In order to help familiarize yourself with the pen tool, I’m goingto take you through a series of examples that will show you how to drawand create some custom shapes.
To begin, Create a New Document (I’m using 284×284 in my example, with default Photoshop Preferences).
Next, let’s enable the Grid. Go to View > Show > Grid, or Ctrl + ‘. Also Enable Snap 
(View > Snap, or “Shift + Ctrl + ;“.

We enable grid + snapping so that when we draw using the pen tool,we can easily make precise shapes, and curves with little effort.
Now select your Pen Tool from the toolbar, and set it up to work on Shape Layers in the Options Bar.

Select a foreground color of your choice.
Drawing with the pen tool is easy. Simply position your cursor where you’d like to begin drawing, and click to create your first anchor point.Subsequent anchor points will all be connected to the last point drawn,allowing you to create custom shapes. To complete a shape, click thefirst anchor point.
Go ahead an try it. See what you can create using basic anchor points. I managed to make a very primitive star.

That’s simple enough, right?
Drawing Curves with the Pen Tool
You may have already noticed that something interesting when drawingcurves, and dragging after clicking to create an anchor point. Thelines begin to curve!
Go ahead and try it. After creating an anchor point, hold down the mouse button and drag in the direction you want your line to curve.

If you follow the below layout, you should be able to create a primitive circle shape.

The curves characteristics are based on the length of thesedirection points, and at what angle they are drawn at. After some timepracticing with them, you should become more familiar with drawing morecomplex curves. It should also be noted that you can change anydirectional points with the pen tool by holding Ctrl, or Ctrl + Alt.
Example:

Example Shapes
Let’s take what we’ve learned so far, and apply it in some basicdesign. If you’re using the same sized document as I am (with defaultPhotoshop grid preferences), you should be able to Copy + Paste thesetemplates in your document, and follow my anchor points easily.
First let’s make a Rounded Rectangle. We already have a custom shape that does this, but sometimes designs call for modified rounded boxes of sorts.

The Rounded Rectangle Shape uses basic curves, and is very simple tocreate. With some slight modifications, we can make rectangles withonly 1, 2, or 3 of the corners rounded, while keeping the rest sharpcorners.
Here is another template that focuses on “S” shaped curves, as seen in frequency waves.

“S” curves are used all the time in more complex shapes. They are created by dragging the Directional Points of two sibling anchor points in the same direction.
For our last example, let’s make a “Pen Tool” custom shape!

See how easy it really is? With a little practice and imagination,you can literally design anything you wish with the pen tool.