How to efficiently draw bent or curved lines or arrows with Photoshop?



How to efficiently draw bent or curved lines or arrows with Photoshop?


Question

I always use the Line Tool to draw arrows (by setting an Arrowhead at the end), like this:

Line Tool settings

straight arrow

Is there also a quick and easy way to draw bent (arched) arrows, like this?

curved arrow

2016/09/29
1
13
9/29/2016 7:40:00 AM

Accepted Answer

Use the Line Tool:

  1. Select the Line Tool from the tool bar and make sure your layer is set to Shape Layer. Before you make the shape on the artboard, click the gear icon and choose which side of the line (Start or End) you'd like the arrowhead to be on. You can also set the width and height of the arrow head by a percentage proportional to the line:

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  1. Draw the line:

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  1. With the Line Tool still selected, activate the Free Transform options (Command + T) and select the Warp Mode icon on the top options toolbar:

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  1. Select the warp shape from the Warp Options toolbar at the top of the workspace. For this example I chose the Arc shape to more closely achieve the answer to the question:

enter image description here
Note: Finalizing this step (or hitting Enter) will turn the live shape into a regular path.

Final product:

enter image description here

2017/01/27
11
1/27/2017 7:06:00 PM