Lessons

Lesson Info

Shape Layers and Paths

Now we're going to be talking about some of the changes with e vector shaped tools and pass not a whole lot of changes that some that are gonna be really, really useful tio, both designers and photographers, so I'll start out open a couple images here where your folder number seven, and here we have a shape I've drawn with one of photo shop shaped tools, and I've had photoshopped create the shape on a whole new layer that's called a shape player well, first off the bat, new in front of shops, sisi when you create a shape layer using any of photo shops shaped tools, and they live down here toward the bottom of the tools panel says, all these guys right here, one of the big changes is that the layer thumbnail of shape players now accurately represents a miniature of the whole document before you just saw the shape that you drew on there. You had no idea it's relation to the document as a whole. So now the layer previews of shape players actually are correct. They're a miniature of the wh...

ole document instead of just showing you the little bitty shape that you drew, which just help she kind of specially orient, when you're working with layers, somebody go ahead and turn the visibility this one off. And will we create it together so we're going to come down here to photo shop shaped tools and we're going to choose the second one they're rounded right tangled tool one of the problems with around a great tangle tool previously was that you had to guess at the radius setting in the options bar to control how rounded those corners are so if you didn't get it right you had to undo a couple times and start over there was no way to edit them until photo shops sisi so now that we have the rounded rectangle tool active in our tools panel let's come up to the options bar and let's make sure to put settle into shape player mode we'll do it again and path mon here in a minute but I want to show you shape player mode first because this is gonna make photoshopped draw the shape on a whole new layer so which is shape? We also get these handy phil and stroke options that were new in c s six well when you have a go with a rounded right tangle tool we're going to cruise over until you can see the radius sitting. This is a setting that you could use to tell photoshopped how around and you want those edges to be so let's go ahead and low let it roll with fifty pixels and we'll see what we get I'll zoom back out we'll come over to the document and we're going to click and drag and when I released my mouse button two things you're gonna happen first of all photoshopped doesn't he create a new shape player in your layers panel that's great it also opens the properties panel and look what's in here look at all this stuff not only do you get a lot of the controls that live in the options bar but this is the section that's new right here this let you adjust the corner roundness after you've drawn the dad gum shape what's just so andy oh my gosh it's so handy someone is you may out little bit straight from the factory this whole chain link icon is darkened which means it's turned on its depressed into the interface in what that means is that any time I make a change to one of these field so each field represents one corner so we got four than the course. If I change this value to two hundred and I tab then photo shop is going to change all four corners consistently. That may be what you want. Great let's undo by person commander control z if you turn off that chain link icon just give it a single click see how it's not dark and depressed into the interface anymore so that's on that's off now when I do that I gained the ability to change corner radius individually of each corner to create unique shapes fabulous, fabulous, fabulous for designers can you imagine sentence? Um copy in here in a nice add I mean, you can really make some visually interesting shapes, which is great for catching the attention of your audience to get them to read the copy that you've put inside the shape to the inlet. So that's one great thing and again it does work if you're justin path mode, so those look at that I'll turn off that layer, I'm not going to create another layer because I'm going to use the tool in path mood by changing thie poppet menu of the very top left of the options bars. Now we're going to go to path, so the difference with this drawing mode is that photo shops just going to give us the outline of the shapes, not going to create a whole nother layer for us. I just want to show you that you get those life properties either way, so we're going to click and drag to draw our shape and again pops the properties panel with a live shape, properties and same kind of thing I can adjust the corner radius of each corner individually if I want to make some really interesting shapes, so while you could do this by manually tweaking the control handles and points on the path it was never that simple so this is incredibly simple so one of my favorite new features now let's take a look at this used in conjunction with a mask which is one of my favorite ways to use the rounded rectangle tool on another one of my favorite things from italy like oh she doing this so here again when you purchase the class do keep all of these layers intact when you're practicing so I really try to make sure that each individual psd file you can just turn off the finished layer turn on the original and that's where I want you to do your experimenting so try not to tow undo what I did and then save over because you lose your your file there but you could probably we download it anyway so no great use for rounded right tangles is from asking so for this particular technique we do need to double click the layer to make it eligible so we need to unlock the background layer in finish up cc you could add a regular old pixel based mask to a layer without unlocking it used to be the program with squawk it you with their message if you try to mask a locked background layer that doesn't happen anymore but it doesn't work properly with vector masks and that's what we're going to add because these shape tools are victor in nature there made a points and past their infinitely scaleable so if you want tio, increase it inside, you don't ever have to worry about the edges pixelated, because there really are no pixels involved in vector's, so since we're going to use