Buffalo Bills Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Question. Is there a way to create a tool the will draw a dash line? Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmoron13 Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 using illustrator, create a vector line and the apply a dash modifier under the strokes menu. You can assign how large the ticks, spaces and intervals are. hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 You could do it in InDesign as well... but I'm not aware of any way in PS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bully712 Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Well if the lines are vertical and horizontal, draw the line then use the erase tool with a 200% spacing. Angled lines you just have to eyeball it. Now that's what I usually do, but if it's more than a simple dashed line, then it would be more difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 aye. we eyeball it with the eraser tool here too. does anyone know of a plugin out there available for this maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bills Posted November 30, 2005 Author Share Posted November 30, 2005 Thanks guys, I've used the Illustator technique before. And I've done the erasing as well. too many lines for me to justify erasing. I was hoping there was another way. I guess Illustrator would be the quickest way for now. You would think the photoshop team would have figured out a way already, since it can come up with all kinds of other tools that quite frankly would never be used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbarc Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Use a hard-edged rectangular brush, set a wide spacing percentage, and turn off airbrush then paint with shift held down to create a straight evenly dashed line. That should give you what you're after.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bills Posted November 30, 2005 Author Share Posted November 30, 2005 I will have to give that a try. I'll get back to on this. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 aye, straight horiz or vertical dashed lines are easy peezy, but how about curved areas purely in photoshop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbarc Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 aye, straight horiz or vertical dashed lines are easy peezy, but how about curved areas purely in photoshop? Haven't got a clue. I keep meaning to look deeper into what brushes can do in PS - all those dynamic settings. I bet you could do something.. Actually what I normally do for cruvy or perspective road lines is make a continuous spline in Max, render it, then delete bits out by eye in PS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Thanks guys, I've used the Illustator technique before. And I've done the erasing as well. too many lines for me to justify erasing. I was hoping there was another way. I guess Illustrator would be the quickest way for now. You would think the photoshop team would have figured out a way already, since it can come up with all kinds of other tools that quite frankly would never be used. ...i am not sure how you work in illustrator, but if keeping you file in photoshop is important, you can make the line in illustrator, then copy and paste it into photoshop. i doubt photoshop will ever have this feature. it is part of the way adobe works. why offer that in ophotoshop, when you can buy illustrator in addition to photoshop to do it. more money in adobe's pocket. with cs2 (may be ealier as well) you can work in a PDF format, and open, and modify the file in both illustrator and photoshop. never actually doen it myself, but i know you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bills Posted November 30, 2005 Author Share Posted November 30, 2005 Travis, That makes sense probably why Adobe hasn't made that option availbale for PS. I Have PS 7 here in the office. I can work with pdf files both in Ilustrator and PS. That actually works the best. The reason why I was asking whether PS makes dash lines is because I have a co worker that does not have Illus at his desk so he was looking for PS answer. Otherwise if I had time I would do it for him. dbarc, I tried to create the example you mentioned, but can't get it to work properly. is your brush created in CS or CS2? I only have PS7 here. Unless I'm doing something wrong I created a brushed that makes a dash line (rough) with a thin line that goes in between the dashes. Can you elaborate a little more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbarc Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 Can you elaborate a little more. I'll try. I am using CS and having a crap memory for these things can't remember quite how it was in 7. - on a black background, create a rectangular marquee the size and shape you want the dash (you will be able to resize this later with [ and ]. - turn off airbrush (icon over the work area??) - in the brush settings tick on 'spacing' and play around with the percentage to get the gap you want and if anything else is on in there turn it off With any luck that's it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Alexander Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 Personally, vector based app that creates dashed lines.....much easier. However.... in PS take advantage of the mask. Why? You can erase your dashed line mistakes, without changing the original lines and/or use a Path type line or shift draw to create the dashes. Either way you have totally anal control-as sometimes required for drafting look. A quick run down on the process *Put your 'lines' on sperate layers if at all possible *Create a new layer *Paint your dashes using full black, what ever brush/pencil that trips your trigger *If you have many ortho lines -Paint a striaght line using the shift ket to constrain or use the 'line tool' -With the move tool and this layer selected, 'alt-drag' to copy and move the new layer to an appropriate position - at any time link the dash layers and merge (Layers>merge linked - cntrl-e)) until or after all the painted dashes are in place *Turn off the actual line layers, leaving only the painted dash layers on *Move to the channels tab *drag any "r" or "g" or "b" layer onto the circle icon-load channel as selection *Back in the layers tab, unhide the 'lines' layer and make it current/selcted *Click on the circle in rectangle icon (add layers mask) *Turn off the 'dashed' layer * Viola---dashed lines *To make adjustments, changes or just full out paint new dashes, select the layer mask and paint with full black to mask the 'lines' or full white to unmask the dashes not desired. ***Note if you use the 'line' tool, you will need to right click on the layers and "rasterize" or link and layer merge to convert from vector (paths) to raster (pixel). Prior to rasterizing you can move the pionts around and thus the lines for the 'dash mask' if you'd find that helpful LOL yeah sounds like quite a process, but going through the history or trying to paint lines fixing them, not my cup of tea. TOO MUCH like using the old fashioned eraser templates....arrrrgggggg thought all this computer stuff was supoosed to elimate that...ahhh "stuff" hehehe Hope it's of some use WDA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 I'm actually surprised there is as much overlap between adobe aps as there is right now. I don't think they will ever have such illustration tools in PS, or multiple pages in illustrator, or clone stamp in InDesign, etc... You get the idea. What I do is simply open the .psd file in Illustrator draw my lines and then save it back to a PSD file and just keep the layers that have the line work it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bills Posted December 1, 2005 Author Share Posted December 1, 2005 Okay guys, Someone sent over this link on creating dashed lines, which is very cool. The only draw back is you can set up the brush for dashed lines, but you limited to which direction you set it up to do, unless you go back into the parameters to change the direction you need to go. If you try this link you'll see what I mean. Let me know what you think! http://www.planetphotoshop.com/tutorials/PeteBauer72.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbarc Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 That's sort of what I was trying to explain but looking back at what I wrote, I completely missed out the rather important bit about defining the brush. So it was gobbledeecook. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesTaylor Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 In CS you can write text along a path - so create a path using the pen tool, then hover the text tool over the path, notice the icon change, click and then just type a series of dashes - - - ! its a bit crude but obviuosly you can then use the font size / kerning / line spacing settings to tweak the look. otherwise as already suggested eps out of CAD or render from max, import from illustrator etc. Sorry Micheal, don't think it helps you as i'm not sure it was possible in v.7 just thought it was worth adding as a suggestion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted December 1, 2005 Share Posted December 1, 2005 In CS you can write text along a path - so create a path using the pen tool, then hover the text tool over the path, notice the icon change, click and then just type a series of dashes - - - ! its a bit crude but obviuosly you can then use the font size / kerning / line spacing settings to tweak the look. Now that's thinking out of the box! Great idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Now that's thinking out of the box! Great idea! agree. ..good tip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
titoqan Posted December 19, 2005 Share Posted December 19, 2005 What I do to create a dashed line is 1. Create the path with the pen tool 2. Stoke the path with the pencil 3. Change to the eraser and adjust the spacing under the brush setings 4. Stroke the path again with the eraser. You may need to play with the spacing and size of the eraser but works. The great thing with paths is that you can adjust the path and make it as smooth or angled as needed. The draw back is that if you need to change the path you will need to do the steps again so it is best to do it on its own layer My two cents Titoqan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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