Making divider lines in Photoshop
Here’s another quick tip I use for making dotted or solid lines in Photoshop. When you need divider lines that are equally spaced for side navigation or tables, try using a text box with a lot of period’s or underscores instead of individual layers. It makes it easy to keep the divider lines equally spaced, and also makes it easy to adjust them later on just by changing the leading.
If you just need a single dotted line, just use a pixel font and set the anti-aliasing to “none”.
Comments
haha nice, I do the same thing! I’ve turned a bunch of people onto it too… back in the day I thought it was just something stupid I did because I didn’t know how to do it the REAL way.
@DRoss: You missed the point.
I do the same thing. I also use – or _ a lot as well. works good for me I guess. Glad to see I’m not the only one :)
I allways thought type tools to be a bit clunky.
I developped a different strategy:
create a 2×2px document and put 2 pixels of black accross it. Create a pattern of it.
Then, when you need spacer lines, you create a 1px high selection and fill it with white and then set the background pattern to the one created previously.
A benefit is that it is selectable, easily resizable, and you can pixel perfectly align it. ;)
nice tip Jesse, I´m gonna try this right now :)
Nice tip.
I bring up my Styles palette, load up the Dotted Strokes library and choose from there. I apply it to a line I create using the line tool.
Godam Edward, I didnt know about the styles. This is by far the simplest method. Thanks for sharing this.
I had no those were there Edward… nice tip!
I want to quote your post in my blog. It can?
And you et an account on Twitter?
Wow! Thanks Edward! I had no idea about those! More than 10 years on 5 different versions of photoshop, too!
I’ve been doing it that way for a long time, but manually! (Actually going into border > fill type > pattern…) Guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. :)
Another Kudos to Edward.
I normally use Jesse’s method. I think there’s room for both.
Very nice Blog, I will tell my friends about it.
Thanks
Wow nice find Edward!!! Upon further inspection, Edward’s find is actually just a stroke with a pattern of alternating dots imported and applied. Works great when not scaled to the layer’s size (which is turned ON by default,the result is very blurry) and on perfectly horiz/vertical planes.
! I’ve been using PS since version 5 and have never understood why Adobe doesn’t just take Illustrator’s dead simple dotted/dashed stroke and give it to Photoshop. When oh when will Adobe give us a solution that works on all shapes, etc!! It’s insane!
Also Jesse, I LOVE your method, in 10 years I’ve never thought of it! I will def start using it!
Thanks, I’ve tried so many laborious methods. Using text periods allows all sorts of advantages with size and spacing…
Help Wanted
Nice..for dotted lines I like to use a 1px pencil brush…go to brushes palette > brush tip shape > adjust spacing
Yours might be easier though.
DRoss - November 24, 2009