Most people do not know how to use the pen in Photoshop, and constantly postpone training, believing that it is too difficult. Ultimately, working in a program suffers from a lack of understanding of the principles of such an important tool. Since the pen is not available, draw contours in Photoshop with lines, and use lasso to select objects. Creating simple objects or primitives, as well as irregularly shaped shapes, is much easier with this tool. Let's learn how to use the pen in Photoshop and quickly learn how to use it.
Tool Features
It is important to note that the pen tool is not something exclusive to Photoshop. Almost every popular program for processing and editing photos, as well as creating graphics and mockups uses it in one form or another. Therefore, having learned how to use the pen in Photoshop, you will understand how to use it in many other programs.
Where is the pen tool
Before we start talking about how to use the pen in Photoshop CS6 and other versions, you need to figure out where to find it. If you look closely, in the "Tools" palette, in the group intended for drawing and working with text, you can see the icon in the form of a pen tip. Next to it will be a tool in the form of an arrow, used to highlight the contour. It may be up or down depending on the version of Photoshop.
Pierre Beziers Instrument
The pen does not resemble an ink pen in its functions, because many users have a question why it is called that. In fact, the line tool in Photoshop is also called the Bezier pen or the Bezier tool, because it was created by a man named Pierre Bezier. This French engineer worked for the automobile company Renault. He came up with fancy math that controls the tool. The pen was originally created to help design cars and was used to draw contours.
What are the ways
Paths are what may seem a little inappropriate inside a program such as Photoshop. The reason is that this is primarily a program for pixel graphics, and the paths have absolutely nothing to do with pixels and relate to vectors. This is a line that goes from one point to another. It is completely pixel independent. A line can be straight or curved, but it is always between two points called reference points. The path is completely separate from the image itself. If you try to print a picture with an outline visible on the screen, it will not appear on paper. In addition, if you save the image as a JPEG file and upload it to a website, it will also not be visible. These lines exist only for Photoshop and the viewer's eye.
Now let's figure out how to use the pen in Photoshop. We always need at least two points to create a path, since we need to know where it starts and where it ends. If you use enough points to bring the path back to the beginning and close the path, you can create different shapes, as when working with standard tools in Photoshop. For example, the Rectangle tool uses paths connected by dots to draw a rectangular shape, and the Ellipse tool uses them to draw an elliptical shape, and so on. All the shapes in Photoshop are contours created from paths.
Contour filling
We can draw a square outline, and if we don’t do anything with it, that is, we don’t fill it with color or shade it, then all that happens is the main outline of the square. Same thing with a circle or any other shape. The line itself is just the outline of the figure. You can select the entire path using the black arrow tool, or just select individual points using the Direct Selection Tool.
Work with segments
A line segment is any path between two points. For example, a rectangular outline will consist of four points, one in each corner. Separate paths connecting the top to the bottom, and the left to right and creating the shape of a rectangle, are segments. The actual path itself is a combination of all the individual segments that make up the form. This may sound complicated, so it’s better to immediately understand in practice.
Tool selection
Open a new document in Photoshop. It doesn't matter what size it is. Then select the Pen tool in the Tools panel. You can also select it by pressing the English letter P on the keyboard. The tool has two modes of operation: Shape Layer ("Form") and Paths ("Path"). Before using the pen in Photoshop, you need to make sure that we work with paths, since by default the tool uses a different mode.
Pen Modes
When choosing a pen, if we look at the options bar at the top of the screen, we will see a group of three icons or a menu with three items. The icon on the left is the one selected by default. If we worked with the Pen tool in this mode, we would draw shapes in the same way as using any of the various shape tools. The only difference is that instead of drawing a predetermined shape, such as a rectangle or an ellipse, we could draw whatever we want.
How to create a path
Click once anywhere in the document. Do not drag, just click on the mouse button. When you do this, add a small square dot. This first point we just added is the starting point of the path. Click one more time inside the document with the Pen tool to add a new point. Technically, it is called anchor or reference, since it is a stop on the path along the contour. In order to move the point, take the Direct Selection Tool, whose icon looks like a white arrow. The selected point will be dark, and the rest with a black stroke. Another tool - the Path Selection Tool - selects the entire path. You can add and remove points with special tools that are in the same menu as the main Pen tool.
Adding Segments
The first point binds the beginning of the path to a specific place within the document. When we add new ones, each of them will fix the outline in this place. There must be at least two points to create a path, since you need to indicate where it starts and ends. Now that we have both a start and an end point, Photoshop was able to connect them together, creating a path. This is the first segment of the outline. Add another one by clicking elsewhere inside the document. In order to close the path, just click on the starting point again. When you hover over it, a small circle will appear in the lower right corner of the pen icon. This one says that we are going to go "full circle", ending the path where it began. To close the outline, click directly on the start point.
Outline selection
A finished path can be turned into a selection using the path palette, which is located next to the layers and channels. Photoshop calls the default path working, and there can only be one. Therefore, if you want to save the path, you need to double-click on the name in the Paths palette and name it somehow differently. After that, you can create a new path. All such contours will be saved with the Photoshop document.
Work with the Paths palette
Let's look at the bottom of the palette, there you can see several icons. The first icon on the left allows you to fill the path with color from the foreground. The second icon on the left is to apply a stroke to the path using a brush. The third icon on the left transforms the path into a selection. You can do this with the hot keys Ctrl + Enter (Win) or Command + Return (Mac).
Work with guides
There are special "mustaches" at the control points , which allow changing the direction of the line and bending it. They are called guides and control the length, as well as the angle of the curve. Pulling them out of the point is simple - just hold down the left mouse button. Working with guides is the main skill that you need to master before using the Pen tool in Photoshop professionally. The longer the guide, the longer the curve. When one of them rotates, the other rotates in the opposite direction. In order to control two guides separately, you need to hold the Alt key.
To resize the guide, hold down the Ctrl key to switch to the Direct Selection Tool. After that, click on the end of the guide and pull it. Using three points, you can create a semicircle. To do this, the central one needs to be pulled out horizontally. The easiest way is to try to figure out the work of the guide yourself - to train yourself to draw the curves and change their direction. Practice in working with Photoshop is helping yourself on the path to professionalism.