the rounded, rectangle shaped tool, which is vector in nature, we may as well at a vector mask because if we decide to make that mask a lot bigger or smaller later on, we won't have to worry about the quality of the edges and degrading because of the mask will stay perfectly smooth benefit of using the vector mask instead of a pixel base mask. But if you are going to use a vector mask for whatever reason, I think it's a little bit of a bug you do have to double click the background later if you're dealing with a background later to make it editable first, now we're all set to go so let's come over here and grab our rounded rectangle tool. Technically, those live shape properties will come up on the rectangle tool as well, so if you start out with a rectangle tool and decide given it, I should have used around rectangle tool, you don't have to switch because you've got those live shape properties you could just round the edges even if they were perfectly square, but we'll go ahead, start with a rounded right tangle tool. Come up here and now we're going to make sure that our drawing mode is in path mode because we really don't want a whole nother layer with a shape on it. We just want to get out the outline of the shape so that we can use it as a man ask so let's choose path from the drawing mode menu will go ahead and leave the radius set to fifty pixels again, and now we can click and drag to draw the shape on top of our image and also a memorable bit so we can see that gelato a little better because that's important, right? So now we've got our live shape properties, and since I've already clicked turnoff, constrain all corner values to the same, then we can come in here and make unique shape, so maybe I can change the top left and bottom right corners and go down on the top right and bottom left corners go down in radius, so we make something unique, and I couldn't just temporarily close up their properties panel. Now, to add the mask, all I have to do is click the mask, but in the options bar that's it. So you can click that to make a new vector mask, or you can command or control click the layer mask icon at the bottom of your layers pale I'll zoom in so you can see the toll tip as I point my cursor to the mask icon, see how that tilt it changes to vector mask when I press and hold the modifier key of command on a mac or control on a pc that's another way to add a vector mask, but you could just as easily click the mask button up their own options bar, and now we have mask star image to the shape of that path, so if you've ever rounded corners are all the rage right now, in fact, if you go toe, I stopped photo dot com every single preview image is on the main page, what is rounded and you see this all over the place because quite honestly score quarters air boring, you know, get a little creative here, people so that's super super easy to d I want to show you another technique that kind of build on this to create something completely different. What about something like this? So we've got one photo that's being masked by multiple shapes over here, shea players that have been turned into a smart object, meaning that when I change one shape player they all change, so let's just step through this technique. I think this is a nice one for photographers who are looking to create a unique piece of artwork out of an image. So for this one, I am gonna go ahead and turn off. I'm gonna go ahead and delete. Maybe here we go, unclipped that and I'm going to delete this whole group. I'll actually delete that teo, these were going to use in a moment. So what we've got here, I'll turn those off let's say we just created a new document, pop open a photo, and what I want to do is I want to lay down some guides that just help me draw my shapes, so I'm going turn on my rulers by choosing view rulers or by pressing command or control are so now I've got my rulers here, I was gonna eyeball some guys, so I'm just going to draw four shapes, so I'm gonna put basically a vertical guide and a horizontal guide in my image, so it is going to come up here and dragged down from the horrors on a ruler, and as I get close to that center point because I've got snapping turned on and it is on by default, I can feel that guide snap to the center point of my image, so it's really easy to eyeball it. But I should clear out my god's first show, god's, where are you? Clear guides? There we go, now we're start from scratch, so does clique within your ruler and drag down, and you've got snapping turned on, you'll feel that snap to the center point, and now let's, drag another one, and we're going to feel it snap to the center point now you could put is many of these guides you could end up with his many of the little shape masks, as you can imagine, but we're just going to make this one fast, so we're just gonna end up with four shapes that we used to mask the photo. Now what we need to do is go grab our rounded rectangle tool, and you can set the radius at first. If you want and let's, go ahead and click and drag, I'll make sure you're in shape player mode, peso, click shape from the pop it many toward the top left of the options bar delicious come over here and draw the shapes don't worry about what color they are. We're going to use him as a mask, so we're not going to see the color anyway. Now what we can do is we're going to convert that single shape player into a smart object, so we could either to filter, convert for smart filters, because all that does is make a smart object, or you can't control or right. Click near the layer name and she's convert to smart object. Now we're going to duplicate that smart object, so I'm gonna press command or control j to duplicate it. Press v to grab the move tool shift, drag it to your other little section you made there. Now, let's, activate both of the rounded rectangle smart objects by shift clicking to activate the second wind and lets a duplicate both of those layers at one time that any feature or that feature was new cia six to see how I had two layers activist so when I pressed commander control, j duplicated both of those layers. So now let's shift dragged down shift when you're dragging with the move, told us, constrained your mood to be perfectly vertical or horizontal. Now what we're going to do is I would like to shove a photo through all of those shapes. How on earth do you do that? I've got four different