Photoshop

Warp an item

The Warp command lets you drag control points to manipulate the shape of images, shapes, or paths, and so on. You can also warp using a shape in the Warp Style pop‑up menu in the options bar. Shapes in the Warp Style pop‑up menu are also malleable; drag their control points.

When using the control points to distort an item, choosing View > Extras shows or hides the warp mesh and control points.

Using Warp

A.
Selecting the shape to be warped

B.
Choosing a warp from the Warp Style pop‑up menu in the options bar

C.
Result using several warp options

  1. Select what you want to warp.
  2. Do one of the following:

    • Choose Edit > Transform > Warp.

    • If you chose a different transform command or the Free Transform command, click the Switch Between Free Transform And Warp Modes button  in the options bar.

  3. Do one or more of the following:

    • To warp using a specific shape, choose a warp style from the Warp pop‑up menu in the options bar.

      Dragging a control point to warp the mesh

    • To the manipulate the shape, drag the control points, a segment of the bounding box or mesh, or an area within the mesh. When adjusting a curve, use the control point handles. This is similar to adjusting the handles in the curved segment of a vector graphic.
      To undo the last handle adjustment, choose Edit > Undo.
      Manipulating the shape of a warp

      A.
      Original warp mesh

      B.
      Adjusting the handles, mesh segments, and areas within the mesh

    • To change the orientation of a warp style that you chose from the Warp menu, click the Change The Warp Orientation button  in the options bar.

    • To change the reference point, click a square on the Reference point locator  in the options bar.

    • To specify the amount of warp using numeric values, enter the values in the Bend (set bend), X (set horizontal distortion) and Y (set vertical distortion) text boxes in the options bar. You can’t enter numeric values if you have chosen None or Custom from the Warp Style pop‑up menu.

  4. Do one of the following:

    • Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS), or click the Commit button  in the options bar.

    • To cancel the transformation, press Esc or click the Cancel button  in the options bar.

    Important: When you warp a bitmap image (versus a shape or path), the image becomes slightly less sharp each time you commit a transformation; therefore, performing multiple commands before applying the cumulative transformation is preferable to applying each transformation separately.