How to use the new Photoshop CS6 Features tutorial

A quick guide to the New Photoshop custom shapes features in CS6 such as dashes with custom shapes

1. Changing colors of a shape layer

2. Stroke color for shapes

3. Dash styles

4. Feathering of paths

New features for the Photoshop shapes and CS6

The shapes work with many of the new features of PS CS6 (or version PS 16. - they work fine in earlier versions as well as the latest Creative cloud version (of course, they also work in Adobe ® Photoshop ® 12 and 13 etc if you generally refer to the single application version of the application). The CS6 / new features does include adding strokes (though you could always add basic strokes to the vector layer via the layer effects dialog in previous versions) but the new version adds dashes and gaps to the stroke.

CS6 New Features / Changing color of a shape

With PS CS6, it is now a lot easier to change the color of a layer as well as add a gradient and pattern to the artwork - this is only for the layer and not, sadly, for the fill pixel option (I am not sure why as adding a gradient as a fill / layer would be very useful but it can't with this version).

Strokes can be used with shapes with CS6 (and CC) - explore the new stroke features in Photoshop

You can see the fill and stroke via the options bar for shapes in Adobe ® Photoshop ® CS6. The stroke options are beside the stroke dropdown. You don't even need to have a fill as the fill can be set to "no color".

 

The stroke feature can be used to create many interesting line designs with any of the presets. The easiest way to explore the different stroke settings is probably to select some very basic artworks such as a circle and square (especially if you want to understand corners option as the corners only appear when you have actual corners).

Caps / alignment found in the stroke options for the shape layers (all kinds of combinations can be generated)

The caps are interesting and change the way the dashes project out from their semicircular etc setting. The alignment is useful if you wish to align inside / center etc.

 

You can create your own presets which can be saved as well as deleted (select the stroke option preset and right side menu of the stroke options to delete them) - you cannot delete the factory supplied items though.

Dashes in Photoshop CS6 - if you are using the stroke options you can now add all kinds of dashes and dots to the strokes

Sadly, the gap / dash etc are only of use when you are using a layer and will not work with pixel / fills - would love to see that but I doubt if that will ever happen.

You can combine multiple layers with different strokes in the new CS6 / CC and create many different and interesting combinations.

New Features CS6 and stroke colors

Strokes can be applied using solid color and gradient and patterns in the same way as the fill.

Feathering the paths

You can also now add a feather via the properties dialog in Adobe ® Photoshop ® for use with the vector artworks and that can be a great way to add a quick blur to any of the artworks / presets

Appearance panel anyone ?

Personally, I wish Adobe would add even more to the shape such as an appearance panel (such as in Adobe AI) so additional fills and strokes could be added the preset (again, this is where the new features of the CC layer styles comes to the fore with multiple strokes available). Would love to see something like live effects and round corners as well as perhaps width profiles added to the artworks. The workaround for that is to copy the artworks from Illustrator

Related items

1. cross custom shapes and plus designs for Photoshop and elements

2. wave and wavy custom shapes

Other Tutorials

1. how to rotate custom shapes in Photoshop

2. how to fill the custom shapes with color in Photoshop