shapes here in one photo. Well, teo, easily do that. We're going to shove all of these smart objects into a later group, which is really a folder, and then we can use the folder as the mask, so let's, go ahead and activate those other layers now lets you to keep your shortcut that makes photoshopped throw all those layers into a later group, and that is commander control g and I have I holding it down, so you guys could see the the keyboard shortcut it duplicated all those groups anyway. So here's, what we've got, so if we expand the group, we see our four original shape players that were turned into smart objects. Now what we can do is take any photo and, you know, within using a lot of photos of lisa's favorite things that she saw in italy, and to be quite honest, I really liked the statues, you know? They're very muscular and in quite visually attractive come on, you go so thiss may or may not be david's beauty if if one were to be so inclined, one could mask this photo with all of those shapes. I need to make it a little bit bigger because it's not quite big enough now we're talking guys in the control room going, I can't believe the stuff that she does so now to push that photo through the shape of what's in the group underneath it, we can do it with the keyboard shortcut in that keyboard shortcut is option on a mac or altana pc and as you point your cursor to the dividing line we'll zoom in a little bit between the two layers that you want to group together clips together, see how your cursor changes so soon as you see that square with a downward pointing arrow, just give it a click and now if I put a solid color background behind here, you guys can see that that photo is being masked to the shape and I'll hide the guides as well. Ok, so now the photo is masked? Well, let's say that I want to change the radius or the sizes of those masks since we made these into smart objects and we duplicated the same smart object, all they do is change one of them, and they all change. So it's a double click to edit the smart object and what that's going to do is pop open the shape we drew into a temporary document. See, this is our shape, so now we can bring it free, transformed if we want to make it smaller or larger, we can go grab the path selection tools so that the path is activated pass election tool lives above the shape tools now we can pop open the properties panel, which is right here, if you don't see that icon anywhere, just choose a window properties and that panel will open for you I'm not seeing my life shaped properties, why because the panel opened in mask mood, all you have to do is click this little button right here that will show you all the live shape properties so give that a click now there they are now we can edit those corners if we'd like, so we'll make it something drastic just on the one perhaps so there's the shape we've got going on now all we have to do at this point is choose file save not say that because we don't want to move this or remain this temporary document we want to do a straight commander control s for save so let's click safe now we can close this temporary document and watch what happens to all of our masks they all changed many credible so let's step through that one more time and we won't be cheeky. Ha ha uh oh, I love it! I love these visuals ok, so here we are a square one I'll go and clear my god so we're starting to writers have them hidden right now, okay, so you pop open a photo, turn on your rulers view rulers or oppress commander control are because you have to have the rulers ana manually draw out guides or you can you could choose view new guide and if you knew exactly the positions you wanted the guide you could injure them through dialog box instead of dragging and dropping the oldest visualized this so, my guys, you're going to snap to the center. I feel that when it happens and you just imagine the flexibility with his technique, with, with fewer or more shapes here in any kind of shape, and you've got a slew of shapes, bolton, it's photoshopped, so we're going to use the rounded right tangle tool, and we'll come in here, make sure it's set to shape layer at the poppet menu at the left of the options bar and, well, distraught, a single shape, and we don't even really have to fill it with anything. So now what we want to do is change this. There we go, now we can see it, it ended up underneath my photo layers, I couldn't see it, so now we can turn it into a smart object, so control or right click convert to smart object. Now we're going to duplicate as many of those as we need tio duplicate the first one by pressing commander control jay now as press v to grab the move tool and will shift, drag it to the next position where our guide is now we can shift, click to activate the other layer and now duplicate them together by commander control j, and then we've still have the move to active is click and shift drag down and we're just adding shifts so that we don't scoop these around vertically now we want to shove all of these shape players turned into smart objects into a layer groups so that we can mask a photo to the group as a whole let's go ahead and activate the remaining layers by commander control clicking them and now with the keyboard shortcut command jeon a matter control g on the p c will make a folder or layer group out of all the active layers so there they are now let's drag our photo layer above our group because the thing that you want a mask has to live above the shape that you're masking it too in the layers panel so if the group was above the photo this technique won't work so just remember tio pay attention to your layer stacking order the photo has to be at the top the shape you want a mask it t or the group that you want a mask it too has to be underneath it because it gets shoved through it if you think about that is shoving it down through the shape of whatever is on the layer or group underneath it and now to do that all you have to do is press and hold option on a mac or altana pc and point your cursor at the dividing line between those two layers. Now the photo is being shoved through the shape of what is in that group to change the shape of those smart objects all you have to do is expand the group double click on one of them because they're all linked photo shop is going to open that shape up in a temporary document you're going to grab the paths