You can create custom shapes in Illustrator and export the paths to Photoshop 6 or 7 for use with the vector shapes tool. You should be familar with the drawing tools in Illustrator for this how-to.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: 5 minutes
Here's How:
- Open Illustrator and create a custom shape using any of Illustrator's tools.
- Open Photoshop and create a new document.
- Arrange the application windows so you can see the Photoshop document in the background behind your Illustrator workspace.
- Select the Illustrator path and drag it to the Photoshop document. Press the Ctrl key (Command key for Mac users) before releasing the mouse button.
- The Illustrator path will appear in Photoshop's paths palette. Click the path in the paths palette to make sure it is selected.
- Go to Edit > Define Custom Shape and type a name to identify your new shape. The new shape will be appended to the current shapes in the custom shape picker.
- To save your custom shape to a file, go to Edit > Preset Manager and choose custom shapes from the menu.
- Click on the shape you want to save (shift-click for selecting more than one shape). Click the Save Set button and name your file.
- The new shape set will be available from the custom shapes picker menu the next time you start Photoshop.
Tips:
- You can also use paths from Illustrator to create a layer clipping path in Photoshop. Select the path and choose Layer > Add Layer Clipping Path > Current Path.
- This method may not work unless the shape is filled. (Tip contributed by John Beckwith)
- You can copy the shape (filled, or just stroked) and paste in to Photoshop, but you have to select "Path" in the "Paste As.." window that pops up. It will show up as a path in the paths menu and you can define it as a custom shape. (Tip contributed by John Beckwith)
