Graphicxtras

Create Zigzag Shape In Photoshop

Where ?

So how to create a Photoshop zigzag shape ? There is no such named tool but with the pen tool etc you can create quick designs for all occasions. You can find the pen tool in the toolbar.

Quick guides to help

Go to the view menu and Snap on and snap to guides and View menu and New guide layout and 10 columns and 10 rows and select the pen tool and select the layer option and apply point to the document. Use guides to add the next point in the design. Set the fill to and set the stroke to 10px and black

Basics

You can make endless designs using this approach. How many points you add to the artwork is up to you. In most cases, click, up a little and over click and down again and a little over and click again and so on until you r are happy with the artwork. You can always remove points at a later point using the various tools in the tools panel.

Vector Design

Click the far left middle point with the pen tool and Go up to the next line above and across 1 and Back down to the middle line and move across 1 cell and Up to the next row again and across by 1 and Down to the middle again and across by 1. You can then repeat the same action multiple times to devise a very basic design. Select the direct selection tool in the toolbar and select the entire vector and edit menu and define custom. You can only save a closed vector, if the design is an open path the result will not be as expected. If you have Illustrator, you can always copy the artwork to that and expand it there and copy it back into the application. You can now see the vector design in the tool drop down. Select the preset and set the fill to no color and the stroke to black and stroke width to 10 and set the align to center and set the cap etc. The preset can be applied at any angle and can be distorted and warped and transformed in all kinds of ways

Randomized

You can make all kinds of artworks such as a more random vector by using points that are sort of in the required form but are slightly skewed, again the guides help in this. Select the pen tool and Click the far middle left and Go to three or so rows up and click two columns across. Go back down past the middle and move across by 1 and then click again with the pen tool. Go up to past the middle by one row and across two etc. Anyway, you can see the artwork is far more random and more extreme. Again, select the tool and layer option and set the fill to no color and the stroke to green or blue etc and then set the align to the center etc (or add dashes etc) .Once you have your design, you can modify them using the direct select tool or transforms or use the curvature tool etc to create even more amazing unique designs

CC libraries

If you are just using strokes then a good place to store the designs is in a creative cloud library. You can then use them from the library at a later time in the application as well as in After Effects, Premiere etc.

Store presets

If you are creating them with fills and not strokes, you can save them to the presets via the edit menu and define them (as brushes, patterns etc as well)

modifications

Select the shape tool and select one of the presets (if stored in the presets panel) and use layers mode and Select the direct selection tool in the toolbar and select one of the points in the vector and drag left or right or up and down. Any number of variations can be made simply by selecting the points and dragging them into different positions.

Distort

You can also distort them to create yet more unique artworks using features such as perspective as well as distort and skew etc. You can also select all the points with the path selection tool and edit menu and distort or perspective etc