ALLAN MACDONALD
PHOTOSHOP PATHS

There are many ways within Photoshop to select specific areas to adjust or modify.  By far the most powerful of these is to work with paths, using the pen tool.  Whilst the pen tool can seem a little daunting at first, with a little practice you will find it useful for many purposes.  This tutorial is going to explain the basics of the tool, as well as show a couple of examples of how it may be used when drawing and rendering your designs.

The first thing that should be noted in this tutorial is that depending on the version of Photoshop you are using, certain elements of the tool may be found in different locations than stated here.  The general theory and functionality of the tool is similar in all versions however, meaning that regardless of the version you are using this tutorial should still prove useful.

THE PEN TOOL PALETTE
To begin, the image on the left shows the TOOLS PALETTE where you will find the pen tool (and its variants which can be seen by clicking and holding on the pen option).  Whilst it is good to know that you can select the different pen functions here, this tutorial will demonstrate that this is not necessary.  All the variant functions of the pen tool can be activated by using simple shortcuts.  The first of these is simply pressing the button P to activate the pen tool.  The other options you will need in this tutorial (we are going to ignore the freeform option here) can be activated by hovering over different elements of your path, and by using different combinations of the SHIFT, CONTROL and ALT keys.  These will be explained further in some practical examples later in this tutorial.

THE PEN TOOL OPTIONS
The options tab for the pen tool is where you can access some of the different ways of using the tool. This tutorial is going to focus only the PATHS method, as opposed to the SHAPE LAYER or FILL PIXELS method. The PATHS option is shown selected in the image to the left. By selecting this option you will be able to create paths that are independent of any layer, and can be modified at anytime without directly effecting your image. Feel free to experiment with the other settings to see what happens, but remember to switch back to the PATHS option for the remainder of this tutorial. One thing to remember when changing this option in CS versions of Photoshop is that your changes will also effect the shape tool, and vice versa. Knowing this may save some of you a bit of confusion (especially those of you more used to earlier versions of Photoshop).

SIMPLE STRAIGHT PATHS
Ok, lets try the tool. Quite simply, by trying and playing around with the tool you will learn how to use it much faster. Begin by creating a new page and selecting the PEN tool. Check that it is set to the PATHS style and then by simply clicking on your new page create a path similar to the one shown on the left. Congratulations.......you have now created a path. Try this exercise again, but this time look carefully at the curser whilst placing your points. You will notice that before placing any points there is a small "x" next to the curser signifying that it is ready to begin a new path. Once you have begun placing your points the next interesting extra symbol to appear is a small "o". This appears as you place the last point and. It tells you that you are hovering over the first point you positioned, and that Photoshop is ready to close your path. OK, now that you have created a simple straight edge path, lets now try one with some curves.

SIMPLE CURVED PATHS
In the example above we just clicked on the page to get the three points of our triangle. This time however, when adding the third point do not release your mouse button. Instead click and drag downwards. You will immediately notice that you have changed this point to what is known as a smooth point. Once you now release the mouse button, you can continue and finish your path using exactly the same method as before. Hover over the first point you placed until you see the close path "o" then click. So now you have created a straight and curved path. What if you now need to modify this path however. Well, once a path has been created you can use some very simple methods to add, delete, covert or adjust the points. There is one more thing we should learn before that however.

SAVING PATHS
Before we learn how to modify our paths we should first learn how to save a path to work on. Begin by creating a path similar to one of the two examples above. Then in the PATHS window (if this is not open you can turn it on under window, show paths), click on the expandable menu tab in the top right corner. Here you will find the option to save your path. You can choose any name for your path, and at any later time you can come back to this PATHS window and choose any of your previous made paths. To select a path you merely need to click on it, and to deselect a path you just need to click on the empty region beneath all your paths. For now however, select the path you have just created (by clicking on it) and we can begin to learn how to modify your paths.

ADD, DELETE OR MOVE POINTS
You will now see your path on your page (it may be that none of the edit points are visible....if this is the case, hold down control then click and drag over your path). The first thing you may want to do after creating a path is to add or remove points. These are the simplest of modifications to make. To add a point simply click on your path where you wish to add. To remove a point you simply need to click on it. When doing this you will notice that a small + or - sign appears next to the cursor. It is also relatively simple to move a point once you have created it. Simple hold down the CONTROL key and click and drag the point you wish to move. When performing this action the curser will turn to a small white arrow.....changing to a small black arrow as you actually drag a point. Practice with this until adding, deleting and moving points becomes second nature.

MODIFY POINTS
The last thing you will need to learn with your paths is how to modify the curves they make. This is the part where most people stumble. With a little practice it is however quite simple. First start by creating and saving a path with a smooth point (see above). Now that you have a path, hold down the control key and click on the smooth point. By clicking on it you select the point meaning you will now see both direction points. Holding down the control key will now let you click and drag on these to adjust the curve. If however the point you wish to adjust does not have any direction points (is a corner point), you can create them by using the ALT key function. To do this simply hold down the ALT key and click and drag on a corner point. This will then turn this into a smooth point, which you adjust as previously explained. The final thing you can do is of course convert a smooth point into a corner point. This is achieved by simply holding down the ALT key and clicking on a smooth point.