Today, I’m going to demonstrate how you can play with paths/shapes and transform them to your liking.

Step 1

Open up Photoshop and create a new canvas. First thing to do is set up a grid so from the top menu click Edit -> Preferences -> Guides, Grids and Slices. For the grid field-set, add a grid line every 2 pixels with 4 subdivisions. Press Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe key) to display the grid.

Step 2

Zoom in to around 1200% and draw a circle. Hold shift while drawing, to maintain an equal width and height. Grab the path selection tool (A), select the circle path, copy it by pressing ctrl + c and paste it with ctrl + v, then move the duplicated shape horizontally (holding shift again).

Step 3

Now copy the two circles (drag to select them or hold shift and click each one), paste them and move them vertically down.

Step 4

Keep duplicating circles until you have an 8×8 grid or more. Then draw a larger circle filling the grid of circles, we will use this as a base for warping. You may want to reduce the opacity a little so you can differentiate between the grid of smaller circles and the larger circle.

Step 5

Now we warp our grid of circles. Make sure the right layer is selected and click on Edit -> Transform -> Warp. First drag the four corners in so that they touch the perimeter of the circle. Then the four sides, and finally make the centre square larger by dragging each corner outwards and there you have it! There’s plenty of fun to be had with vector shapes so give them a try.