Finally Figuring out the Pen Tools

You’ve been hearing about them. You’ve seen the Pen there in your Toolbox… mocking you. I know this, because that’s how it was for me. I put it off till I just had to learn about these things. So here we are!

By following this tutorial and completing these projects, you’ll be learning important facts about Paths in Photoshop, Vector artwork, and Shapes in PS. You’ll also learn how to make a Path and manipulate it using all of the Pen Tools.

The Pen can be used for many purposes. Here are a few:

  • Copying a Logo
  • Creating a Custom Shape
  • Making any Graphic Image
  • Creating a Font
  • Creating scalable vector artwork from a sketch
  • Making a mathematically pure selection

As you work through these projects, you’ll work with the following techniques and tools:

  • All of the Pen Tools
  • The Path Selection Arrow
  • The Direct Selection Tool
  • Making a Path
  • Manipulating a Path
  • Filling a Path
  • Stroking a Path
  • Making a Path into a Vector Mask

I. Making a decorative flourish. Yes, I realize that you can go online and find a million different decorative flourishes to enhance your designs. But let’s make one of our own.

A. Make a Sketch. To begin, make a new layer, and on it, draw just a sketch of a flourish.

Tip: I like to use a Brush that has Smoothing in its settings, just so that I can easily get a nice smooth curve. You can smooth it out even more, once we get going with the Pen. To get Smoothing to work, choose your Brush. Then go to Window > Brush Settings. Check the Smoothing box.

Sketch of a flourish. This is really two matching flourishes, if we want to be precise.

So here’s my flourish sketch. We will now make it precise and very smooth.

B. Drop Anchor Points to make a rough Path.

  • Use the Zoom tool to make it so that your sketch is taking up most of your PS window. You will want to see what you’re doing!
  • We’re now going to just drop Anchor Points around on the image. This is not random. You will want an Anchor Point wherever the line changes direction. And you can always add more or take away points if you need to later.
    • Choose your Pen Tool . In the Options Bar, choose Path.
    • Click around on your Flourish. Don’t try to drag. Just drop points as you travel around your flourish.

C. Smooth out the Path.

  • But it’s jagged and not at all smooth! Let’s fix that. We are going to make these segments into nice smooth curves, using Bezier Handles. Sounds far trickier than it is. Choose your Convert Point tool Click and drag it on one of your Anchor Points. You might get it going in the wrong direction and make the Path go wonky, but just keep dragging it to where you need it. The goal is to make your path (the blue line) follow your flourish sketch.
  • If you need to move an Anchor Point, grab the Direct Selection Arrow . Tip: You can get it quickly, when you’re in any other Pen Tool, by holding the Ctrl key.
  • Take your time and get your path the way you want it.

D. Stroke the Path.

This Path is not really a thing yet. It’s an idea — a concept that is not yet real. In order to actualize this idea, we need to convert this Path into pixels.

  • Turn off the visibility for your Sketch layer. You should be able to see just your Path in blue against a white background. (If you don’t see your Path, go to the Paths palette and see if it’s there and click it.)
  • Choose any Brush to try out your flourish. Set Spacing to 1 in your Brush Options (unless you want gaps).
  • Choose a color.
  • Make a new layer.
  • Go to your Paths Palette and click the Path to choose it.
  • Click the Stroke Path button at the bottom of the Paths Palette.

Your results will depend upon what sort of brush you use to stroke your flourish.

Digression: What if you want your path to be larger or smaller? This is a very special thing about paths: they are vector artwork. This means that you can enlarge or reduce them without any distortion or blurring. This is because a path is a mathematical definition of artwork. It is infinitely scalable until you fill it with pixels (or, in the case of a Shape layer, till you Layer > Rasterize).

To enlarge or reduce, rotate, flip, or skew, make your path active by clicking it in the Paths palette. Then to to Edit > Transform Path (or Free Transform Path). Drag the handles just as you do when transforming any object.

E. Duplicate the Path.

Now let’s make matching flourishes. We will do this by duplicating the PATH and not just duplicating the pixel layer we made. This will enable us to make a scalable vector graphic with matching flourishes and some text in between.

