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Answered

Shape tool does not work for me

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
January 2, 2026
3 replies
595 views

I have been using pPS elemnts for 25 years. I use the shape tool a lot. Now with new PS cc, it no longer functions as it should. I do not make banners and boxes, I do real work and this shape tool is worthless to me. I have been fighing it for months. I finaly had enough and downloaed my elements 9. Well it caused my pc to crash and I lost every thing, had to use recovery. I lost months of work and luckily I am surving the added stress.

The shape tool is now worthless to me. Moving things around for no reason causes great stress. Warn people that all your old software will not work with w11., try it and you'll be sorry.

Windows

Correct answer Nancy OShea

One more reply about the shape tool. The de-select button was removed - which was easier than reaching for the enter key. I discovered I could just click toward outside of window to deselect.

It no longer inserts as it's own layer. I have to start a new layer for each shape now. The shape is complicated now, used to be easy to transform, now it's time consuming and I have to spend a lot of time learning about something I don;t need. I just need a shape on its own layer that can be transormed.

It was a shape tool, now it is a stroke shape tool that is very user unfriendly.

Photoshop is more advanced than Elements. There's a bit of a learning curve until you get familiar with all that it can do.

Options give you complete control over your Shape's Fill & Stroke values— colors, size & line weights. Properties give you additional controls for transforming your Shape with precise pixel values or degrees of rotation.

To Deselect, use Ctrl + D on your keyboard.

To commit changes, use Enter Key ⇒.

By default, Shapes are created on new layers. See screenshot.

image.png

For more on working with Shapes in Photoshop, see below.

https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/shapes.html

Hope that helps.

P

PendragonArts

I am learning this just now, in the last hour and sheesh, I felt gas lit, lol! I haven't had to use it in a while and then today I needed to. I'm in ps and then this, this? Really? Wait, I could have sworn... but hugh? This just feels so wrong. What in the tarnations in going on here??? So here I am hopping on the internet to try and find an answer. I just wanted you to know you are not alone and I suspect there will be many unhappy PS users also feels this way. I am going to search around and see if there are any answers in this thread and just wanted you to know, no, you are not crazy, nor are you alone.

P

PendragonArts

Hiya. I found it on my ps and thought maybe I'd throw in my 2 Cents, lol. I think I often physically know photoshop more than I realize. I have PS 2026 but With Adobe's history of crashware and hide and never see it again games, I am always expecting the worst, XD! So, whelp, I found it on the left side, where the tool box is but now it's under the tool shapes select and much farther down the menu, like a pair of unmated socks Adobe didn't know where to put, lol. For me, I just select the straight line and can just drag out the line to the dimensions you want, or anyother shape and can manipulate it like always. Hope this was of some help. 😕😕 Happy New Year!

Conrad_C

Community Expert

(Edit: I originally wrote the following reply for Adobe Photoshop because this question was originally posted in the Photoshop community, but now I see you are talking about Photoshop Elements. If your question is really about Photoshop Elements, then this question should be posted in the Photoshop Elements community, or maybe a moderator could move it for you; I’m not familiar with Photoshop Elements.)

Can you talk more about how the shape tools no longer work as you expect, compared to the expectation?

For example, do you draw a shape and then it can’t be filled or printed, or you click and it disappears?

Because if those were happening, those could be symptoms of the shape tool being left in the wrong mode. If it was left in Path mode, it would not create fillable, printable layers, only paths. If you’ve confirmed that a shape tool is in Shape mode so that it creates shape layers, does it work as you expect, or is something else going wrong?

Photoshop-27-shape-tool.jpg

Does your problem sound like that, or something else that we might be able to resolve? Because for us, the shape tools work as well as they ever have. In fact, Adobe has improved the shape tools quite a lot lately, with things like better rounded corner controls, more accessible shape controls in the Contextual Task Bar (can edit shapes in fewer steps), and new shape tools like Star and Polygon. I use shapes all the time, and I think it’s actually much easier to work with shapes in the current version of Photoshop than it was a few years ago.

D

dfisheadAuthor

Participant

OK I will try to explain. I use the tool when drawing graphics. I quick use a shape, move it, arrange the shape etc all in its own layer. I can move it all around. If I use several shapes, I can combine layers if I want. Its part of my flow.

Now in ps cc, they took this tool away and gave us a stroke tool in shapes. This is not a new layer, it is flattened, can't be moved. You can bend it and do all kids of stuff, but that's for playing, not what I do. Since it is on same layer, it can't be flattened. and I can't move on, it stays active. This is as far as I get. I have to back out and not use shapes anymore. So I installed elements 9 and bam, crashed my pc beyond repair. I had to do a recovery. It also happened with premiere elements, I got blue screen and lost everything twice now.

J E L

Community Expert

@dfishead it sounds like you've had a very bad experience, and I'm hoping you can get this sorted out soon. Are you saying that the shape tool has been removed or replaced by a stroke tool in the Photoshop online version? Because I'm not seeing that. Can you give us any screenshots? Here is what I'm seeing and shapes seems to work as it always did.

JEL_0-1767460145457.png

jane-e

Community Expert

I have been using pPS elemnts for 25 years. I use the shape tool a lot. Now with new PS cc, it no longer functions as it should.
By @dfishead

It sounds like you are saying that the Shape tools used to work and no longer work. If that's true, the first thing to do is to reset each of the shape tools. Right-click the tool in the options bar (not in the tools panel) and choose Reset tool or Reset all tools. This will put the tools back to the defaults.

Let us know if this fixes it for you. If not, please clarify what you mean by "no longer functions as it should". Are you comparing it to how they worked previously in Photoshop or to how similar tools work in Photoshop Elements?

Jane

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