When you are signed up for the Educational Series you'll get the tutorial on how to create a path. Now I'm going to cover basic path editing. You can use the editing tools to modify your path/shape. This allows you to not only have more control, but to come back at a later time and fix something up. Remember that Paths are stored in the Paths palette.
If you start creating a path, close it off and then use the pen tool elsewhere on the document it will all be on one path. You can create a new path in the Paths palette by pressing the new path icon; this will help you keep things separate as with layers.
Here is how to select a work path that you have created.
The path selection tool
allows
you to select an entire path or if you have more than one to
immediately switch between 'selecting' them. This will also reflect
in the Paths palette. When it is selected
by clicking on the path with the tool, you can then move the path itself around the screen.
Here you can see the path being moved with the Path Selection Tool.
There is also the Direct Selection Tool. This tool allows you individually adjust anchor points within your path.
Under the Pen tool there are some more options. You can Add an anchor point
anywhere along the path itself. This is the same as clicking with the pen tool when you were originally making the path and it's anchor points.
The delete anchor point tool does just what it says.
Just place it right over an anchor point and click to get rid of a point.
You can also right click for these options when on the Pen tool (P).
When using the tool itself or right clicking you can add an anchor point along the path and delete only when above an anchor point. You can add or delete anchor points where you see fit in order to help you in the making of your path and getting it more accurate for when you want to end up with a selection or your custom shape.
You can also use the Convert Point Tool.
This 'converts' regular anchor points into more flexible anchor
points allowing you to move handles around and to create elliptical
parts of paths. This is what really takes a while to...get a
'handle' on.
After you have converted an anchor point you can adjust it in many more ways such as working on top of/creating rounded corners as this chin.
You can move and stretch the handle bars to create ellipses. Go
ahead and try it out. Get a feel for it. You can create some
advanced paths (for your selections or shapes) when you have come
close to mastering this. With this tool you can go in and make
better and more accurate adjustments so you don't have such harsh
lines between straight or angular anchor points.
Switch back to the direct selection tool
to
gain more control over this editing. Now you can move the entire
anchor point with the handles where you want.
After you have converted points that need to have more editing flexibility you can then move the handles and the anchor point itself to create the path that you want.
Here I'm just dragging the curve handle way down to expand the ellipse between two points.
If I wanted to I could keep adding anchor points, converting them, move them with the direct selection tool all the way around the entire subject (quite time consuming though). The advantage of the pen tool and paths is that you can save them and come back to fix them and they give you the most precise control over shapes and their component selections (anchor points). All vector shapes can be represented and edited as paths.
Remember you could edit a selection by making it a work path, editing it and then convert it back to a selection. This is a lot of editing control and if you're charging clients by the hour then it might work out well for you (because it takes so darn long).
If you really just want to understand it all and become a very proficient Photoshop user, then you need to get my Basic Photoshop video training. It's packed with tons of great Photoshop tutorials at the lowest price on the market for it's depth of content. Order today.
With the navigator you can also grab within the rectangle box and move it around to move the entire image. It looks really cool on a high res image when you're zoomed in..try it out.
