Heart Valentine Wedding Custom Shapes for Photoshop CS5 CS4 CS3 etc and Elements

Heart shapes - opening shapes in Photoshop and Elements tutorial

example of the open custom shapes dialog

Open the heart shapes files via the file > open command as you would any file - the shapes are then loaded into the current custom shapes palette with all the pre-existing shapes

Access the shapes via the custom shapes tool - select a heart shape - select the color via the toolbox foreground color and then apply. The shapes can also be loaded via the preset manager in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Updated January 5th 2012

example of shapes being used with a color applied to part of the shape in Photoshop (pack 69)

Heart shapes - vectors

The heart shapes are vector shapes so they can be any size - you can apply them 100 x 100 or 2000 x 2000 and beyond. You can apply them using any of the 16 million (RGB) colors or even use them in 48 bit color space. You can also fill the shapes so they can be multi-colored.

You can fill the heart shapes with gradients and patterns as well as apply effects and much more.

Heart shapes and gradient fills tutorial

Select the Photoshop custom shapes tool and then go to the shapes palette in Photoshop option bar and select the heart shape design from the display (to display the design in this example you will need to purchase the pack 139 heart shapes set)

Select the path option (again on the top option bar of the Photoshop)

Then go to the path palette - a useful palette for Photoshop

right side menu has a selection of commands such as the very useful - make selection - you will now see 'marching ants' replacing the heart shape design.

Now go to the gradient tool and select a gradient from the gradient palette (again - displayed on the option bar of Photoshop)

The gradients can be used to create stunning metallic effects, gel effects, glass effects. In the case below - it is a combination of repeat gradients applied using the powerful multiply blending mode (set the blending via the option bar) - create an interesting glass effect

The example below was created using a gradient from the gradient pack 3 'complementary' applied using the radial option (set via the options palette)

Added tutorial - December 18th 2011

Heart shapes and layer effects and Photoshop

Example above shows a custom shape from one of the shape packs with a style applied (one of the glass styles supplied with Photoshop).

Apply layer effects such as glass effects, metallic effects to custom shapes via the layer > layer style command. The layer style dialog allows for gradients, patterns, etc to be applied to the custom shape heart designs.

Heart shapes and anchor points tutorial

The heart shape can also be modified in other ways by using the direct selection tool. Each point of the heart shape can be modified allowing for changes to the curve and the structure of the heart design.

A single point of the heart shape can be changed but also multiple points can be selected. Simply select the point using the direct selection tool or drag and release to select multiple points.

You can also add and remove points by using the add anchor points (or remove) tool. Points, if selected, can also be just deleted by clicking the delete button on your keyboard. Illustrator is probably a better tool to use but Photoshop can still be used to create 100s of different shapes from the same basic heart shape.

Display the info palette to see details about the selected point or points - also gives details about keyboard commands such as holding the shift key down to constrain the angle.

After changing the heart shape, you can also re-save the heart shape via the edit > define custom shape command.

Stroke and heart Photoshop custom shape

The heart wedding artwork can have a stroke (such as black or green stroke) via the shapes layer / layer effects menu 'stroke'. The stroke can be a single color or a gradient or pattern. Different shapes can have different strokes.

This is the same for heart custom shapes as much as swirls and any other designs.

The stroke setting can be set to 1px, 10px etc. The position of the stroke can be set inside, outside or center (half inside and half outside). You can also use the stroke with some of the other settings of the layer effects dialog such as the bevel - if you set the 'style' to stroke emboss you can then add a shiny bevel to the pattern / gradient / color stroke to create heart glass effects.

The stroke and gradient fill type also allows for the gradient to follow the shape of the heart - use the shape burst option. This can be particularly effective with colorful rainbow gradients.

The stroke (applied to the heart shape or other shape) can also accept input (via the layer effect dialog stroke option) from the pattern though the end result depends on the actual pattern- some patterns added to the stroke can look good only if the scale of the pattern is very small. Certainly the patterns supplied with Photoshop look fine with the stroke but vector themed patterns often look odd as a stroke.

If you apply the heart shape as a path (and not as a shape layer) you can also use the path palette's 'stroke' option. The stroke can then apply the current brush stroke for a particular brush tool to the heart (or any other selected path).

Heart bookends tutorial for Photoshop and Elements

1) Create new document

2) select the custom shape tool

3) go to the shapes palette and load the custom shapes 'hearts' shapes (available to buy from graphicxtras)

4) Set the shape option to 'shape layer' - top options bar far left

5) Draw heart vector shape

6) Layer > duplicate (this duplicates the heart shape) so you should now have two heart layers

7) select the top heart layer

You can, at any point, set the color for the heart shape

8) rotate counter clockwise 45 degrees

9) shift 100 pixels left or so - use the guidelines (smart guides, to set on - and they are useful - view > show > smart guides) to align the two hearts

10) Go back to the layer 1 heart

11) select that heart

12) rotate 45 degrees clockwise

13) shift 100 pixels or so in the right direction

14 ) again - use the guidelines if you are unsure when shifting the path or just use the move arrows (left and right arrows) to shift the shape by a certain distance

15) select all three layers (if you add some text in between the two hearts) and use the distribute options along the top option bar - distribute horizontal centers.

example showing a heart shape from the graphicxtras heart shapes sets duplicated and mirrored and combined with text

Heart shapes and layers and Photoshop

The heart shapes can be applied as a fill and as a path and also as a layer. Click the first item in the options bar to set as a shape layer. Select a style via the style dropdown (the above example shows the style applied as a semi-transparent heart shape).

The heart shapes can be applied once or multiple times and in the same position or different positions and with the same style applied or different styles applied.

Transformations and hearts amd Photoshop

One advantage (among many) of the shape layer is the ability to transform the vector heart shape - scaling the shape from 100% to 10% or 1000% of the original size without any issues and other transformations such as warp / envelope effects and rotation and shearing of the original heart custom shape.

Heart shapes and layer comps in Photoshop

Layer Comps are a wonderful feature and they can be accessed via the window > layer comps menu option. Use a heart shape (the example below comes from the heart shapes pack 154) as a shape layer. You can then change the color, the position of the heart as well as the visibility and the layer styles (shadows etc) and save all that information as a comp.

You can then repeat this with different mock ups of designs and save them as a new comp as well. You can then quickly show your clients all the heart shapes in different locations and settings.

Layer comps is a feature of the recent versions of Photoshop such as CS5 etc. Added: December 29th 2011