Duplicating a Shape

[MahaB82A]

I want to Duplicate this Shape. First I activated [Ctrl+J] key to make a copy then activated [Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T] key to duplicate it. But it does not come. How to do it?

 

[AlanGilbertson]

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking for. You can duplicate the layer (Layer > Duplicate...), but I don't think that's what you're asking. Give us a little more detail.

[MahaB82A]

I want to create like this.

[AlanGilbertson]

Start with Free Transform, but hold the Alt key down when you click on Edit > Free Transform OR use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+T. Nudge the shape copy to the next position.

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T multiple times until you have enough copies.

Select all the layers and use Ctrl+E to merge them.

[MahaB82A]

As I said in my first post, it does not come. I will upload a video of my work.

[MahaB82A]

Video uploaded

[AlanGilbertson]

It's difficult to interpret that video, but it looks to me that you need to reset your Photoshop preferences, because that's not how Photoshop works. It's an error that will probably clear by resetting preferences. (Ctrl+Alt+Shift while Photoshop is loading.) Or you may need to uninstall and reinstall Photoshop.

The steps I gave above work perfectly provided you do not start with Ctrl+J.

[MahaB82A]

I uninstalled and reinstalled Photoshop. But it's comes like this. You can see there is no separation amoung shapes & no mutiple layers in layer panel as well.

  

[Glenn 8675309]

Just copy the first layer a bunch (CTRL+J). Spread em, haaphazard is fine, dragging from the first layer- distribute and align em. Done.  This took me less about 30 seconds.

If I were going to make alot of this type of graphic I would buy a plugin:  "Uber Spacing" - it's only $9.

https://uberplugins.cc/

[Trevor.Dennis]

@Glenn 8675309  Coping and distributing with the Move tool's align features is definitely useful, but Step & Repeat lets us change each iteration progressively.  That can be size, position, aspect ratio and angle.

You don't need a plugin to create an array.  If you click on the Align tool sub menu you distribute by object centres or the spacing between them.

Distribute Spacing was introduced a few years back, but before that we used @Chuck Uebele 's free Space Equal Extension.

Back in the days of Flash (before it changed to HTML5) we had the super useful Dmonzon Tools panel from Trevor Morris.  I loved that panel!

[Stephen Marsh]

While on the general topic, I also created a script for simple rectangular step and repeat for product image arrays:

Step & Repeat Duplication

• Duplicates selected layer(s) into a grid (X × Y layout)
• Custom spacing between duplicates (horizontal & vertical gaps)

Custom Canvas Adjustments

• Auto-resizes canvas to fit duplicates
• Optional outer margin (canvas padding)

Layer Validation

• Rejects unsupported layers (e.g. Background, Adjustment, Fill)

Layer Organization

• Groups and ungroups layers for clean structure
• Moves original layers out of the final group

Post-Processing Options

• Optionally runs Fit Image and/or Image Size dialogs

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/creating-duplicate-images-for-multi-p...

[Trevor.Dennis · Accepted solution]

Hi @MahaB82A 

@AlanGilbertson  The thread author is referring to Free Transform Step & Repeat, which is where Shift Ctrl Alt T comes in. It works reliably with raster layers, but is definitely problematic with Shape Layers and Smart Objects.  So you could rasterize the Shape Layer, but we discovered a workaround for Smart Objects fairly recently, so lets see if we can use that here?

OK, tested and it works, so this is the way:

Create your Shape Layer, and make it a Smart Object (right click the layer)

Right click the Smart Object Layer and choose New Smart Object Via Copy

Apply the first Transform to that layer.

Now delete that layer, select the original Smart Object layer, and carry on with the Step & Repeat (Shift Ctrl Alt T)

It now works with shape layers and smart objects.

Because the shape layer is a Smart Object, you can edit the SO and change will be applied to all of the step & repeat layers.

NOTE:  You must apply the edit to the original layer.  It will not work if you edit one of the copied layers.

Just one more heads up: Step & Repeat is an undocumented shortcut, and is not included in Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts

So if you reasign Shift Ctrl Alt T step & repeat will not work.

I use it to arrange windows — from a Michael Ninness worksahop at MAX about ten years ago.

So I have my new shortcut saved to my main workspace, and switch to Essentials when I need to use Step & Repeat.

[Semaphoric]

Trevor, you're right about Shift+Ctrl+Alt+T being problematic with Shapes. Instead of transforming a duplicate, you can de-couple the two steps.

Make a New Shape Layer via Copy [Ctrl+J], and drag that into position. Now repeat this sequence: Ctrl+J Shift+Ctrl+T (no Alt!).

[Trevor.Dennis]

Excellent John.  It was a really big deal for me when someone posted SO via copy work around, so I am always pleased to see more ways of achieving things.

[MahaB82A]

Thanks for the wonderful method & explanation. I did many YouTube search nearly 3-4 hours but I couldn' find a solution for this issue.

[Stephen Marsh]

I did many YouTube search nearly 3-4 hours but I couldn' find a solution for this issue.

By @MahaB82A

The world is a bigger place than YouTube. :]

[MahaB82A]

I assume in the future ChatGPT is going to be bigger than the world.