Subtract Front Shape Photoshop CS6

Question

I'm a beginner to photoshop but have grasped some basics from a ton of youtube videos, plus trial and error over countless hours!

I created a logo from a circle using the subract front tool.

Now when i try and use the command again it will not work for me.

I'm sure its something simple that's preventing it from working. I've tried faffing with paths, shapes and pixels but still have no luck.

On the screenshot, all i'm trying to acheive it cutting the ends of the blue lines into an angle to match the angle of the pink rectangles right hand edge. Once done, i'll remove the pink rectangle.

There is probally another way to do this but subract front shape i.e. the pink rectangle, is all i can think of.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance. Will

Answer 1

The simple way to do this is just to make a selection based on the top shape. If it's on a separate layer, just Ctrl+click on the layer icon in the layers panel.

Then select the layer of the shape you want to change and hit Delete to remove everything inside the selection you've just made.

Alternatively, a non-destructive way to do this would be to make the selection based on the top shape as described above, hit Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection, then, with the layer you want to modify selected, click the "Add Layer Mask" button at the bottom of the layers panel. This method will work with different types of layers, including smart objects and shapes, and won't actually delete any of the data.