My CS6 Shape Layer thumbs are weird

I'm using Photoshop CS6 tonight and I'm getting some weird behavior. The thumbs for Shape Layers in the Layers panel sometimes look right, other times they collapse into a tiny square. I'm wondering if something is wrong. In the photo above, the "HERO" layer is how I expect a Shape Layer to appear. However, the "TOP BANNER" layer is the SAME THING. But for some reason the thumb has become tiny. I'm scratching my head trying to figure out if this is normal for some reason or what.
Is anyone else getting this behavior?

There's a known bug having to do with the shape of the object. If it's not tall or wide it can end up hidden behind the little layer type icon.
Adobe acknowledged this during the beta, but of course since the released code was built before the beta started it's not fixed yet. I believe they mentioned that it would not be a trivial fix, and expressed some concern that it could take a while to do, but I'm hopeful that they'll bring it out in an update.
-Noel

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Possible BUG: duplicating a shape layer only duplicates previously selected points - PS CS6

Unless PS has been updated to make this a feature, i may have found a bug. Now (in CS6 vs. previous versions) when you duplicate a shape layer, if you had previously selected specific points of the shape (for example with the direct selection tool) only those points will be duplicated in the new layer. This is true no matter what tool you are currently using.
What I did was make a rounded-corner rectangle shape -> then direct selected all points on one side to stretch the rectangle without distorting the rounded corners -> then switched to the move tool so no points were selected anymore and only the layer was selected-> duplicate layer (with the intention of duplicating the whole shape). what i got was just the rounded corners on a new layer.
It seems the only way to duplicate the shape layer in its entirety is to go back with the direct select tool -> select ALL points of the whole shape -> change to move tool -> dupe layer.
If that's the intended new functionality, it's a bummer because if you intend to only duplicate certain points, you can already do that while using the direct select tool. Using the move tool, it shows no direct selections and therefore you should be able to duplicate the whole layer.
Maybe I have some weird default option checked that I'm not familiar with? This is not how any previous versions of PS worked and will add friction to my workflow if this is new.

Yes, this is an issue with CS6 and the first release of CC. You have to make sure you deselect all nodes in a path, or you will get the result you describe. I believe Adobe has made some corrections and improvement in the use of shape layers that will hopefully be released soon. However, if you're sticking with CS6, you've got to make sure to deselect on Win the esp key works great.

Photoshop CC Shape Layer Gradients Not the Same as CS6

I'm demo-ing Photoshop CC, and I came across an unexpected behavior when opening a CS6 PSD.
I have a shape layer that is composed of closed curves which use the path operation "Intersect Shape Areas." In CS6, I added a layer style with a tight gradient that is vertically positioned to show a certain part of the gradient, and the gradient seems to be confined to only the visible intersection of the paths.
In CC, however, the gradient seems to be applied to the entire region of the paths, and not just the intersection - as if there were no path operation performed. Here's an image to show what I mean:
The only way I could reproduce the desired effect in CC was to merge the shape components. But, I'd rather be able to keep the shapes editable at a boolean level.
Is there some setting that I'm missing?

I don't want to just start a new thread with the same topic so thought I would tag onto this one.
The behaviour described by K_SEREBY is something which I am also experiencing, and for me is a bit of a deal breaker. For files opened in CC which were created in an earlier version gradient fills/ styles on shape layers do not appear the same.
The only way to have them appear the same is to do as K_SEREBY says and "merge shape components", which is a completely destructive way of working.
It isn't something which is consistent either across Layer Styles, gradients behave as described, whereas inner glow, inner shadow and stroke for example all work as they did before, taking into account shape interaction.
Having said that using the stroke feature of vectors available on the top bar again works differently as shown in the below image. On the left the result of 3 interacting vector shapes with a vector stroke - no stroke visible. On the right the same shape with the same stroke effect but after merge shape components has been done - vector stroke visible.
It's all very confusing and not very pleasant to use, is there a work around? The video linked doesn't shed any light on the problem at hand, only highlighting something else which doesn't even show up for me when a shape is selected i.e. Live Vector Properties, but that is another story.

How can I feather the vector mask (path) of a shape layer in CS6?