  • Be sure you’re working on a canvas that’s big enough for what you’re planning. Go to Image > Canvas Size, if you want to make you canvas bigger.
  • In the Paths palette, click your Path.
  • Choose the Path Selection Arrow .
  • Click the Path on the Canvas.
  • Hold the Alt key and you’ll see that your Arrow has a + next to it. Drag your new duplicated Path away from the first one.

F. Flip the Path. We want the second Path to be a mirror image of the first. So Ctrl-T. Then go to Edit > Transform Path > Flip Horizontal.

We can stroke these two Paths together. And we can stroke them multiple times!

II. A Fancy Letter.
Ok, so let’s do something like this, but, this time, we will use the Pen a little differently. For this exercise, we’ll use the Curvature Pen Tool . This one works a bit differently. Here’s how to proceed:

  • Make a new layer and do a sketch of your design on this layer.
When you place the third point, the curve begins to take shape.
Drag the Bezier Handles to reshape the curve.
  • Choose the Curvature Pen.
  • Click the tool at the beginning of the curved shape.
  • Click it again, where the curve changes direction. (So far it looks just like the path made with the regular pen tool above!)
  • Click to make the third point, again, where the path changes direction. And this time you get a curve!
  • It doesn’t match our sketch very well, but we will fix that. Go on and put in more Anchor Points.
  • Watch what happens when you drag the Curvature Pen tool instead of just clicking.
  • After you get all of your sketch traced out with the Curvature Pen, you can edit the Path. Choose the Direct Selection Tool and click-drag points to move them.
  • If your curve is off, click the Direct Selection Tool onto an Anchor Point and then Drag the Bezier Handles to reshape the curve.

Stroking the Path works the same way as it did above. Try some different brushes this time!

Tip: I just learned something new! If you want your Path to appear in a different color or thickness, say, for visibility while you’re editing, you can change these! Choose any Pen Tool or Shape Tool (with the Path Option). Click the Settings gear in the Options Bar. Change the color or thickness of your Path!

III. A feather and a flourish. So what do we do here? The outline of the feather is made up a combination of both curved and straight segments. There are many smooth points and many corner points.

Smooth points are the ones that are that anchor curved segments that flow from one to another. Corner points are sharply pointed, connecting either straight segments to curved, two straight segments, or two curved segments that are going in different directions.

For this, I’m going to proceed with the Pen Tool, but use it in a little different way.

  • Click the Pen Tool at any point on the edge of the image.
  • Look ahead. If the next point where you’re changing direction is a Smooth point, then you drag the Pen for the next point. If it’s a Corner Point, you just click the Pen there without dragging.

Suppose I’m going clockwise around this feather. I start at the tip. The next point is on a straight-looking (but not really straight) segment. I drag that one.

  • In the valley below, I will put my next point. It’s a corner, so I just click there.
  • Where my pen is positioned at the left, I will drag upwards. That will form my curved point.
  • At the tip, I’ll put my next point. Corner point. What do I do?
  • Continue in this way till you reach your starting point.
When you reach the starting point, your pen will get a little o beside it, as in this picture.

TIP: If you need another anchor for your Path, use the Add Anchor Point tool . If your path turns out a little jagged, you may have added an extra anchor point. Getting rid of extra points will smooth your path. To lose extra anchor points, use the Delete Anchor Point tool .

Next, let’s fill the Path!

  • Make a new layer.
  • Choose a color.
  • Go to the Paths Palette and click your Path.
  • Click the Fill Path button at the bottom of the Paths palette.

Ok, but suppose we want more flexibility. Let’s look at another way to “fill” the feather path:

  • Make a new layer. Fill it with anything you want.
  • In your Paths palette, click the Path.
  • Click Layer > Vector Mask > Current Path.
  • Now you can fill this layer with anything. Here, I’ve added a painted strip down through the middle of my feather.
My most stolen image. No need to steal; just make it yourself!

I have never found a use for the Freeform Pen tool . (I know how it’s supposed to be used, but I find it decidedly unhandy.) If you can offer a way to use it that is useful, I will put it here.

Thank you for doing my Pen Tool tutorial! I hope you picked up some knowledge and practice.

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