right click on the shape, in the layers window, and then “rasterize the layer”.

So you can for example use the eraser to remove the parts of the line that you don’t want to have.

Thats it for now! I hope it is useful.