Basic Shapes I

This is a beginning Photoshop tutorial! There are many ways to make shapes in PS and I’m going to teach you one way here. Along the way, you will learn some very important PS skills.

  • How to make a new layer and name it
  • How to make rectangles and ellipses
  • How to make circles and squares
  • Choosing foreground and background colors
  • A way to fill a selection with color
  • Stroking a selection: what it is and how to do it
  • Moving an object on a layer
  • Using a Blending Mode
  • Keyboard shortcuts: 
    • Alt-Backspace
    • Ctrl-Backspace
    • Ctrl-S
    • Ctrl-D

If you prefer a VIDEO tutorial, I have one here.

A. Rectangle

  1. File > New. Make your canvas 300 x 300. 72 dpi is fine and RGB mode is the place to be.
  2. Look in the lower right of your PS desktop and find your Layers Palette. [If it’s not there, go to your menu at the top and choose Window > Workspace > Essentials (or Default)]
  3. Click the New Layer icon at the bottom right next to the trash can. Double-click the name of the layer in the layers palette and type in a new name. I gave mine the clever moniker, “Rectangle.”

3. With the Rectangle layer selected in the Layers Palette, choose the Rectangular Marquee tool in the Toolbar. Check the Options Bar at the top and be sure that you have Feather set to 0 and Style Normal.

4. Then drag a rectangle across your canvas. Left-top to right-bottom and release your mouse. This is a Rectangular Selection. It’s not a real rectangle till we fill it!

5. Click the foreground color square at the bottom of your Toolbar and choose a color you like and click OK. Mine is this fetching purple.

6. As with most operations in Photoshop, there are at least three ways to fill a selection. Here’s my favorite way: hold the Alt key and click the Backspace key. This fills any selection with your foreground color.

Digression: If Alt-Backspace fills your selection with the foreground color, guess what Ctrl-Backspace does?

Hint: Be sure that your background color is not white, if you test this!

7. Now, while your selection is still active, let’s make a border. This is an operation known as Stroking the selection. Click your foreground color square and choose a different color. I chose black.

From the menu at the top, choose Edit > Stroke. Choose the width and location, and then click OK. (Wider strokes can leave messy corners. If you’re wanting a wider stroke, there are better ways to do it.)

You still have the marching ants around the perimeter of your rectangle. To get rid of them, Ctrl-D to Deselect.

Et voilà!

B. Now let’s do a Circle!

  1. Make a new layer by clicking the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Name this layer “Circle.” Naming your layers may seem goofy at this point, but it is a great habit to adopt.
  2. Right-click the Rectangular Marquee tool and you’ll see the other option: the Elliptical Marquee! Click to choose.

3. If you just drag this out, you’ll get an irregular ellipse, which may be fine, but we want to go for a circle now. If you’re a far better dragger than I, you may be able to get a perfect circle by dragging, but here’s a tip:
After you begin to drag, press and hold the Shift key. Release the Shift key after you release the mouse. Tada! Perfection.

4. Fill and stroke the circular selection just as you did with the rectangle. Try to do it without looking back at the tutorial. Don’t worry about messing it up. Not only is it “just an exercise,” you can also undo your mistakes. Ctrl-Z is your friend!

5. Now, let’s suppose you want to relocate the circle. You’re about to find out one of the very nice things about working with layers. Have a look at your Layers Palette. You should see 3 layers there: Background, Rectangle, and Circle.

Click the layer for the circle. Now choose the Move tool . And drag your circle to where you want it. Make it overlap your rectangle.

Digression: There are many, many freedoms you gain from putting each of your objects on its own layer. Here’s one more: With your Circle layer chosen in the Layers Palette, click that dropdown arrow beside the Normal box.

Mouse over these various modes and watch your image change.

To the left, is my result after putting the circle layer into Multiply Blending Mode.

And there you are! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!