How to draw straight lines. Working with the finished line

26.03.2019

How to draw a straight line in Photoshop?

    It is not difficult to draw a straight line in Photoshop.

    You can simply hold down the Shift key while picking up a pencil or brush. Then the line will be flat with a fixed point.

    Or with a rectangular area if you want a thicker line.

    You put a point with a pencil without pressing Shift, then you press Shift and put the second point. A straight line will appear between these two points.

    I recently needed to do this, I didn’t find the function, but I guessed to hold down the Shift key and just draw with a pencil (or brush). A straight line is drawn, but only either strictly horizontally or vertically (no oblique). Although, in principle, if you need to obliquely, you can rotate the line.

    PS. I'm still in Photoshop at an amateur level, so maybe there are some special tools for drawing a straight line that I'm not aware of.

    To draw a line, in Photoshop, from the very top, select a tool called Rectangular Marquee and draw her a line of the desired thickness and length. Next, it needs to be painted over with tools like, Gradientquot ;, Pencil or Fill...

    Hot key U there will be a line at the top of the toolbar.

    Choose a brush, color, put a point where you want to start the line, then press Shift and without releasing put a point where you want to end the line.

    2 days before entering the program, refrain from drinking alcohol and intoxicants

    • Select the brush tool.
    • We set it up in such a way that any dynamics of shape and size would be turned off.
    • hold down the shift and draw up / down or left / right, depending on where you want to draw the line. If you draw in a new layer, then you can then rotate it to the desired angle with the transformation tool - ctrl + T
  • In order to draw a straight line in Photoshop, we just need to use the pencil in this program to press the left click and without releasing press the button Shift (Shift). After that, we direct the mouse in the direction we need and we get a straight line.

    There is nothing difficult here)

    I wish you good luck in drawing in Photoshop.

    As I remember, you can draw a straight line in Photoshop if you press and hold the Shift key and at the same time select a brush or pencil then draw your straight line, but you can not draw either vertically or horizontally ..

    For example, when I need to draw a straight line in Photoshop, I just take a pencil or brush in the program, then put a point in the required place and, without releasing, press shift and I lead my line in the necessary direction.

  • How to draw a line in Photoshop

    If you take the Rectangular Marquee Tool, you can easily make a thin horizontal selection in the form of a line, which can be filled with some color (Edit -> Fill...).

    There are quite a lot of different questions on Photoshop on BV. For example:

    • How to whiten teeth in Photoshop?
  • Drawing a straight line in Adobe Photoshop is not difficult at all. First you need to select a brush or pencil (if you need a thin line, then a pencil is better, if a thick one with a feathered border, then select the appropriate brush), set the desired thickness and color. And then, holding down the Shift key, draw a line. It will be perfectly flat.

Adobe Photoshop has a plethora of built-in features that you can use to create various objects, retouch photos, and more. A novice user who has just begun to comprehend the basics of this program will not hurt to consider such a problem as how to draw a straight line in Photoshop. And for those who have been in this environment for a long time, it may be interesting to remember the basic ways of drawing a straight line. One method or another will be useful in individual cases.

How to draw a straight line in Photoshop?

There are many ways and techniques for drawing various lines and elements. But before you draw a straight line in Photoshop, you need to keep in mind that there are three basic and quick ways to draw lines: the Brush tool, the Pen tool, and the Line tool. Despite their simplicity, it can be assumed that everyone has their own drawing technique and each user chooses the tool himself, guided by his preferences and the task that he faces.

Brush Tool

The simplest and most understandable method is drawing with the Pencil and Brush tools in Photoshop. It is worth bearing in mind that these tools draw, and do not create some kind of object, so the image of the lines will be on the most selected layer. You can avoid this situation and draw a line on a separate layer created. In this case, you can freely edit the brush trail without harming other layers.

To draw a line, just select the Brush or Pencil tool. Then click on the left mouse button and set the direction of the line with the cursor. In addition, using the right mouse button, you can call up an auxiliary window with settings where you can select the type of brush, determine the hardness and shape of the tip.

A straight line can be drawn using the tool in question by the method of multiple magnifications of the image. The closer the image is, the more likely it is to draw a more or less straight line by hand. A perfectly straight line can be created by holding down the Shift key and using the same Brush / Pencil tool. Having activated the necessary tool, hold down the left mouse button and the Shift key - we observe the construction of a straight line, controlled by the cursor.

Line tool

There is another way to draw a straight line using the Line tool in Photoshop. The quick access panel includes a block that combines a number of geometric tools, including the one under consideration. The created lines will be distributed into new layers, which are formed automatically after drawing a straight line.