How can I feather the vector mask, i.e. path of a shape layer in CS6?
The corresponding slider in the properties pallette is alway grayed out and unmovable for me when dealing with shape layers. Is there a trick to it, or ist it really not possible at all? (In CS5 you can feather any vector mask via the mask pallette, although the mask's behavior is most of the times quiet buggy after doing so.)
Or is there any other way to non-destructably blur a shape in CS6? (I know I can create a smart object and use a blur filter on it, but that's not really what i'm after.)
Thanks in advance for any help on this.
Reiz

Start from the beginning
- Select the Rectangle Tool - go to Options Bar, ensure 'Shape' options is on from the the Pick a Tool Mode drop down list.
- Draw Rect. This should create a vector Shape Layer.
- Select it in the Layers Panel: The Properties Panel then should highlight the Density and Feather options.
What happens here when you drag the Feather slider? On my end it feathers the vector shape as a whole.
If you need further masking capabilities, then apply a Layer Mask to the Shape and proceed with the Properties Panel Density/Feather options.
h

Create Shape Layer with Script in After Effects

I wrote a simple script for After Effects and it works well but there is a weird problem.
My script creates a shape layer which includes group, ellipse path, stroke and fill. Why does the "Group 1" have "Material Options: Group 1" property group? It's empty and it disappers when I click on its eyeball button. I don't want to display the property group. It seems like this problem doesn't happen on CS5.
Are there any solutions to avoid this? Is this a AE CC bug?
OS: Windows8.1
After Effects: version 12.2.1.5
Here's my script code.
app.beginUndoGroup("Add new shape layer");
var curComp = app.project.activeItem;
if(curComp){ var shapeLayer = curComp.layers.addShape();
var shapeGroup = shapeLayer.property("Contents").addProperty("ADBE Vector Group");
shapeGroup.property("Contents").addProperty("ADBE Vector Shape - Ellipse");
shapeGroup.property("Contents").addProperty("ADBE Vector Graphic - Stroke");
shapeGroup.property("Contents").addProperty("ADBE Vector Graphic - Fill");
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Just ran a quick test on MAC:
AE CS3, CS4, CS5 don't produce that Material Options
AE CS6 & CC have Material Options, but they dissapear once toggle eye icon.

Shape Layer to 3D Text Effect

Hey guys,
I'm trying to figure out if there is a way that I can create a shape layer to and give it the 3D text effect. To further explain, I created some text in Photoshop, but for it to be stylized, I did it with the pen tool so my words are shape layers instead of text layers. Im also using CS6 normal and not extended, so I don't have that 3D option at the top. If there is a method for this, I would greatly appreciate the help. Thank you!
Examples of what I'm going for:
http://maxcdn.photoshoplady.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Clean-3D-Text-Effect-Creation-u sing-CS6-L.png
http://vanimg.s3.amazonaws.com/0613-text-15.jpg

I didn't look at your example until after I made the demo image, but you could work it to produce that effect.
What we used to make 3D text before we had Photoshop 3D tools, was Free Transform Step & Repeat. You'll find a bunch of tutorials if you look, but basically:
Make your front shape, make a copy and rasterize the copy. Hide the Shape because you don't need it any more.
Copy your rasterized shape layer.
Free Transform the copy, and use the size and movement values in the options bar. For my demo I moved it up a couple of pixels, and resized to 98% horizontally and vertically.
Hold down Shift Alt Ctrl (Shift Opt Cmd) and keep hitting the t key until you have sufficient depth. You end up with a lot of layers. My size and movement was a bit course, which you can see from the jaggies on the bottom left of the '3' character.
Select all the 3D layers, and go Layers > Arrange > reverse (you just want to bring your initial layer to the top of the stack.
Select all the other 3D layers and merge them
Give the initial layer a different colour or tone.
You'll want to add some shading, so make a new layer above the merged layers, Ctrl click the merged layers to load the selection, and add a layer mask to the new layer (called shading in my image)
Unlink the layer mask. This is so we can blur our shading without bleeding past the text boundries.
I prefer to paint in the shading because you can blur and adjust opacity. Paint it in with a hard brush for accuracy, and use a LOT of blur (Gaussian 10)
You might need multiple layers and selections to control the different faces, but I just finished off with the Dodge tool.
Having the front face and body on different layers, means you can mess about with layer styles, or colorize with a hue/saturation layer.
A bit more dodge and burn with some careful masking and perhaps a curves layer set to luminosity... You have the building blocks and can keep adding to them.

