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About this lesson
With this Shape Stroke intro you will be able to add and control the Stroke (the line outside the shape) with much greater precision, particularly for things like dotted lines.
Exercise files
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Quick reference
Topic
Add lines to the outside of your shapes.
When to use
With this shape stroke intro you will be able to add and control the stroke (the line outside the shape) with much greater precision, particularly for things like dotted lines.
Instructions
Adding a stroke through the Layer Styles
- Double click on the shape layer to bring up the Layer Styles menu.
- Go to the Stroke tab and adjust accordingly
Adding a stroke while designing
- With the Shape tool option on you can adjust the stroke options from the Options bar at the top.
- This gives basic stroke options, but there are more options like Align, Caps and Dots formula in the 'more options' window
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- 00:04 Along with some of the bigger features that arrived with Photoshop CS6,
- 00:08 there are dozens of smaller additions which you may find quite welcoming.
- 00:11 In previous versions of Photoshop, creating an outline or, as its called in
- 00:15 Photoshop,
- 00:16 'a stroke,' around an object was pretty limiting and it was typically done by adding
- 00:20 a stroke
- 00:21 layer style. This would allow you to create a solid colored outline,
- 00:25 a gradient outline, or a pattern fill outline.
- 00:28 Other than changing the thickness, there really wasn't much else you could do.
- 00:32 If you were working on a project that required a dotted or dashed line,
- 00:36 boy were you in for a chore. This would usually require creating a custom
- 00:40 brush
- 00:41 and a lot of customisation. And the worst part was that it was not vector:
- 00:45 if you decided to have a larger design, you either had to recreate the outline
- 00:49 or be stuck with a blurry result. Photoshop CS6 changes all of that.
- 00:53 With your Shape tool active, let's take a look at the Options bar.
- 00:57 Right beside the 'fill color' we have access to a new stroke option.
- 01:01 A white box with a line through it tells us there's currently no stroke on our
- 01:05 shape.
- 01:05 Clicking on this box, just like a Layer Style, we can choose from a solid
- 01:09 gradient or pattern strokes and, of course, our color of choice.
- 01:13 And to the right we can set the thickness. So how is this any different than
- 01:18 adding a Layer Style?
- 01:19 So far, it's really not - until you click on the next drop down.
- 01:23 This section allows us to choose from a solid, dashed, or dotted line.
- 01:27 Down below there are a few more options but to better understand what they do
- 01:31 let's hop into the 'more options' window. 'Align' tells Photoshop where to position
- 01:36 the stroke.
- 01:37 Your options are inside the shape on the center of the path
- 01:40 or on the outside: pretty self-explanatory. 'Caps' defines how you
- 01:45 want the ends a few dashes to appear.
- 01:47 The 'Butt' option will cut off the dash once it hits the length
- 01:51 that's defined by the dash field below. Round if you can't guess to create a
- 01:55 rounded end to your dashes.
- 01:57 'Square' will add a square cap to the end of your dash.
- 02:00 This will increase the length of each dash by a few pixels.
- 02:03 Finally we have corners. The different corners will usually only have an effect
- 02:07 on your dashes if they're positioned on the outside of a shape
- 02:10 with sharp corners, such as the rectangle. The 'miter' option is your typical sharp
- 02:14 edge corner.
- 02:15 'Round' will give you rounded corners and 'bevel' will add a slight edge to the
- 02:19 corners of your dashes.
- 02:21 Below these options we have a few text fields: the 'dash
- 02:24 field' defines the length of each individual dash. If I were to increase
- 02:28 this number,
- 02:29 each dash would get longer. The 'gap value' tells Photoshop how much space to put
- 02:34 in between each dash or dot: a higher value will add more space in between
- 02:38 each dash,
- 02:39 but may also reduce the amount of dashes that are present.
- 02:42 Now you may be wondering, why are there additional fields to the right?
- 02:45 This allows us to add additional dots or dashes of different sizes if you wish.
- 02:50 Entering a smaller value for the second dash gap will place additional smaller
- 02:55 dashes
- 02:55 beside the initial longer ones. Once you're satisfied with your outline, you
- 02:59 can save it as a preset for future use.
- 03:01 Now if you need to scale your shape larger or smaller, the outline scales
- 03:05 with it will have absolutely no loss in quality.
- 03:07 And that's an overview of the new stroke options within the Shape tools in
- 03:11 Photoshop CS6.
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