Creating you Own Custom Shapes: How EASY is it?

Written by PHOTOBRUSHOP TEAM, 2009

Can’t you find your preferred custom shapes on net? Don’t you worry, because

this tutorial will just teach you how to create your own custom shapes effortlessly,

you just need patience and passion! That’s right folks! 2P’s and you’ll get what

you need! And one more thing, making custom shapes does not require

exceptional skills in Photoshop, as long as you can trace a picture, you can

create one shape. On the other hand, if you have a pure talent in drawing, that

would be great. You can trace and draw to create a shape using pen tool but with

my experience (Drawing has never been my talent.) tracing a picture is easier.

Can’t you find your preferred custom shapes on net? Don’t you worry, because this tutorial will just teach you how to create your own custom shapes effortlessly, you just need patience and passion! That’s right folks! 2P’s and you’ll get what you need!  And one more thing, making custom shapes does not require exceptional skills in Photoshop, as long as you can trace a picture, you can create one shape. On the other hand, if you have a pure talent in drawing, that would be great. You can trace and draw to create a shape using pen tool but with my experience (Drawing has never been my talent.) tracing a picture is easier.

So shall we start?

To start with, I would like you to know that in making custom shapes, you’ll need these things.

• Photoshop CS3 (or below, but in this tutorial, we’ll use CS3 Version)
• Image
• Patience
  • I would like to include this, because in my experience, it’s very essential.

• Passion

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• Open your Photoshop CS3.

Step 1

• Open an image you would like to turn into a custom shape. For this tutorial, let’s use this image.

Step 2

• Create a background layer.

Step 3

• Now on the toolbar, select the PEN TOOL, or if the toolbar is not visible you can press P on your keyboard.

Step 4

• With the PEN TOOL selected, go to the OPTION BAR and select the SHAPE LAYERS OPTION. Set the style into DEFAULT, and set the color in BLACK (anyway, you can set it in any color you like.)

Step 5

We use SHAPE LAYERS OPTION, to draw shape using PEN TOOL.

Note: After selecting the tool, you’ll start to trace your image.

Step 6

• While tracing your image, you’ll see connectors. On the right side of the window, you’ll notice that a layer has been added below your image layer, wonder what it is? It is the shape layer; there you can see how your shapes looks like after tracing it.
• After connecting the end point to your starting point of your trace, this is what it looks like if you hide the layer1.

Step 7

That’s not the end, right?

• We need to cut out the small white triangle from the traced picture. Back to the Option Bar, select the “SUBTRACT FROM SHAPE (-)”. Unhide the layer1, and trace the image again.

Step 8

• Hide the layer1 again and see what it looks like after cutting out the small triangle. Have you noticed that our trace is now quite similar to the chosen image we have? The only missing part now is the circle inside the triangle. And we wonder how to do that, right?

Step 9

Hey guys! We are almost there!

• If we subtract an area from the previous step, now we are going to add an area to our shape. How to that? Proceed to the next step.

Step 10

• To add the circle into our shape traced, select the “ADD TO SHAPE(+)”.

Step 11

Is the shape familiar? Of course it is! Now we are done!

We have traced the image exactly how it looks like! Well done! But do you think it is already a custom shape?

The next mode I am going to teach you is “how to define your custom shape?”

Don’t you worry, it is as fast as a click of mouse!

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