Live shape layer properties illustrator cc is missing

Dear Sir live shape layer properties illustrator cc is missing advice me Thanks

asim,
If no one gives a good reason and a way to conjure up the missing bits, you may start looking at the general list below (and hope you will not need to go too far down that dark road).
The following is a general list of things you may try when the issue is not in a specific file (you may have tried/done some of them already); 1) and 2) are the easy ones for temporary strangenesses, and 3) and 4) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt preferences):
1) Close down Illy and open again;
2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to 3 times);
3) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);
4) Move the folder (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible);
5) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (follow the link with that name, Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, Item 15) applies to CC, CS6, and maybe CS5);
Even more seriously, you may:
6) Uninstall, run the Cleaner Tool (if you have CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6/CC), and reinstall.
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

Shape layer render bug?

I'm running into what appears to be a frustrating little bug related to the way shape layers are rendered.
Basically, I'm trying to rotate a shape layer that contains a circle shape. I'm using the rotation property of the layer itself (not the shape group) to make parenting work with other layers in my comp. The same bug occurs if I use the shape group transform properties anyway, however.
Am I missing something caused by the render order of shape layers, or is this a true bug? Test it yourself using this project file, you should see the top of the Circle get clipped off at frame 14, then rise back to the bounds of the comp over the next few frames. (Hope Dropbox links are allowed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ovgbke3f7htmx03/ShapeLayerError.aep)
The reason I think this is probably a bug is that it only does this when viewing at Full or Half resolution. Third and Quarter and below display fine. And it's not just a viewer bug, because it renders out that way at full res also.
Any help would be appreciated! I'm running the latest After Effects CS5.5 Version 10.5.0.253 on Mac. I'll also try to test this in CS6 to see if it's still there.

Changing the scale, changing the rotation, changing the position, litterally changing just about any value by a large enough value fixes the problem. Changing any of these values by a smaller value changes the time where the glitch shows up. A very odd bug.

Shape Layer not showing up in my .swf file.

Hello All,
I was working on creating a banner that I export as a .swf file and I tried to create a rounded rectangle with only the stroke showing up so it then the banner would appear to have rounded corners on the website. After I exported the file to a .swf I noticed that the rounded rectangle shape layer I had in my project did not show up. Can anyone help me figure out why?
Here is a screen shot of the banner with a grey outline shape layer. Its there with 100% opacity and everything.
And here is what the .swf looks like. (see no outline?!)
If anyone knows how to make my shape layer appear here that would be fantastic.
Oh and just in case here are the export options I choose. File > Export > Adobe Flash (.swf)...

I gave the a try and noticed that the color quality of the other elements in my banner. (colored text) had poor .jpg quality even when I upped the .jpg quality. Do you have any recommendations on how I can rasterize my border? Ill jump into illustrator or photoshop and play around with some files and them import them to see if I can find a work around...
see crummy color quality that text was suppose to be a nice dark blue.

Is there a way to gather all shape layer and all text layers?

Hi -
I have 250 multi-layered PSD (CS5/Win) files. Each file shows 2 views of a product. Parts of the product are labels (Text layers with different words). Then Shape layer arrows point from the label Text to the specific point on the product.

Does this help?
// move text and solid fill layers to newly created folder;
// 2011, use it at your own risk;
#target photoshop
if (app.documents.length > 0) {
          var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
          var theSet = myDocument.layerSets.add();
          theSet.name = "Labels and Arrows";
          var theLayers = moveLayers(app.activeDocument, theSet);
////// function to move certain layers //////
function moveLayers (theParent, theSet) {
          if (!allLayers) {var allLayers = new Array}
          else {};
          for (var m = theParent.layers.length - 1; m >= 0;m--) {
                    var theLayer = theParent.layers[m];
// apply the function to layersets;
                    if (theLayer.typename == "ArtLayer") {
                              if (theLayer.kind == "LayerKind.TEXT" || theLayer.kind == "LayerKind.SOLIDFILL") {
                                        alert (theLayer);
                                        theLayer.move(theSet, ElementPlacement.PLACEATBEGINNING)
                    else {
                              if (theLayer != theSet) {
                                        moveLayers(theLayer, theSet)

