PHOTOSHOP UNIT 1 – Understanding the Tools
PART 3
PEN TOOL
The Pen tool is useful for making an exact selection. These types of selections, while tedious to create, can be so
perfect, the end result is worth the time put in.
When you LEFT CLICK and HOLD on the Pen tool, you can choose a few different tools. Let’s talk about what they do:
The first tool is the straight PEN TOOL. The pen tool is very useful for making exact selections or paths based on multiple
connecting Points or anchor points.
This tool works the SAME as the straight PEN tool, but does not have different ANCHOR points to worry about….works a
lot like the lasso tool only to create a path.
This tool allows the user to simply ADD an anchor point to an existing PATH.
Allows the user to simply DELETE an anchor point from a PATH
Converts an ANCHOR POINT to a corner edge from a rounded edge
PEN TOOL – HOW TO USE IT!!!
The regular PEN TOOL works by first selecting the PEN TOOL from the PEN toolbar, and clicking ONE TIME with your left
mouse button on an area you wish to start making a selection around.
Once you make your first point, click along the line of the area you want to select and HOLD DOWN the LEFT MOUSE
BUTTON AS YOU CLICK to make the next point. You can then DRAG your mouse, while clicking to bend the PATH or
SELECTION around the area you are trying to select.
When you LEFT CLICK and HOLD the Left click….dragging your mouse around, these little HANDLES will pop out from the
point you placed. These handles are used to mold the path you are creating. We want to CURVE around this raccoon
ear so I will drag the handles DOWN and out a bit to mold it to fit.
Now, you will notice that your PATH you are drawing around the ear is filling in with RED. We can turn this off by going
up to the top of the SCREEN where the PEN options are located, and select a different STYLE. I am going to choose 1
Pixel 0% Fill opacity. IT looks like this!
The area we are working with is NOW see through so we can actually SEE what we are doing.
We then click and create another point at the base of the second ear. Now, this point is not quite stretching across the
top of the head in a way that I like, so we are going to add another point.
Above we see the point we added, and now, click in the middle of the head somewhere and let go of your click.
To move that point UP a bit, hold down CONTROL and Left Click on that middle point. Next, DRAG the point upwards so
we can put it where it seems to work a bit better.
We now have a better path made.
Continue doing this until you have made it all the way around the area you are wanting to select. Finish by clicking on
the ORIGINAL STARTER POINT that you made when you first started creating this selection / path.
Next, let’s make this a selection so we can CUT the head out of here.
Open up the PATHS window by going to WINDOW>PATHS.
Click on the path in there that looks like your selection and then RIGHT CLICK on the path and choose MAKE SELECTION
Once you DO this, a little window will pop up that says MAKE SELECTION and has an option to input a value for the
amount of Feather Radius in pixels. This basically tells Photoshop how much to fade the edge of the selection.
Go ahead and click OK and lets finish this selection UP!!
Next go back to the LAYER window. Left Click on the Word SHAPE 1 at the top of your layer window to grab the path
you just created and drag it down to the trash can at the bottom of the LAYERS window. You will now only have your
SELECTION LEFT and the path will be gone!
Now, lets do a (CTRL ALT I) and Photoshop will select the exact OPPOSITE of what we have selected…so the
background around the head instead of the head itself.
Now, simply hit DEL on the keyboard…and we have a nice faded cutout of the head! I might have taken a LONG time to
make a selection around each little whisker on the racoon’s face, but for the purposes of this tutorial, it wasn’t needed.