Teach you easy to master PS Pen tool

How do you get the curves you want in Photoshop? How do I edit an existing path curve? With this kind of question, we invite the protagonist of this tutorial-pen tool. (This article takes the latest Photoshop7.0 as an example)

The Pen tool is located in the Photoshop Toolbox, the right mouse click Pen Tool button displays the 5 buttons that the Pen tool contains (as shown in the following illustration), which allows you to complete the preliminary drawing of the path by using these 5 buttons.

With the mouse right click on the button above the pen tool will appear two selection buttons (Figure 2), the two buttons combined with the front of the pen tool in the part of the button can be drawn after the path curve editing and modification to complete the path curve of the late adjustment work.

If the canvas is the stage of the pen tool, then the path palette is the background of the pen tool. The path curve is plotted in the path palette, and in the path palette we can see the name of each path curve and its thumbnail. (as shown in the following figure)

Let's take a closer look at these and path-related tools and palette usage.

　　One, pen tool

Select the Pen tool, and below the menu bar you can see the Pen tool's options bar. The pen tool has two creation modes: Creating a new shape layer and creating a new work path (Figure 4).

Create shape Layer Mode

Creating a shape layer pattern not only creates a new path in the path panel, but also a shape layer in the layers panel, so if you choose to create a new shape layer option, you can set the shape layer's style, blending mode, and opacity size before you create it.

Check the automatic Add/remove option to enable us to add or remove anchor points to the plotted path during the drawing path. Click a point on the path to add an anchor point at that point, click an existing anchor point to remove it, or right-click a point on the path if you do not check this option. Select the Add Anchor point or right-click the original anchor point in the menu that pops up, and select Delete Anchor Point in the pop-up menu to achieve the same goal.

Check the Ribbon option so that you can see the next path to the anchor point that will be defined so that it feels more intuitive in the drawing process.

Build a new work path

Click to create a new work path button, continuous click on the canvas to draw a polyline, finish drawing by clicking the Pen button in the toolbar, or hold down the CTRL key while you click anywhere on the canvas, if you want to draw a polygon, and then close the mouse pointer near the beginning of the path, When a small circle appears next to the mouse arrow, click the mouse button to close the path.

If you click and drag when you create an anchor point, a curvature bar can be adjusted to adjust the curvature of the curve at the anchor point to draw the path curve.

　　Ii. types of PATH nodes and conversion point tools

There are 3 nodes on the path: a node with no curvature bar (corner point), a node (smoothing point) that is adjusted by both sides of the curvature, and a node (smoothing point) that regulates each side curvature (as shown in the following figure).

The conversion point tool can be used to convert between three nodes. Select the conversion Point tool, click on both sides of the curvature of the adjustment or the two sides of curvature adjustment method of the anchor point, you can make it into a no curvature bar, click the anchor and hold down the mouse button drag, you can convert it to the two sides of the curvature together to adjust the way, and then use the conversion point tool to move It can be converted to the two sides of the curvature of the adjustment mode respectively.

When the path curve is drawn, the two sides of the anchor point are more difficult to control, and we are going to draw a curve like Figure 5 to illustrate how to accurately create the anchor point of this adjustment. Select the Pen tool, hold down the ALT key, and then click and drag on the canvas. Define the first anchor point, release the mouse button, loosen the ALT key, click the position of the second anchor Point and drag, and when the curvature is appropriate, hold down the ALT key and move the mouse up, and you can see that the anchor is changed to two sides of curvature respectively, When the curvature adjustment is appropriate, first release the mouse button and then release the ALT key, click and drag at the last anchor point to finish drawing the path curve (as shown in the following figure).

　　Free pen and magnetic pen tool

Using the Free Pen tool, we can draw the path curve as freely as drawing on the canvas with a brush. You do not have to define the location of the anchor, because it is automatically added, after the drawing is done to further adjust. The number of automatically added anchor points is determined by the curve fitting and parameters in the Free Pen tool options Bar, the smaller the parameter value the larger the number of automatically added anchor points, the smaller the opposite, and the range of curve fitting and parameters is between 0.5 pixels to 10 pixels.

If the magnetic option is checked, the free Pen tool will be converted to the Magnetic Pen tool (shown below), and the magnetic option is used to control the sensitivity of the magnetic pen tool to the edge capture of the image. Width is the distance that the magnetic pen tool can capture, ranging from 1 to 40 pixels; Contrast is the contrast of the edge of the image, the range is 0到100%, and the frequency value determines the density of the added anchor point, the range is 0到100%.

Let's learn how to use the magnetic pen tool by drawing the graph in Figure 7 (shown in the following illustration)

Hold down the ALT key to make the magnetic pen tool draw a straight line, then in the bottom left of the right angle click, when the last line is drawn, release the ALT key, along the edge of the graph to move, the anchor will be automatically added, encountered in the more sharp points of the picture can not be captured when the click to add anchor points, When you need to draw a line, press the ALT key in advance, and the final effect is shown in the following illustration.

　　Four, add Anchor Point tool and delete Anchor Point tool

The Add Anchor Point tool and the Delete Anchor Point tool are used primarily to adjust ready-made or finished path curves. For example, we want to draw a very complex shape, it is impossible to draw a successful one at a time, we should draw a rough outline, then we can combine the Add Anchor Point tool and delete the anchor point tool to gradually refine it until the final effect.

　　V. Path selection tools and direct selection tools

The path selection tool and the direct selection tool have a high usage rate in the process of drawing and adjusting the path curve.

The Path selection tool can select different path components (pictured below).

Check the bounding box (as shown below), click the bounding box, and the option bar of the path selection tool becomes the transform Value entry bar. When you select at least two path curves, and then click the Combo button in the options bar to combine it into one path, you can also apply alignment to the selected path (at least two paths) and arrange (select at least three paths).

The direct selection tool plays an important role in the process of adjusting the path curve, because the position and curvature of the most important anchor points in the path curve must be adjusted by direct selection tool.

Six, the Path adjustment board

If the canvas is the pen tool stage, then the path palette is nothing more than the pen tool backstage.

The path curve is plotted in the path palette, and in the path palette we can see the name of each path curve and its thumbnail, and the current path is displayed in the Path palette in reverse-white state.

The pop-up menu in the path palette contains commands such as new paths, copy paths, storage paths, and so on, for convenience, we can also click the buttons below the palette to complete the action (pictured below).

A-fills the path with the foreground color (the white portion of the thumbnail is the filled area of the path).

B-Use brush stroke path.

c to load the path as a selection.

d The work path is generated from the selection.

E to create a new path.

F-Deletes the current path.

Pen tool in Photoshop application is very wide, small to the basic geometry of the drawing, large to the complex curve of the drawing, pen tools can be easily completed, a little more patience, we can use the pen tool better.

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Classification:

• PS Getting Started tutorial