Before you draw a straight line in Photoshop, you must select the tool of the same name and click on the left mouse button at the point where this element will begin. To complete the construction, you need to click on the LMB again.

The convenience of this method lies in the fact that the lines can be combined into a common layer and provide full editing of a group of constructed elements. The merged layer, after finishing work on it, can be rasterized, however, working with the merged elements in the vector graphics format will no longer work. You can format a rasterized layer just like any other layer. Another advantage is the fact that you can edit the lines themselves without losing quality. The vector line editing menu is located at the top of the program - its header. Here you can set the color of the line, its outline, shape and thickness.

Pen Tool

A versatile tool for creating figures of varying complexity. Using this function and the image magnification method, you can select hard-to-reach areas in the image in the new shape. So, for example, you can draw both straight lines in Photoshop and curves. It is extremely important to master this tool - it is used everywhere in many creative works when it is necessary to cut out some image or create a new graphic interpretation.

Interaction of the Brush and Pen tools

Using the pen, you can easily draw a straight line in Photoshop. To do this, you must first select the "Brush" tool, where a dialog box opens with the right mouse button and the desired stiffness, size and color of the future line are entered. Now you should activate the Pen tool in the quick access panel (in addition to the usual pen, there are other types of the Pen tool in the block, but we will not need them). We put the first reference point in the place where the beginning of the line should be. Then we put another point - the end of the line.

The Pen tool does not create a work object, but only a path. In order for the user to be able to turn the path into a real object, he needs to stroke the path. The Paths panel is located by default in the lower right corner, where layers are usually located. In this window, the "Contour" tab is selected, where you can see our work path. Right-click on the path and select Stroke Path. In the Photoshop window that appears, the brush is by default in the field - you don’t need to change anything, just confirm the action.

Of course, one of the simplest and most commonly used elements in drawing is the line. Adobe Photoshop is no exception. Especially if you plan to come to grips with the study of website design.

One of the advantages of the Photoshop program is the interchangeability of actions. You can achieve the same result in many different ways. Now we will explore several options for command sequences with which we can make a line in Photoshop.

Let's start by creating a new document. A 1000 x 1000 pixel document is fine for us. A detailed description of creating a new document in Photoshop can be found here.

Let's start with the line tool. We will find it on the tank panel.

Now let's set the characteristics of our future line.

Let's set the line thickness. I decided that a thickness of 4 pixels would suit me. If you wish, you can choose her style. I'll stick with the simplest.


Let's decide on a color. You will also find the icon for choosing the main color on the sidebar. On click, a window for choosing a color is called.


Well, now everything! We draw. We make a click on the workspace and drag a line with the mouse.


Now our line is a smart object. You can turn it into a regular layer in the layers window using the "rasterize layer" command.


The line is ready. As you can see, drawing a straight line in Photoshop is very simple. We have analyzed an elementary method, which, despite its convenience, has a number of limitations. Let's break down the second one and draw a line with the pen tool.

It should be noted that in this case it is worth changing the brush or pencil settings to the appropriate ones in advance, because your line will repeat these outlines. Therefore, let's set up the pencil tool together. Select it from the sidebar. And click on the workspace.


Set the following pencil settings. How to choose the color mentioned above.


Look for the pen tool in the sidebar.


We make two clicks on the workspace. It should be noted that if you want to make the line even and strictly horizontal or vertical, hold down the shift key while clicking.


Click on the line with the left key. In the drop-down list, select the command "outline the path."


Outline the outline and click again with the left mouse button. Select the "delete contour" command.



So, the line is ready! In just five minutes, we learned two ways to draw a straight line in Photoshop.


Parallel lines and a grid are elements that bring order and rigid structure to a design solution. Lines give direction to the glance that flickers over the picture, emphasize surfaces, giving volume to the image. Light shading instead of filling creates the effect of weightlessness, airiness of the object.


Parallel lines, a grid of rectangular cells, a lattice are easier to create in vector graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator, for example. You can download a suitable texture or ready-made clipart.

But there is not always time to look for the right textures. Drawing a straight line is easy - draw with any drawing tool while holding down the Shift key. It is difficult to draw multiple lines at the same distance from each other to create a grid, for example. But solving the problem of creating parallel lines in Photoshop is not at all difficult.

1 way.

The fastest way to create parallel lines is to use styles.

Draw a straight line with the Pensil tool (to make the line straight, hold down the Shift key).

