How To Make A Triangle In Photoshop

Unlike other shapes, learning how to make a triangle in Photoshop isn’t so obvious. There isn’t a dedicated ‘triangle tool,’ and you can’t find one in the custom shape options. At first, this might seem like a weird move on Photoshop’s part. That is until you understand the value of the Polygon Tool.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn everything you need to know about making triangles in Photoshop. From basic shapes to more advanced techniques, you’ll be a triangle master by the end of this lesson. Let’s get started!

How To Make A Solid Colored Triangle In Photoshop

To start off, let’s create the most basic version of a triangle.

First, grab your Polygon Tool from your shape tool menu. Click and hold on the shape tool icon in your toolbar to reveal the Polygon Tool.

With the Polygon Tool selected, look to your upper settings bar and change the sides to 3. 

Depending on what shape you want to create, you can input a different amount of sides. This is useful to remember is you need to create other polygons in the future!

– Picking A Fill Color For Your Triangle

Next, click on your stroke option found in the same upper settings bar.

Set your stroke color to transparent, represented by the white box with the red line.

Now it’s time to set your fill color. This setting will choose the color of your triangle. Don’t stress about selecting the perfect color right away; you can change it at any time!

Click on the color box to pick a new fill color.

To use a preset color swatch, click on any of the colors in this first menu.

If you’re looking to create a custom color fill, click the color picker icon in the top right corner.

A color picker box will appear where you can set any color you’d like. Simply click anywhere on the color palette to customize the color.

If you have a specific color, you can type in the HEX code in this box beside the color picker.

Once you’re happy with the color, click OK.

– Creating Your Triangle In Photoshop

Now that all of your settings are in order, it’s time to make a triangle!

Click and drag out on your canvas to create the triangle. By default, your triangle will rotate and scale freely.

If you’d like to place your triangle at a specific angle, hold the Shift key and move your mouse to rotate your shape in 45-degree increments.

Once happy with the positioning, let go of your mouse to create the shape.

And with that, you’ve just learned how to make a triangle in Photoshop!

Now let’s take things a little further.

How To Adjust The Height And Width Of A Triangle In Photoshop

Since there isn’t any way to do this while creating the shape, you’ll need to use a bit of a workaround. Fortunately, it’s extremely easy!

To start, grab your move tool by pressing V and select your triangle layer.

To change the height, hold Shift, and click and drag the top or bottom edge of the transform box.

If you’d like to change the width, hold Shift again, but click and drag the right or left edge of the transform box.

If you’d like to skew your triangle even further, there’s another useful keyboard command. Hold Command (Mac) or Control (PC) and click and drag any corner of the transform box to skew your triangle.

By skewing your triangle, you can create a ton of unique shapes!

How To Make A Triangle Outline

Now that you’ve mastered how to make a solid colored triangle in Photoshop let’s move onto creating triangle outlines. The process is mostly the same, but with a small twist. Here’s how it’s done.

Once again, grab your Polygon Tool from the shape tool menu.

Go up to the top settings bar and set the sides to 3.

This time, select the fill color option and change it to transparent. The transparent color is represented by the white box with the red line.

Next, click on the stroke color.

From here, you can choose a color from the preset swatches or create your own with the color picker.

Remember, whatever color you choose will be the color for your triangle outline. This can be changed later at any time.

Lastly, set your stroke radius to choose the thickness of your outline. If you aren’t sure, type in 35px in the radius bar.

With your color selected, click and drag out your new triangle shape like before.

This time, you’ll end up with an outline of your triangle.

– How To Create A Dashed Triangle Outline

Now let’s say you’d rather have a dashed or dotted outline of your triangle.

With all of your settings as before, select the stroke path type menu.

Here you can choose between a solid, dashed, or dotted stroke path. In this case, I’ll select the dashed outline option.

Now your stroke will automatically change to the new stroke path type!

Stroke and fill options can be combined however you’d like. If you want both colors to appear, pick both fill and stroke colors. That way you’ll end up with a result like this:

How To Make A Rounded Triangle In Photoshop

Now that you know how to make a basic triangle let’s get a bit fancier. This time, I’ll show you how to make a triangle with rounded edges.

Follow the same steps as before, choosing the Polygon Tool, create three sides, and set your fill and stroke colors.

Now before you create the triangle shape, you need to make one more adjustment.

With the Polygon Tool active, click on the gear icon to reveal your path options.

Check off Smooth Corners, Star, and Smooth Indents.

Set the indent sides option to 1%. This will give you straight edges to the triangle while only rounding the corners.

Click and drag out on your canvas to create your triangle.

Now the corners will be rounded without any of the technical ways commonly used for this effect.

If you’d like to create a triangle outline with rounded corners, follow these same steps but set the color fill to transparent!

How To Crop A Picture Into A Triangle

Instead of just creating a solid-colored triangle, you can use the Polygon Tool to crop a picture into a triangle shape. All it takes is a selection and a layer mask!

First, make a triangle in the size and shape you’d like to crop your image to. The positioning doesn’t matter, just the shape for now.

Next, you need to turn the triangle into a selection. Hold Command (Mac) or Control (PC) and click on the Polygon layer thumbnail.

Now a selection will be created based on the shape of your triangle.

With your selection active, select the image layer that you want to crop.

Click on the layer mask icon to create a layer mask and apply the selection.

Now that your photo is cropped into the shape of a triangle, you can delete the Polygon layer.

Depending on the photo, you might want to reposition it. Press the chain link icon between the image thumbnail and the layer mask.

Click on the image thumbnail to select it. Grab the Move Tool by pressing V and move your image as necessary.

Since it’s no longer linked to the layer mask, your photo can move independently.

Once you’re happy, press enter to commit to your changes.

Cropping images into shapes doesn’t take much; all you need is a shape and a selection! With the Command/Control shortcut, it’s easier than ever to turn your shapes into selections and crop your layers.

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How To Make A Triangle Text Box In Photoshop

Since we’re on the topic of triangles, let’s talk about how to write text in the shape of a triangle. Now I’ve already written about how to wrap text into shapes, but not yet triangles! So here’s how it’s done.

First, you need to make a triangle using the same methods you learned earlier (big surprise, I know).

The color and stroke don’t matter, but the shape and size of the triangle do. After all, the text will fit inside of the shape!

For this example, I’ll create a regular triangle with pointed edges. I’ll select the Polygon Tool, set the sides to 3, and pick any color (remember, the color doesn’t matter).

Now I’ll create a larger sized triangle to give ample room for the text.

Next, grab the Text Tool by pressing T.

Click inside of your triangle with the Text Tool to set the shape of your text.

Now your text will be written in the shape of your triangle!

From here, you can either delete the triangle shape layer or leave it as a colored background for the text.

The choice is yours!

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Conclusion

Now you know the ins and outs of how to make a triangle in Photoshop. Although not immediately obvious since there’s no ‘triangle tool,’ the Polygon Tool makes it easy. There are so many different ways you can make a triangle in Photoshop with a variety of colors and strokes. The opportunities are limitless, and now you’re ready to triangle up a storm.

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– Brendan 🙂