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Question

Cannot draw a simple straight line in Photoshop

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 21, 2022
4 replies
5469 views

Hello,

I cannot believe how difficult Photoshop makes it to draw a simple straight line and then adjust the line weight. In the attached screenshot, I am simply trying to draw a line where the baseboard meets the floor to distinguish the adjacent materials after I have applied a tile pattern.

You can see in the toolbar in both screenshots, that no matter which line weight I enter, the "line" stays the same rectangular shape. If I adjust the line weight higher than 1, I receive an ugly black border around it, along with an additional blue line in the middle, but the line weight itself doesn't adjust. I have tried adjusting the Linetype amongst all the options - Shape, Path, and Pixels, and receiving the same result. My Alignment is set to center as screenshot #3 reflects. Just to repeat: All I want to do is draw a subtle grey thin line that resembles grout to illustrate where the floor ends and the baseboard begins.

Spent and just wasted two hours of my life on trying to troubleshoot what should literally be the simplest thing to do in Photoshop. Tutorials and problem solving forums don't seem to help. I use PS 2018. Can anyone help me out? I would really appreciate it!!

Thank you!

Windows

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c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Have you been able to understand how to use the Pen Tool to create Shape Layers with Strokes yet?

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Leslie Moak Murray

Community Expert

. If I adjust the line weight higher than 1, I receive an ugly black border around it, along with an additional blue line in the middle,

...........................................

Before drawing the line, select the brush size and color. They dictate the weight and color of the line drawn by the pen tool. The reason you have that "black border" is that you probably have "Stroke" selected while in Shape mode, FYI. That won't happen in Path Mode.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Say what?

If you want a line, as opposed to a rectangle, you may want to use the Pen Tool.

O

Olympia5EEBAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi,

Thanks but Pen Tool doesn't really seem to solve my problem. Ideally I hould be able to select and control the line weight (I am refering to "thickness" when I say "line weight"). Also I can't seem to select the color of the pen tool, it stays Blue and there doesn't seem to be a property that allows me to change the color. Screenshot attached. How starnage PS defaults a line from Pen Tool to a Blue color? Do they expect users will need to use Quick Select tool to highlight the line and and then color match to a new color opened in a seperate tab?

Lastly, when I click in the Pen Tool boxes to close the path and then move the image and all their layers into an existing artboard, the line completely dissapears. It appears the layer is only visible in its own tab, but that effects cannot move to new Artboards?

Sheesh. Really would have thought this would be easier. A real win for AutoCAD when drawing lines!

D Fosse

Community Expert

Okay- I figured out a workaround here. I select Line tool (which unfortuantely defaults to a rectangle with a line weight that Photoshop makes unable to be edited). So to acquire the line thickness (or in my case, thinness) I need, I then use the Marquee Tool to select a general thinness, CTRL + C, and then deleted the layer completely and then CTRL+P which leaves the copied section selected with the Marquee Tool. Next, I Transformed the line to the width I wanted it, and selected Free Transform to rotate it into the diagnoal position that I need it to be in. It appears Shapes don't allow Pattern or Clone Tool to paint over them, so this workaround really only works if your objective it so make the end of the line subtlely imperfect as opposed to perfect.

Anyway, still have a gripe with that fact that PS makes it impossible to draw straight lines and adjust their line weights and change colors easily. What developer decided to make the "line" shape a rectangle and default at the same size - as if we're all creating the same illustrtaion. Good one, guys.

Olympia, you're fighting the application, not working with it. You're missing the distinction between raster and vector editors. Photoshop is not a vector application like AutoCAD, or Illustrator. If you did this in Illustrator you'd find it works a lot more like you want.

Photoshop has some vector tools, like the pen tool, line tool, rectangle tool etc. But they are mainly aids for making pixel-based selections and masks. Everything in Photoshop will eventually end up as pixels. It simply doesn't work like a vector app because it isn't.

Once you realize that fundamental difference, it becomes much easier to find ways that work better. c.p's method works well, but I'd just put this on a separate layer with an appropriate color fill and mask in the required line. A mask can be reworked and finessed as you go.

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