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While Photoshop doesn't offer a dashed line
option, such as that found in Illustrator's Stroke palette, you
can easily simulate them by editing a brush in the Brushes
palette.
The key to dashed lines is the Spacing option.
Combined with Roundness in Photoshop 7, you can change a square
brush into a dashed line quickly. Here's what you need to see in
the Photoshop 7 Brushes palette:
Remember that you need to open the Brushes
palette from the Palette Well or the Window menu (or the F5
key). The small Brushes palette found at the left end of the
Options Bar is for brush selection, not brush editing or
creation. And what if the Brushes palette is grayed out and
unavailable? Switch to a brush-using tool, such as the Brush
tool (press B on the keyboard).
Reducing the Roundness makes a square brush
flat. Increasing the Spacing moves each "instance" of the brush
tip imprint farther apart. (Think of Photoshop's brushes as
applying the brush tip many times close together as you drag,
rather than as a continuous stream of color, like an ink pen.)
And, of course, the "dash" doesn't need to be at 50% roundness.
Don't forget that you can make vertical dashed
lines rather than horizontal by changing the Angle setting in
the Brushes palette to 90 degrees.
In Photoshop 6, you must first define a small
rectangle as a brush and then adjust the spacing. (Photoshop 6
doesn't allow you to change the Roundness value for non-round
brushes.) Create a rectangle of the size of your dashes, fill
with black, and use the menu command Edit> Define Brush. You can
use the Rectangular Marquee tool to create the shape-make sure
that Feathering is set to zero in the Options Bar.
Give the new brush a distinctive name, one that
reflects both its size and purpose.
Once you've created your dashed line, you can
use it with any brush-related tool. In addition to the Brush
(Paintbrush in Photoshop 6), Pencil, History, Art History, and
Eraser tools, you use brushes with the stamp, focus, and toning
tools.
Remember, however, that these dashes will not
follow the paths of the cursor, but instead stay oriented to the
page. This figure shows the difference between a dashed line
created in Photoshop (top) and one created in Adobe Illustrator
(bottom). The Illustrator dashes follow the path no matter how
it curves.
The orientation of the "dashes" to the path in
Photoshop is insignificant when a symmetrical brush is used. A
round brush, for example, never seems to be mis-oriented.
When you do need to curve a dashed line,
remember the Shear filter (Filter> Distort> Shear). You can bend
and twist a straight line. To save a step, draw the line
vertically (the filter works only horizontally). It's also
usually a good idea to have the dashed line on a separate layer
and have no active selection.
The Shear filter enables you to bend and twist.
Click on the vertical line in the preview window to add an
anchor point and drag. You can place several points as
necessary. And if you'll be working close to the edge of the
window, click the button for Repeat Edge Pixels.
After applying the filter, the bent dashed line
can be rotated and otherwise transformed. |