Shape layer questions

I’m a web designer that’s used to using Illustrator for all my work. Recently many of my new jobs want me to work in Photoshop, so I’m getting back up to speed with it. I have a few nagging issues that I haven’t been able to figure out:
With the direct selection tool, how do I select a small shape that’s overlapping a larger shape? For example, a small line on top of a large rectangle. When I try to do this Photoshop automatically makes me select the larger shape in the background. I have to zoom in super close and individually shift-select each corner of the smaller shape before I can move/transform/whatever it. This gets tedious and slow real fast!
Recently in a document I’m working in, whenver I make a new shape it automatically adds a bunch of layer styles like drop shadow, stroke, etc. These styles aren’t turned on, but it adds unecessary styles to my layers and my client is very strict about recieving only super clean .psd’s.
How do I make a line that is truly 1px stoke width? My lines seem to always start out as fuzzy 2px worms until I zoom in and surgically make them 1px. Again, what a waste of time! is there some sort of antialiasing setting that I need to turn off?
Thanks!

1. With smaller shapes that are difficult to select, try selecting their layer first. If you are not sure which layer, switch to the Move tool (V), hold Ctrl and click on the small shape. With the default behavior in Photoshop you should be able to select the layer and then use the Direct selection tool to select points on the vector path of the small shape. If you want to just move the entire shape when its the only path on a layer, aside form using the Path Selection tool (black arrow), you can just use the Move tool (V) to change the position of the layer. If you have to deal with a lot of shape layers that you just want to click and move, enable the Auto Select for the Move tool in the Properties bar. Then holding Ctrl while using the tool will toggle to its non - Auto Select mode.
2.On the Tool's property bar under the main menu, make sure the chain button is not pressed then click on the Style swatch or arrow to the right of the chain button to open the style swatch popup and from its menu there choose No Style. Next shape layer you make will not have the current style automatically applied.
3. I'm using CS5 on a pc and creating 1 px straight line with the Line tool is buggy with its alignment to grid. The Line Tool draws lines in Shape mode as rectangle vector paths. The difference between the Rectangle Tool and the Line tool is that the Line tool aside from having a Weight attribute, it draws the rectangles starting from the middle if its side. In order to snap it to grid you have to set the grid in the settings to Gridline every 1 pix and Subdivisions 2. If properly working this is supposed to solve your problem if you enable snap to grid and draw your lines starting in the middle of a pixel. The problem is that this doesn't work properly with the Line Tool which does not snap perfectly to the grid. The work around is to draw your lines with the Line Tool in Fill Pixels mode which has an Anti-aliasing option that you can turn off.
Another alternative for drawing lines on raster layers without anti-aliasing is to use the Pencil tool and hold Shift while dragging with it. The Pencil Tool in Photoshop is the same as the Brush tool but without anti-aliasing. I think more proper name would be non - anti-alised brush.

Is it possible to access to the path property of a shape layer by AEGP API?

Hi everyone! I recently started depeloping AE plug-in and trying to access to the path of shapes on the layer from AEGP API. Sorry in advance if my question has been already asked by someone before, but I couldn't find exact answer to my question so let me ask.
In a composition, I have a shape layer and the shape layer has a vector shape depicted by the pen tool. The constitution of the layer looks like below.
Apparently, those streams of the layer like Anchor Point, Position, and Scale can be accessed by AEGP_GetNewLayerStream. However, I have no idea how I can get the pointer to the Shape 1 and get the Path from it because the these valuse are not categolized into any AEGP_LayerStream types.
Very similar question was asked in the following link and the it was advised to use MaskOutlineSuite, PathQuerySuite, and PathDataSuite, although these suites are for making effect plugins, not for AEGP plugins, so I am not sure if they can be used here.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1068528
So would someone kindly enlighten me about this??
Thank you very much.

hi hagmas! welcome to the forum, where there are plenty of existing answers
but never for exactly what you seek.
first off, every suite who's functions name start with AEGP, were actually
created for AEGP's plug-ins use, but most of them (including the suites you
mentioned) can also be used in effects. (and not as you thought, the other
way around)
the shape layer's stream indeed are not indexed, and that's because then
are added dynamically by the user and can be re-ordered.
look into the "dynamic stream suite", using which, you'll get the first
stream of the shape layer, and start navigating though there by getting the
stream name, type, parent group ect...
you'll eventually find the "content" group, and in it the "shape" groups,
and in them the... you get the picture.
yes, it's somewhat tedious, but since nothing in these gourps order is
pre-determined or guaranteed, there's no other way to go (that i know of).

