In this Photoshop tutorial, we'll learn how to save and re-use text as a custom shape. Let's say you've arranged some text for use as a simple logo, which means there's a good chance you'll need to re-use it again and again, but you don't want to have to recreate it from scratch every time. Wouldn't it be great if you could just save the logo somehow and then access it whenever you need it? Fortunately, you can, and Photoshop makes it easy thanks to custom shapes!
Step 1: Create Your Logo
Before we can save our logo, we first need to create it. I've gone ahead and designed a simple logo using a combination of Helvetica Neue UltraLight and Regular fonts, with white as my text color, as we can see in my document window:
Add and arrange your text.
If we look in the Layers panel, we see that my text is, in fact, text because it's sitting on a type layer, indicated by the capital letter T in the layer's preview thumbnail:
Photoshop automatically places text on its own type layer in the Layers panel.
Step 2: Convert The Text Into A Shape
Even though it didn't take me a whole lot of time or effort to create this particular logo, I still don't want to have to recreate it every time I need to use it, so I'll save it as a custom shape. Before I can do that, though, I first need to convert the text into a regular shape. It will still look like text, but once it's been converted into a shape, it will no longer be editable, so make sure you have everything spelled correctly before you proceed.
When you're ready, with your type layer selected in the Layers panel, go up to the Layer menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen, choose Type, and then choose Convert to Shape:
Go to Layer > Type > Convert to Shape.
Nothing will seem to have happened to the text in the document window, but if we look again in the Layers panel, we see that the type layer has now become a shape layer:
It still looks like text, but the Layers panel tells us it's now a shape.
Step 3: Save The Shape As A Custom Shape
Now that our text is a shape, we can save it as a custom shape. Go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen and choose Define Custom Shape:
Go to Edit > Define Custom Shape.
Photoshop will pop open a dialog box asking you to give the custom shape a name. I'll name mine "logo":
Give the new custom shape a descriptive name.
Click OK in the top right corner of the dialog box to close out of it, and that's all there is to it! Your logo is now saved as a custom shape!
Step 4: Select The Custom Shape Whenever You Need It
The next time you need the logo, just select the Custom Shape Tool from the Tools panel. By default, it's hiding behind the Rectangle Tool, so click on the Rectangle Tool and hold your mouse button down for a second or two until a fly-out menu appears, then choose the Custom Shape Tool from the bottom of the list:
Click and hold on the Rectangle Tool, then select the Custom Shape Tool from the fly-out menu.
With the Custom Shape Tool selected, go up to the Options Bar at the top of the screen and click on the shape preview thumbnail, which shows us the currently selected shape:
Click on the shape preview thumbnail in the Options Bar.
A shape selection box will appear displaying small thumbnails of your available custom shapes. The shape you just saved will appear at the very bottom of the list. If you have Show Tool Tips enabled in Photoshop's Preferences (it's enabled by default), you'll see the name of your shape (whatever you named it a moment ago) appear when you hover your mouse over its thumbnail. Click on the thumbnail to select it:
Click on the logo's thumbnail to select it.
With the logo selected, choose the color you want it to appear in by clicking on the color swatch to the right of the word Color in the Options Bar:
Click on the color swatch to choose a color for the logo.
This brings up Photoshop's Color Picker. I'll choose a different color this time. Let's go with red:
Select the color you want from the Color Picker.
Click OK to exit out of the Color Picker when you're done. Then, to add the logo to the new document (I've already opened a new document with a black background), first make sure the Shape Layers option is selected in the Options Bar:
Make sure Shape Layers is selected (the left icon), not Paths (middle icon) or Pixels (right icon).
Then, simply click inside the document and, with your mouse button held down, drag out the shape to whatever size you need. Hold down your Shift key as you drag to constrain the proportions of the logo so you don't distort the look of it. As you're dragging, all you'll initially see is a thin outline (known as a path) of the text:
Photoshop only displays an outline of the shape while you're dragging it out.
When you release your mouse button, Photoshop fills the shape with the color you selected in the Options Bar a moment ago, and your text is instantly added to the new document:
Just like that, the text re-appears with its original formatting.
And there we have it!
