Photoshop - Achieving Perfect Rounded Corners

[Iggy]

Interesting read for you artists out there concerning how to achieve perfect rounded corners in photoshop....head to the Rounded Rectangle section so see different methods used and comparison of each: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/02/07/mastering-photoshop-noise-textures-gradients-and-rounded-rectangles/

[dark13]

A little suggestion while working with vector masks that has very little coverage in many tutorials:

The biggest flaw in photoshop is you cant' combine 2 vector mask (many knows them as "shapes" ) on 2 separate layers. Well... actually you can combine them and use booleans operator on them.

1- Select layer 1 and click on its shape (vector mask) with selection tool to hilight path and copy it (ctrl+c) . Alternatively you can select every point and copy it (ctrl+c)

2- Select layer 2 and hilight its path with selection tool or select every points if you're working with points. Paste (crtl+v) the previously copied path/points.

If you're gonna use boleans operator be sure to have a single path in your vector mask/shape. A vector mask/shape can contain more than a single path in photoshop, to use booleans operator with it (use selection tool) you obviously need to have only 2 path in your vector mask or photoshop will have problems to understand what are you exactly trying to subtract/add/intersecate/etc. To join 2 path in your vector mask select it with selection tools and press "join" on the top panel that will appear when 2 path on the same vector mask are selected (it may be "combine", my PS is in italian).

In the same flavour you can ctrl+c/ctrl+v paths from illustrator to photoshop and from photoshop to illustrator and have the very best of the two worlds

Ah... there is a way to circumvent crazy pixe per pixel shapes/vector masks in photoshop. If you create a shape that has a line between a single pixel instead of use moving tool (that will move the path per pixel basis) simply use "scale" and align it on pixel's end moving it. Useful when building a single path using multiples shapes

[THK]

You can also combine shape layers, turn the path it into a selection and whilst the selection is there, add a layer mask to the designated layer, done.