Custom Shapes

[susangreen]

I'm wondering if there is a way in PSE4 to create your own custom shapes. I haven't been able to find anything in my books that says you can. I thought that since you can make custom brushes it might be possible to make custom shapes. I'd appreciate any input you experienced people can give. Thank you.

[Carbone]

Not with PSE. Custom shapes are vector graphics (shapes which can be resized whitout being pixelated). Photoshop can create them, along with Illustrator, but not PSE.

Hint hint.. if you only need to create a few... download the demo version of PS CS2, it'll run for a full month, time enough to create your custom shapes :)

Ray

[skstarkiller]

I've been working on making some in my full version of PS CS2. Tell me what you need and I may be able to do it for you.

[TonyW]

Ray's right - you can't create a custom shape file in PSE but there are some workarounds if you really want to do it. You can save selections and use Grants Tools to transform them so that in many ways they behave like custom shapes. Richard Lynch's Hidden Power Tools go one step further and will create a shape layer from a selection (actually it's a color fill layer but it works like a shape layer). But the only way to save them is to collect them in a psd file.

Tony

[susangreen]

Thank you all for your answers. I thought that Elements probably didn't have a way to do it but was hoping. I may try the work around and see what I come up with. I appreciate all your help.

[Wendy]

Hi Susan ...

Have you looks at the Adobe Exchange for custom shapes ... they have lots there :)

http://share.studio.adobe.com/Default.asp

Wendy

[meribee]

Are elements users able to download all those brushes etc, or is it all for photoshop?

[Wendy]

Hi meribee ...

You can download brushes, colour swatches, custom shapes, gradients, patterns and styles. They should all work OK in Elements ... when you come to install them:

They do in your Elements folder under Presets then:

Files ending in .abr go in the Brushes folder
.aco in the Colour Swatches folder
.csh in Custom Shapes
.grd in Gradients
.pat in Patterns
.asl in Styles

Hope this helps :)

Wendy

[meribee]

thanks Wendy. I am trying to download the crosses angels brush at adobe studio exchange but get a message saying the "download decoding failed". The download button was confusing as it said to click and hold then "select save this link as".What am I doing wrong? again.

[skstarkiller]

on a pc, you want to right click and select Save Target as...

[Wendy]

Hi Meribee ...

... and on the Mac you just need to do a single click on the download button and it will download the brush itself :)

Wendy

[meribee]

Hi Wendy....I have clicked the big blue download button and all seems to be normal with the download until it is completed and then the message appears,,,"download decoding failed" . When i click on the icon that has appeared on the desk top the same thing happens.

[Wendy]

Hi Meribee ...

Oh ... I just tried it and it worked fine. :confused:

These brushes don't come in a zip folder so are these what appears on your desktop ? ... if so then just put them in your brushes folder and lets see if they work.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1dkzuOQ6JZaLJbOMb5BW9rvR5ioS0h_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1dkzuOQ6JZaLJbOMb5BW9rvR5ioS0h)



Wendy

[meribee]

Hin Wendy I get a gray square with a white page with a folded corner a blue circle inside this with a white c crossed out in red and a blue line below. Underneath it says 8 BIM-download. I tried to take a picture of this by pressing cmd shift 4 but I guess you can't do this on the desk top.

[Wendy]

Hi Meribee ...

The brushes you want is the set Angels and Crosses ??

If so then I'll try downloading it later tonight and send it to you :)

Wendy

[meribee]

thanks Wendy...hope it isn't too much trouble...much appreciated....M

[Wendy]

Hi meribee ....

Its on its way :)

Its quite a big file so do hope that it arrrives OK ...

Wendy

[meribee]

marvellous Wendy! they arrived and are installed and working! many thanks.

[Wendy]

Oh that is good news :)

Wendy