Pen Tool Tutorial

Why do I want to use this tool anyway? The pen tool provides the most accurate way of making a complex selection or shape.

There are 7 pen tools. They are

1. Pen
2. Magnetic Pen
3. Freeform Pen
4. Add Anchor Point
5. Delete Anchor Point
6. Direct Selection
7. Convert Anchor Point

Straight Lines

1. To start with we'll make a line.

   Select the pen tool(1) and click on the paths tab(if it is open, otherwise open the Paths palette by choosing window/show paths).

   Click one where you want to start the line, then click again to end it.



2. Continuing the path, hold down the shift key to click the third point. By holding the shift key, you constrain the tool to make a straight line. Finish the path by clicking on the first point again. Don't work if the triangle isn't square, we'll fix that next.



3. To fix the triangle, select the Direct Selection Tool(6) or this can be selected by the Hot key A. If you click and drag the lower left point of the triangle, you can move that point around to get it into place(you can also use the arrow keys to move it). With this tool you can also select multiple points and move them if you need to. Select all the points in your triangle by either shift selecting them or by drawing a box around all of them. When you do, all the points will be filled.



4. Now we can do a few different things since we have our path. We can fill it, stroke it or make it a selection. Take a look at the Path palette I had you open earlier.



• A-Fill Path with Foreground Color
• B-Stroke Path with Foreground Color
• C-Make Path a selection
• D-Make a Selection into a Path
• E-Make a new Path layer or if you drag an existing Path layer to this icon it will create a duplicate layer.
• F-Delete the Current Path layer
• G-Current Path layer



A-Filled with foreground color.



B-Stroked with foreground color.



C-Load path as a selection.

Curved Lines

1. Ok, straight lines are great but we need curves. Once you get this next part you'll see how useful path are in Photoshop and Illustrator. Take the same path from a moment ago.



2. With the Convert Anchor Point(7) tool selected. Click and drag the top left point SLOWLY up and to the right. It should look something like this.



3. The directional points can be moved to adjust the curve or if you hold down the alt key when you click you will 'break' the handles and each side will be independent from each other.