shapes along a path

[Guest]

Hello!

There's a collage to modify. There should be a line consisting of little arrows that indicate data flow between various sites.

I've created a custom shape and now tediously adding arrows one by one. Believe that should be an easy way to do so.

Feel like paths could be helpful, but can't really figure out how to use them into advantage.

Any ideas?

[davescm · Accepted solution]

One way

get your shape - make a marquee round it

Then Edit - Define Brush Preset

Then set the brush angle to be controlled by Direction

Adjust the spacing

Draw your path

Stroke the path with your brush

I hope that helps

Dave

[Guest]

Worked like a charm! Thank you!!

[davescm]

You're welcome

Dave

[Guest]

Playing further with the idea.

The goal is to make path stoke follow path changes.

Currently, when a path changes, I hide the old stoke, create a new level and move all effects onto it.

Is there a way to make stoke follow the path changes automatically without a new level hassle? (I may be asking too much)

[davescm]

I don't know a way to make the stroke follow the path change - however you can easily apply the layer styles to the new layer.

After you have stroked onto a new layer, right click the old layer and, in the layers panel, choose "Copy Layer Styles" then right click the new layer and "Paste Layer Styles". This will give the new layer the same style effects as the old.

Dave

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion! It speeds the things up.

May be there is another way (without paths) to achieve what I envision. Tack the cable (green) between objects in real time just to see how it fits without that gradual process of copy\paste layer styles on each path modification.

Or it could be that macros exist in Photoshop to make repetitive tasks happen almost instantly?

[davescm]

Yes "macros" exist. They are called actions and you can record them, play them back and assign keys to them. Not everything is recordable though.

Create actions in Adobe Photoshop

Dave

[Guest]

Thank you very much, Dave!

I've finally tried Actions.

Had to implement it in 3 steps.

1. Create a new layer Action.

2. Stroke the path Action.

3. Apply effects Action.

With the latest I kind of stuck. When recording I just click, drag and drop effects into a new layer.

When playing, though, I get the following message

Not a big deal (the most time consuming process is layer creation and path stroke) but still not perfect

[davescm]

It looks like you are trying to move the effects but they are not on the selected layer (note your second screenshot - layer 3 is selected)

Coincidently, I have just put in a feature request to add vector shapes to a path. You may wish to add comments or to "me too"

Attach shapes to a path - feature request | Photoshop Family Customer Community

Dave

[Guest]

You're right! Thanks, I've modified the action and now it works just fine!

Voted!