Photoshop's built-in styles include Dotted Strokes (dash-dot strokes). Select these styles using the palette menu Styles (Styles): Window (Window)> Styles (Styles).

Among the style sets, choose White 1pt 2pt-Spaced Dotted No Fill or another style if you prefer.

We get a line of dots.

This line must be stretched in width and obtained from the points of the strip. But if you do that right now, you'll end up with a rectangle with a dotted stroke. Apply a simple trick: create a new empty layer above the layer with a line of dots and merge these two layers (select these layers in the layers panel and execute the command Merge (Merge)).

After that, just stretch the line in width with the command Edit (Editing)\u003e Transform (Transformation).

If you create a new layer above the layer with lines, fill this layer with a gradient fill and apply the menu command from the layers panel Create Clipping Mask to it, you will get such a rainbow stripe.

And the use of the command Edit (Editing)\u003e Transform (Transformation)\u003e Warp (Deformation), allows you to get interesting effects.

2 way.

Parallel lines can be created using gradients. The disadvantage of this method is significant - you must first create a gradient using the gradient editor. If you do not know anything about working with the gradient editor - you are here:

The advantage of this method is that, firstly, you can create a striped gradient, save it and use it forever, secondly, you can create multi-colored gradients, gradients with blurry or clear transitions from the line color to the background, you can create double, triple lines with varying spacing between them. Or download ready-made or

Creating a gradient to draw parallel lines is easy. Open the gradient editor and add color markers in the right positions (just click the mouse in the right places, set the color and distance in the appropriate fields.). The Location field sets the marker offset in % from the left edge, the distance between markers is the distance between lines.

The small markers next to the color marker determine how blurry the line is. Try moving them closer to the line and see the result.


The handles above the gradient bar determine the transparency of the gradient areas. White markers indicate transparent areas (Opacity (Opacity) is equal to 0). This gradient is handy for drawing on a pre-made background:

An example of using this gradient:

And do not forget that gradients are different - diamond-shaped, radial, mirror, which allows you to create different shapes with one easy movement:

3 way.

First, draw one line in a new layer.

Go to the palette Actions (Operations), create a new operation (Line, for example), press the record button and follow simple steps: copy the layer with the line and move it up or down to the desired distance. Job done, click the Stop Recording button. It should turn out something like this:

After that, press the triangular button Play recording as many times as you need lines.

As a result, many layers with lines appear in the image. If you are satisfied with the result, merge the layers with lines into one layer.

Overlaying a duplicate layer with lines and then rotating this duplicate at a right or any other angle makes it easy to get a grid.

And applying styles - effects:


In this tutorial, I will give 3 simple examples of how to draw a curved line in Photoshop. Let's get started.

Method number 1. Circle.

First, draw a regular circle, using the tool oval region. With this tool it is easy to draw a circle in this way: with the tool selected, change the tool style from "Ordinary" on the "Specified Size" and just set the same size for the height and width of the circle. Or you can do all the operations not with a circle, but with an ellipse. Then just click on the sheet with the mouse, and you will have a selection of the specified size. After that, right-click on the selected area and select the item from the menu Stroke. In the window that appears, select the color and size of the brush. Next, just press on the keyboard "Ctrl" + "D" and your selection will disappear.

Now create another layer on top of the circle. And in a new layer, draw a circle, but without a stroke.

Now just fill inside the selected area with the same color as the background and press the keys "Ctrl" + "D" to remove selection.

Method number 2. Rectangle.

First, draw a rectangular area, stroke, but do not remove the selection yet (how to do this is described in method No. 1).

Then go to the menu "Filter" (Filter) - "Plastic" (liquify). Or press the keyboard shortcut "Shift" + "Ctrl" + "X".

And bend your shape, then press OK. After that, it remains only to remove the selection and remove unnecessary details with an eraser.

Method number 3. Feather.

Perhaps the easiest way is the tool "Feather". Many do not understand what this tool is for just because they do not know how to use it. Everything is simple here. Choosing a tool "Feather", first style it "Contour" (Paths). Then on the sheet, simply put a point with this tool. Release the mouse button and place a second point on the other side, but this time, without releasing the mouse button, drag and you will see how you have the outline of a curved line.

After that, it remains only to stroke the contour, as in the first method with a circle, and also right-click on the contour, select "Delete Outline".

In this way it is very convenient to draw wavy lines.

Wavy lines are more convenient to draw with an anchor pen. To do this, you need to put two points on the page with a pen, which will automatically be connected by a line. And then, pulling the middle of this line, bend the line with the same pen.



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