How To Load and Use Custom Shapes In Photoshop?

In this post, we'll see how to load and use Custom Shapes in Photoshop. But before we do, let us understand what are Custom Shapes. Custom Shapes are Photoshop files with a .csh extension and are vector based shapes that are re-usable in Photoshop. Photoshop comes with some default shapes in but are not adequate sometimes and we may need more. Or you may want to save your work as a Custom Shape so that you can use it later. You can create Photoshop Custom Shapes, or download from the internet and use it in your work.

In the video below, see how to load and use custom shapes in Photoshop:

How to load custom shapes in Photoshop?


In the example below, we will download custom shapes from the internet and use it in Photoshop. Find and download Photoshop Custom Shapes here. Usually the .CSH would be in a zip file. So you would need to extract it. The extracted folder will contain a file with a .CSH extension.

Steps to import custom shapes in Photoshop:

• Click on Photoshop’s custom shapes tool or press“U” to go to the drawing tools.
• Right-click on the drawing tools and click "Custom Shape Tool".
• In the top bar, just below the menu, look for the shape thumbnail, and click on the small arrow to right.A window that pops up shows the currently loaded shapes.
• To load shapes, click on the small arrow on the upper right corner of that window and click "load shapes".
• A File Explorer window pops out.
• Find the downloaded and extracted .CSH file and click OK.
• Photoshop may ask if you would like to replace the loaded shapes or append to it. You may should whatever suit your needs.
• After the custom shapes are loaded, just click on any shape you want t use and draw on the canvas by click-dragging the mouse.