Photoshop Tip: Combine Vector Shapes

As I’ve migrated into using vector shapes in my Photoshop work as much as possible, the difference in control you have with vector objects between Photoshop and Illustrator has been a constant source of frustration. One specific example is that for years I’ve wanted to have the same or similar functionality of combining vector shapes in Photoshop that Illustrator has with it’s Pathfinder tool, arguably one of the most powerful tools in Illustrator.

My solution has been to use the vector tools in Photoshop for basic shapes such as rectangles, rounded rectangles, circles, and lines and if I needed a more complex shape I’d jump into Illustrator, build it, and then copy it back into Photoshop. This was not only annoying from an efficiency perspective but also because I didn’t have the contents of the rest of my Photoshop comp to rely on when building the shape I needed unless I saved a jpg and used that in Illustrator for reference.

I was recently working on a project that called for a tabbed navigation element and I really wanted that object to be one single vector shape. I got fed up and did some searching to see if there was any possible way to combine vector shapes and found this solution that looked exactly like what I’ve been looking for. While the content was good, the steps weren’t very clear, but I was able to figure it out and thought I’d pass this info along with expanded details and screenshots. Here’s the process:

1. Create a New Document

Draw two or more vector shapes in your document and make sure they overlap. Your “Layers” palette should look something like the 2nd screenshot.

2. Choose the Path Selection Tool

From your “Tools” window select the “Path Selection Tool” (dark arrow). If you have the “Direct Selection Tool” (white arrow) enabled then you’ll need to click and hold to bring up the option to choose the “Path Selection Tool”. This is what had me stumped for such a long time. I always had the “Direct Selection Tool” enabled because I regularly adjust individual points on my vector shapes. I had long forgotten that there was another arrow under that option in the “Tools” window. The “Path Selection Tool” gives you the ability to select vector paths as a whole and move them around or copy them, which we’re about to learn is a very vital step.

3. Select Vector Mask

With the “Path Selection Tool” enabled, select the vector mask for the top shape in the “Layers” window and hit cmd+C (ctrl+C on Windows) to make a copy of that mask. Now select the vector mask of the shape below it and hit cmd+V (ctrl+V) to paste the copied vector mask onto the bottom shape’s layer. Your “Layers” window should now look like this:

4. Combine Vector Masks

With the “Path Selection Tool” still enabled you can either hold down the “shift” key and make multiple selections of the vector shapes in your document or simply click on the vector mask thumbnail of the bottom layer that now contains multiple paths, which selects all of the paths for that layer. Which route you take depends on if you want to combine all of the shapes or only some of the shapes in that layer. At the top of the application you get the option to “Combine” these shapes.

The options available look very similar to the main options you have with the “Pathfinder” tool in Illustrator. You can “Add to shape area”, “Subtract from shape area”, “Intersect shape areas”, and “Exclude overlapping shape areas”. If you click “Add to shape area” you’ll get the following result:

That’s it!
Another interesting thing to note is that once you have multiple masks on a single shape layer you don’t have to combine them for them to perform as a single shape. You can apply layer effects to that layer and Photoshop will treat all of those masks as a collective whole. Leaving these as individual shapes on the same layer provides flexibility to where you can copy and paste them out of that layer and into a new layer or drag them around individually.

I can’t tell you how happy I was to learn this feature. It’s been a huge time saver for me. Hopefully it’s helpful to you if you’ve wondered the same thing or are new to Photoshop.