Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual

Drawing with the Shape Tools

Photoshop has a pretty good selection of built-in, vector-based shapes, which are perfect for adding artistic embellishments or using as vector masks (discussed later in this chapter). They include a rectangle, a rounded rectangle (great for making round-edged selections; see The Vector Shape Tools), an ellipse, a polygon, a line, and a gazillion custom shapes (Using Custom Shapes). These preset goodies are huge timesavers because they keep you from having to draw something that already exists. And since these preset shapes are made from paths, you can also use the techniques described later in this chapter to morph them into anything you want.

The shape tools work in all three drawing modes (see Photoshop's Drawing Modes). This section focuses on the first mode: Shape Layers. Just like any other kind of layer, you can stroke, fill, and add layer styles (Layer Styles) to Shape layers, as well as load them as selections.

Up To Speed: Drawing with the Freeform Pen Tool

Lurking in the Pen toolset is the Freeform Pen tool, which lets you draw simply by dragging (kind of like how you draw with a real pen) instead of clicking to add points and tugging on control handles. Once you've used it to draw a path, you can edit that path using any of the techniques discussed in this chapter. If you're comfortable working with a graphics tablet (see the box on The Joy of Painter), the Freeform Pen tool may be the way to go. For precise shapes, however, you're probably ...