election tool the black arrow that lives above your shape tools and you're just going to come over here in your document and you're going to click that just activates the shape so that photoshopped knows what settings to reveal to you that you can use two tweak that shape now we're going to open the properties panel my properties panelist collapsed right here if you don't see yours choose window properties and then if you don't see the live shape properties immediately upon opening that properties panel just make sure that this button right here is active it may be set on masks in which case you won't see the live shape properties and then you can just tweet those settings and remember to turn off the chain link if you want to make the corners different different radius radius is radius I give them different radius value there you then when you're finished choose file say just press commander control s to save that and close that temporary document when you do your changes their updated back here in the other document and I'll hide my my guides and now we can see that the photo is indeed masked by those shapes so that's an evil thing and the only other thing we did was at a solid color feel layer which we did by clicking the half black half white circle at the bottom of the layers panel and choosing solid color when you do that the color picker is going to open and at that point all I did was mouse over to the image see how your cursor turns into an eyedropper and I just stole this blue that's back there in the image so that the new background what kind of match it but while we're in the color picker another new feature photo shops sisi when you open the color picker either by creating a fill air or by clicking your foreground or background color ships the hex value field is now highlighted by default so if you have a background with programming like I do and you happen to know that c c c c c c while that is saying yes it's ethicist in italian it also makes for a very nice like gray and so by having that field automatically highlighted when you open the color picture you can become very fast if you have any of those hex values buried in your brain like I do so that's a neat anything that will be in no review that you'll ever see but since I write the missing manual, I had to know about every time little change so that's kind of neat one for production that's neat so that's all we did there and again you get these files so you can go back and reverse engineer this if you'd like I want to show you a couple of other changes in so far as pass opened at this other image that I got for you if we come over to the past panel, I can see that I have to pass here my past pale would you believe that a new feature is the ability to command or shift click to activate multiple past in the past pale can you believe that we've not had that? Isn't that something you could only if you clicked one there's no way to activate them both you can activate him at the same time that's name, photoshopped, cc so what is that, what you do? We'll let you throw him away so if I wanted to get rid of both those past, I could just drag into the trash to get rid of them and they're both gone that's news? Yeah, new features but in all seriousness I mean, really that isn't the future it's not that exciting unless you use pads a lot, then you'll be very excited about that so another new thing is let's say I was going to turn actually honestly bet on let's say I was drawing a path manually with penn tool, so I've got the pencil here in pads mood if I were clicking and dragging to draw shape, I'm still I still have my mouse that and depressed, I'm still dragging out that control handle to make the shape that I want another new feature and photo shops sisi is while you're in the act of drawing a path, you can press and hold the space bar and that lets you reposition the anchor point, so that's brand new, so we haven't had that before so that for folks he's the pen to a lot, I can hear you all jumping and screaming for joy, so that's need all right? Yeah, that's really, really cool one more thing and so far as layers panel stuff production level stuff like that is that here we are back at our master coliseum let's say that I wanted to manually adjust this shape in this shape I don't want to make a selection is one activate them, okay, let's say I want to manually adjust them. I wouldn't in this scenario because they're linked, but I'm using this as a hypothetical to show you a new layer filtering option in photoshopped cc, and that is the ability to restrict the layers panel of you toe on lee the currently active layers so I have two active layers right now if I go up to the layer filtering menu right here at the top of the layers panel there's a new option called selected and that let she restrict what you're seeing in the layers panel, not the document previ, but the layers panel teo on lee the layers that you have active, so when I turned it on, see how I'm only seeing those two layers and layers panel when is that helpful? Well, it's helpful when you've got a really long layers panel and none of the other layer filtering criteria that you can see here kind name effect mode attributes color when none of that other criteria is isolating the layers that you want that's when you would use this news, selected it because it isolation the filtering, the hell's that mean isolation feels they feed your isolation filtering. What is that it's? Just the ability to filter your layers panel according to what's currently active, they say selected it's not really selected is active, so also that's helpful if you've got a lot of shape players going on and let's say that they overlap because in your manipulating them with let's say the path selection tool tio manually change the control handles and everything, so that would be really helpful because if you when passover laughing and trying to manipulate the control handles and the anchor points, things can get really hairy really fast. But if you restrict your layers panel of youto on ly the ones that you're currently working with, then it can be a lot easier to manipulate those past. So that's, another one of the new, slightly buried hidden features. But the multiple, the ability to activate multiple past in the past panel really crack me themselves, like, really, we couldn't dio this is that they're really. But, alas, that is true.