How to create a Combine Shapes in Photoshop

 so a couple weeks ago while. I was creating a thumbnail for this post. I got stuck with the arrow let's take a look so here we have the tail of the arrow and we created the triangle separately. Now let's say I wanted to push these corners in now you would imagine to do that you would have to merge these layers and to merge it. We select the first one hold the controller command select the second one both of them are now selected and then press ctrl or command e now they are merged but still they are separate shapes if you go ahead and add let's say stroke to it let's add a black stroke.

It isn't an issue it is not added in the middle and that's good news but still the problem is there is no contact point right here to modify this we can modify this point we can modify that point right here but there is no point here to modify so how can we combine both of these shapes so that they are not separate because right now if you look at it with the pen tool selected if you hold the controller command and click on any of those have a look they are both separate so to combine it it's super simple all you need to do after that you have merged the layer simply click on the path operations icon right here at the top and choose merge shape components there you go it's simply merged now you can create a point right here push it in if you like similarly you can do it here as well now to make it crystal clear again.

There are two ways to combine shapes let's take a look so first of all let's choose a shape let's go for ellipse you can choose whatever you want you can create a custom shape that's up to you now for fill let's choose this color that's fine we don't want any stroke and now at the top you will see this icon right there and this icon is again path operations now at the top new layer is selected so whenever we create a new shape it's created on a new layer have a look this is ellipse one this is ellipse two the advantage of this is that of course you can have different colors for different layers right now if you combine it this is the first way the first way to combine it is the way we did previously select the first one hold the controller command select the second one and then if you merge these layers by pressing ctrl or command e they are now one now keep in mind that once you do merge these layers they both will have the same color so if you double click on it and change the color both of them will have the same color secondly do keep in mind that when you add stroke it will be applied to the combination of both not in between so let's say we add a stroke of black and we increase the stroke width a little higher take a look it's not added in between.

Maybe that is the result you want maybe that is something you don't want and if you didn't want it you can simply just keep the layers separate so if you keep the layers separate of course now when you go ahead and add a stroke and if you kind of increase it and let's choose black it is separate and here as well again it is separate but once you merge them by selecting both of those layers and pressing ctrl or command e the stroke is all around it as a combination now let's take a look at the second way to combine these shapes it's basically the same with a minor change so all you need to do is that when you create the shape right here in the path operations choose combine shapes now what happens is that whenever you create a shape it will be on the same layer combined so there you go this is one ellipse another ellipse see it is in the same layer but they're still separate there you go maybe we're making a weird person or mickey mouse i don't know what that is but you get the point now this is already combined but you have the option to control them separately so with the shape tool still selected you can hold the controller command and click on any one of these you can move it if you want to you can make it smaller larger make it flatter that's up to you so all of these have controls but if you do want to combine everything so that you don't have separate controls over each and every one of them.

Maybe you want to create a curve right here maybe you want to push those corners in whatever the reason here's what you do with the shape tool selected hold the controller command and make sure that the shape is selected and then at the top you can do the same merge shape components yes and there you have it all of it is now combined now i can modify the corner points select the pen tool and then you can you know modify this you can push it in you can create a curve that's all up to you so that's how to simply combine shapes in photoshop either create them in a combination in one layer or merge those layers and then all you need to do is to go to path operations and click on merge shape components that's pretty much it i hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss any other feature tips tricks or tutorials i would like to take this moment to thank all of these nice and amazing people for supporting creative designer on patreon and helping keep cretive designer free for everybody forever it is through their support that we are able to create all of this content it truly helps the community if you do wish to become a patreon member you can go to creativedesigner.com patreon there are also lots of perks which you can check out on this page thanks again for watching i'll see in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating.