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Participant
April 19, 2022
Question

Are live shapes in photoshop vectors?

  • April 19, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 676 views

Hi, I have created an image in photoshop just using the path tool to create shapes, eg. the image attached. I am just curious if I am able to make these shapes bigger without losing quality like vectors, as they are still a live shape.

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4 replies

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 20, 2022

The demo below shows some ways your control over Live Shapes varies between the Move, Path Selection, and Direct Selection tools. And also that one of the more useful Live Shape-specific properties is interactive control over rounded corners; you lose that if the Live Shape is converted to a regular shape layer (paths only). In the demo, the conversion happened automatically when I deleted a point from a Live Shape. Although the Fill and Stroke option disappeared from the Properties panel, they are still available up in the options bar as long as a path editing tool is selected.

 

jane-e
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2022
quote

Are live shapes in photoshop vectors?

Hi, I have created an image in photoshop just using the path tool to create shapes, eg. the image attached. I am just curious if I am able to make these shapes bigger without losing quality like vectors, as they are still a live shape.

By @Natalie24110770gc8q

 

You mentioned "live shapes" twice, and you won't get "Live Shapes" with the Pen tool. They will be vector and as Dave and Conrad said, you can Transform the shapes to resize them without losing quality. 

 

To clarify, though, you won't see Transform, Appearance, and Pathfinder in the Properties panel as you would for a Live Shape.

Paths drawn with the Pen tool will have only these Properties:

 

I started to wonder about the term "Live Shapes", which began in Illustator and later appeared in Photoshop.

Experiment to see what works best for you.

 

Jane

 

 

 

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2022

Yes, a shape layer is a vector layer, so if you use Edit > Free Transform or any command on the Edit > Transform submenu, the paths making up that shape will remain at the full document resolution no matter how you transform it.

 

If you want to transform one or more of the subpaths within a selected shape layer, switch to the Path Selection or Direct Selection tool, select the subpath, and then apply a transformation command.

davescm
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 19, 2022

Any shape defined by a path ( be it a live shape or not) can be resized by transforming the path and will be completely redrawn at the newly transformed size.

 

Only when rasterised, such as using 'stroke path with brush', does that no longer apply.

 

Dave