Use these steps to draw a line in Photoshop.
- Open the image in Photoshop.
- Click the “Brush” tool in the toolbox.
- Click where you want the line to start.
- Hold down the “Shift” key on your keyboard, then click at the desired end point.
These steps are repeated below with pictures and additional information.
Photoshop provides you with a large selection of tools that you can use to edit pictures that you have opened in the application. Whether it’s a picture that you took yourself with a camera, or one that you got from someone else, Photoshop makes it easy to crop the picture, change its dimensions, or perform a number of different adjustments to improve the look of the image.
But Photoshop also has a lot of tools that help you add new objects to that image, such as a line. In our tutorial below we will discuss how to draw a line in Photoshop using the Brush tool.
How to Draw Lines With Photoshop’s Brush Tool
The steps in this article were performed in Adobe Photoshop CC, version 20.0.1, but these steps are nearly identical in almost every other version of Photoshop.
Step 1: Open your image in Photoshop.
Step 2: Select the Brush tool from the toolbox at the left side of the window. Note that you can also simply press the “B” key on your keyboard while in Photoshop to automatically switch to this tool.

Step 3a (drawing a horizontal line): Hold down the Shift key, click at the desired starting point and hold down your mouse button, then drag it to create the horizontal line. Note that this will also work for vertical lines, you just need to drag your mouse down or up instead of left or right.

Step 3b (drawing a straight, non-horizontal line): Click at the desired starting point, release the mouse button, hold down the Shift key, then click at the desired endpoint for the line.

You can adjust the color of the line by clicking on the color swatch before drawing the line, then choosing the desired color.

You can adjust the shape and size of the brush using the options in the toolbar above the canvas.

Frequently Asked Questions
By using the brush tool, clicking the line start point, then holding the Shift key and clicking the line end point you will be able to create a straight line in Photoshop.
You can find the “Line” tool in Photoshop by clicking and holding on the shape tool in the toolbox, then selecting the Line Tool option.
Often it can be most helpful to create a new layer whenever you create a new object, like a line. Click the “Create New Layer” button at the bottom of the “Layers” panel to add a new layer. It looks like a sheet of paper with its corner turned up.
Is there a text later in your Photoshop file that is incorrect, or needs updating? Find out how to edit text in Photoshop and change a text layer that you had previously created.
See also
- How to flip a layer in Photoshop
- How to underline text in Photoshop
- How to create a speech bubble in Photoshop
- How to change text font in Photoshop
- How to change the color of a selection in Photoshop
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