Quickly applying attributes to multiple shapes - Photoshop Tutorial

- [Instructor] This next video on shapes picks up where my Photoshop essential training course leaves off. So, if you're unfamiliar with shapes in Photoshop, please be sure to watch the three videos in the shapes chapter, and then join us here. In the next few minutes, we're going to take a look at several different ways we can apply attributes to multiple shapes in order to help streamline our workflow. I'll start by creating a new document at the default Photoshop size and click create. Then I'll tap the U key to select the shape tool. Now you might have a different shape tool selected, I want the custom shape tool selected. And then I'm going to Control click on Mac or right click in order to reset the tool to make sure that we have the same settings. Also tap the D key in order to select the default foreground and background color swatches. Now, we could use the shape preset picker in order to select shapes and add them, however, you can't load shapes from the preset picker, so I have my shapes panel visible. If yours isn't, use the window menu, and then select shape. I'll also have a number of different shapes loaded and you can do that by using the fly out menu, and then choosing legacy shapes and more. That will display a group filled with folders, including the 2019 shapes and all legacy default shapes. I'm going to look inside the 2019 shapes, we'll scroll down until we see the spiral shapes. Then I'll drag and drop a shape into the open document. I can reposition it and I can also transform it, and then tap Enter or Return in order to apply that transformation. By default, it was filled with black, because that's the default for the shape layer. I'm going to tap the U key, we can see there's the fill. Now it's important to note that you can also assign a pattern or a gradient to a shape layer. For now, I'll just stick with swatches, and then select one of my recently used colors, or you could click on any of these groups in order to add a color, or click on the color icon here and then choose a color from the color picker. I'll tap Enter in order to hide that. If we wanted to add a stroke, we could add it here. I will skip that for now. All right, let's go ahead and drag and drop another shape. I'll reposition it and then tap Enter or Return. We can see that it was added with the same attributes as the previous shape. But instead of always returning to the shape tool in order to change the color, there are a variety of different ways that are much easier that we can use. For example, I can just double click on the thumbnail for the shape, and it's interesting to point out that this second shape actually was loaded underneath the first shape. And in the past when you added shapes, they would be added on top of the shape, but the reason that it was loaded underneath, or the stacking order was below, is because of where I dragged and dropped it. So when I dragged from the shapes panel into the canvas area, and I released my cursor, my cursor was over the background area, so Photoshop automatically put the shape on top of the background. So to change the color, I can just double click, that will bring up the color picker, let's just change the hue here a bit, and click OK. Now, if I were to tap the U key, and we look at the options for the shape, we can see that the fill has been changed here as well, and that's important to know because when I drag and drop the next shape layer, it's going to take on the attribute of that fill. I'll tap Enter or Return in order to apply that. Now what if I want my next shape to have a different colored fill? Well, if I change the fill right now, by tapping the U key and then selecting the fill, we can see that it's changing the layer that's active. So, if I don't want that to happen and I want the next shape to take on a new fill, I can quickly select and then choose deselect layers, and then change the fill. So I'll select a purple color, tap Enter in order to dismiss that, and then we can drag and drop out another color. I'll tap Return or Enter in order to apply that transformation. Now I find that returning to the shape layer just to change the color seems like too much work. So, fortunately, there are a number of different ways that are much easier to change colors. If I want to change the colors using the swatches panel, not only could I click to change the color of the active layer, I could also drag and drop a swatch on top of a layer in the layers panel to change the color. And in fact, the dragging and dropping onto the layer, it doesn't even have to be the selected layer. So if I release my cursor now, it's going to change that layer. I can also drag and drop directly on top of the layer contents in the canvas in order to change the color. And this doesn't just stop with swatches. Because your shape layers can also have gradients and patterns, I've got my gradients and my pattern panels showing, and so now I can just click on a recently used gradient, or I could click and drag a gradient down to a shape, or I could click and drag on top of it in the canvas area. And same with the patterns. I'll select a pattern, maybe a grass pattern, and just drag and drop it on top of a shape, or on top of a layer. Now we don't have to work with just a single layer at a time, if on the layers panel, I hold down the Command key and I select multiple layers, then whatever I do, whether it's dragging and dropping to that layer, or just selecting a new preset and applying it, it will be applied to all of those layers. Now there might be times when you go into a shape layer and make a modification such as double clicking on the thumbnail here, and then changing the gradient style from linear to radial. Well, if I've made that change to one layer, I can right click on the layer, and then choose to copy the shape attributes. Then, I could select other layers, right click again, and choose to paste the shape attributes. So I think sometimes that might be a little bit quicker. Now, if you're okay with having all of the shapes be on a single layer, we can select all of the layers in the layers panel, and then use the layer menu to merge the shapes. When you merge the shapes though, two things happen. One, they all take on the same attributes, and two, the gradient is now applied across the entire layer as opposed to being applied to each individual shape. So, it depends on the effect that you're after as to whether or not you will merge them all to the same shapes. If I ever wanted to pull one of these shapes and put it onto its own layer, I could select the past selection tool, select the layer, and then use the keyboard shortcut Command J on Mac or Control J on Windows, to separate it and put it on its own layer. And if we use Command H to hide the edges, we can see the difference between the gradient being applied to the single layer versus over all three of the other shapes that are on a single layer. Excellent, so we can see it's easy to apply attributes to shapes across several shape layers using copy and paste, or by merging the layers onto one shape, or by just dragging and dropping from the swatches or gradients or patterns panels, onto the shape in the canvas area, or onto the layers in the layers panel.