Photoshop How to create abstract Photoshop shapes Tutorial

Custom shapes has always been a popular trend in graphic design, especially when it comes to using them in Photoshop. I’m going to show you today how to make some abstract custom shapes and save them so that you can use in your future designs.

Final Result

Here’s what you will be making at the end of this tutorial (maybe not exactly, but the shape in there will be made):

You’ve probably seen these shapes quite often, whether it be my portfolio or in general designs out there. They are pretty trendy and add a lot of decoration to a design. When used right, the colors can be a great addition to a design and add that sense of abstractness.
Let’s set up our canvas. You should be able to do this with Photoshop CS and up. (maybe even Photoshop 7, it’s been a long time since I used that so I forgot whether it had custom shapes or not)
Ok Let’s get started!

Step 1 – Setting Up Your Canvas

I always like to make a new canvas that’s 500px by 500px for all of my testings and experimentation when making shapes or brushes. It’s enough space to mess around with, and it’s not too small.

Step 2 – Setting Up Your Tools

The next step is to set up the custom shape tools so that you’ll be able to make your new custom shape. The settings I have are pictured above.
I turned Shape Layers on so that I can see the shape with color. And since this is our first shape it’s automatically defaulted to Creating a New Shape Layer. So pick the circle shape and let’s make our first circle.

Don’t make too big of a circle since you’ll need the space to add additional shapes.

Step 3 – Adding Multiple Shapes

While your circle is still selected (you’ll see a little ring around it), change the option of the custom shape tool to Add to Shape Area (+). From here, you can just have a free for all in making circles just like the picture below.

HINT: You don’t have to necessarily switch to that custom shape option. Rather you can hold shift, and your cursor will have a little plus sign similar to the cursor when you choose that option.

Step 4 – Subtracting From Your Custom Shape

Sometimes you may have added too many shapes, or you want to give your shape some interesting cuts in it. By choosing the Subtract Area (-) option, you can make shapes that will cut/erase your current shape like below.

It may look a bit busy, but if you wanted to see how your shape looks like without the pen lines, you can just hide them by pressing Crtl/Cmd+H.

STEP 5 - Defining Your Custom Shape

After you finishing make your shape, select the pen tool from your tool bar or press the Photoshop shortcut key “P” and right click on the shape. You will see the option to “Define Custom Shape…”

After you click on that, name your custom shape and press “Ok“. You now have a custom shape. To access this custom shape, go to your custom shapes menu and look for it. Usually, newly created ones will show up last on the list.

And now you can use your shape as many times as you want, and even resize it without losing any pixels because it’s not rasterized yet.
Here’s my result after messing around with the same shape. I flipped it, I duplicated it, I rotated and changed it’s colors.

You can do a lot by making your own shapes. You’re not even limited to circles. Use other shapes, or even use custom shapes you’ve already made. The sky’s your limit on this one.

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Posted by Keyla Eff, Published at 8:50 PM and have 0 comment