Can't rotate individual letters in a text shapes layer

So I created some text in After Effects and converted them to shape objects. I can do X, Y, and Z rotation on the whole phrase but not on the individual letters. Is there any way to fix this?

You will have to move each shape layer to a new layer so you can use the layer rather than the shape transform controls. Shape transforms are only X and Y. Unfortunately there is no automatic way to 'release to layers' as there is in Illustrator. You have to cut (ctrl/cmnd + x), create a new shape layer (sorry no keyboard shortcut), and paste (ctrl/alt + v).

Transparent Background - shape layer?

CS4
So I have this great little shape and I want to save it as a jpeg with a transparent background so that IE will show a gradient around it. However, IE is showing only a white background around the shape. My the thumbnail in the shape layer is also white (not the vector mask's thumbnail). How can I export this shape to jpeg and have a transparent background that IE understands?
TIA.

Thank you Bart. As is typical, I was confused and had the features of jpeg and gif confused.
I'm curious though, why do you say "gif preferred"? At least in IE7 both file type are displayed with transparent background. However, the PNG is noticeably sharper. Is the issue just the increase file size?
(FYI: for anyone reading this that may have the same issue. When I first created a GIF instead of the JPEG as Bart said to do, I still did not see the shape displayed with a transparent background - or at least I didn't think I did. The issue was with my CSS. My header div loads a graphic as a background image. The logo was in a logo style class, again as a background, that was assigned to a div that was a descendent. I had assumed that the logo was going to load "above" the header graphic in the Z order. That didn't happen. So what I was seeing was the white background of the browser and not a white background of the logo image. FWIW.)

Strange problem undoing a shape layer move in Photoshop CS5

Hi. I have a strange recurring problem in Photoshop CS5. Basically, it manifests like this:
I have a shape layer, or several shape layers. I will move the shape with the move tool (usually via holding Ctrl, depending upon which tool is selected). If I then use undo or step backward, the image does not revert properly. It's like there is a discrepancy between the position of the layer mask and what is displayed on screen. Clicking on the vector mask of the shape layer to reveal its outline shows that the shape is where it should be (i.e. in the position it was originally), but the element of the image it represents is somewhere else. Sometimes, if I move a group of such shape layers, the problem seems to affect some of them but not all. Once so far, I have managed to rectify the problem by simply turning off an unrelated layer and turning it on again! Very strange.
It's a difficult problem to deal with, because it doesn't happen every time. And when it does, it's a case of reverting to a previous save. Luckily I save reasonably often, but it's still an annoying thing to deal with.
Hope I've described it well enough to understand. Any ideas?
I'm using CS5 12.0.4. Windows 7 64-bit. Intel i5 2300. Integrated HD2000 graphics with latest drivers.

I realise I seem to be talking to myself here (perhaps no-one's still using CS5 here, plus it's a fairly specific problem), but I have discovered a factor that makes for repeatable demonstration of this behaviour.
It appears that the problem I'm having is related to using feathering on vector masks. Create a shape with the pen tool, add an amount of 'feather' in the mask options panel, use the move tool to move the shape and then undo. This displays the problem I'm seeing where the image is not refreshed. I have at least found a way to workaround the issue for now. Simply changing the feathering amount updates the image to how it should be.
I'm glad that I can at least continue to use CS5, because I'm totally content with its functionality for my uses, and an upgrade seemed overkill (not to mention having to adjust to the changes made in CS6+ versions).
Perhaps there is still a cure for this bug somewhere. I will keep looking, and update this thread if I find it, in the hope that it may help someone else out there with the same problem.

My CS6 Shape Layer thumbs are weird

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