In last week’s post on TipSquirrel, we started looking at drawing with shapes and paths in Photoshop. In the interest of getting our toes wet, so to speak, we looked at the shape tools, and saw that they could be used to create shape layers, paths, or pixel-filled objects. Today, we’ll take a step further and look at ways of combining paths and shapes to create interesting effects. Understanding the principles in today’s tip will allow you to better understand the advanced topics we’ll cover in future tips.
First, a quick review of the key points from last week’s tip. We saw that, when any of the shape tools or even the pen tools are used in Photoshop, we have a Tool Option bar filled with, well, options! That’s why they call it that, you know. If we choose a shape tool, the Option bar looks something like this:
