Using pen tool to outline

With the help of the opacity option , we can control the opacity of the stroke. At the same time, we can change the color of the stroke using the color option and press OK. Below you will find the details of the work done on layer. To do this you have to right-click on the strokes Option. Make a copy of the stroke by clicking on the Create Layer option. Press the Control J key on your keyboard again to make another copy of the stroke.

Turn off the bottom stroke layer. Select the top stroke layer. Choose Eraser tool from the toolbar. Then erase your stroke from one side. The advantage of this is that we get the image outline on a single side. What if what I needed was for the first path segment to be curved, but the second one needed to be straight?

I'm going to delete my existing path and start over again. First, I'll click to add an anchor point to start things off. Then, just as before, I'll click to add a second anchor point up and to the right of my initial point, and this time, I'll drag out direction handles, which will create a curved path connecting the two points, giving me exactly what I had way up at the start of this page:.

I now have my initial curve, but I want my next path segment to be straight. If I was to simply click somewhere to add another anchor point right now, I would get another curve because I have that direction handle extending out from the right side of the last anchor point I added.

What I need to do is get rid of that one direction handle. Without a direction handle controlling the angle and length of a curve, we get a straight line. When I do, the direction handle on the right disappears, leaving only the one on the left:.

Now, with the direction handle gone, if I click to add a new anchor point, I get a straight path segment between the two points :. I now have a curved path segment on the left and a straight one on the right! What if I wanted the exact opposite? Suppose I needed to start with a straight path segment and then follow it with a curve?

To do that, first I'll start by clicking to add an initial anchor point. Then, since I want a straight path segment, all I need to do is click somewhere else to add a second anchor point, and I automatically get a straight path connecting the two points:. I'm going to keep my mouse button held down after clicking to add my second anchor point because I want my next path segment to be curved, and we know that in order to create a curve, we need a direction handle.

As I do, a direction handle will drag out along with it:. Notice that the direction handle extended only from the right of the anchor point, not from both sides, leaving my straight path segment on the left in place. And now that I have my direction handle on the right, all I need to do to create my curve is click to add a third point:.

And there we go! I now have a straight path segment on the left, followed by a curved segment on the right. Of course, most paths you draw are going to consist of more than just three anchor points. Let's say I wanted to continue this path, moving in the same general direction towards the right, and I want my next path segment to be curved as well. Just as I did a moment ago, I would leave my mouse button held down after clicking to add my third point.

So far, we've only been dragging handles out towards the right, but what you really want to do is drag your handles out in the general direction you want the curve to follow.

I want to create a curve that goes up and to the right, so I'm going to drag out a small handle in that same general direction:. A good practice to get into is to keep your direction handles small when first dragging them out, since you never really know how long or at what exact angle they need to be until the actual curve appears, and the curve doesn't appear until you've added both of its anchor points.

Once you've added both points and the curve appears, you can easily go back and make any adjustments you need to the handles. You may even want to wait until you've drawn the entire path before worrying about adjusting the handles. With my direction handle created, I'm going to click to add a fourth anchor point, and I'm going to drag out direction handles from it as well:.

I now have a third segment added to my path, this one being a curve. Notice that this curve actually has two direction handles controlling it, one extending from the right of my third anchor point and one extending from the left of my fourth point:. The overall shape of this curve is now being controlled by the length and direction of both of these handles. Watch what happens to the curve when I move the handles. I'll drag the bottom handle down and to the right, and I'll drag the top handle up and to the left.

I'll also drag both of these handles longer. The curve is now a bit "S" shaped, and that's because the bottom handle is controlling the angle and length of the curve as it flows out from the third anchor point, while the top handle is controlling the angle and length of the curve as it flows into the fourth point.

With the direction handle gone, all I need to do now to add a straight path segment is click to add another anchor point:. We could continue this path for as long as we wanted, adding more straight segments and curves, but I think we'll stop here because we've pretty much covered everything we need to know about drawing paths with the Pen Tool at this point.

That was a lot of information to take in, especially if this is your first time learning about paths. As I mentioned at the beginning, you won't become a Pen Master simply by reading through this tutorial, just as you won't learn how to ride a bike, or drive a car, learn to swim, or play the piano simply by reading about it. But hopefully you have some sense at this point of how to draw paths with the Pen Tool, how to draw straight path segments, how to draw curves by dragging out direction handles, how to change the length and angle of the curve by rotating and resizing the handles, and how to combine straight and curved segments in a path.

To finish off our look at making selections with the Pen Tool, let's see a practical example of how to select an object with curves. Here, we have a photo of a couple of dolphins leaping out of the water.

Definitely a couple of very curvy creatures:. Let's say we want to select these dolphins so we can use them for a design or a collage, or whatever the case may be. If you were to try selecting them with the Lasso Tool, which is most likely what you would end up using if you didn't know how to use the Pen Tool, not only would you have a tough time, you'd have an even tougher time trying to convince yourself that you were happy with the results when you were done.

The reason is because the Lasso Tool simply isn't capable of making curved selections very well. The biggest problem with it, besides being a pixel-based selection tool, is that it relies on you having a steady enough hand to move it smoothly around the curves. Even if you don't suffer from a caffeine addiction, you could drive yourself crazy trying to draw a perfectly smooth curve with your mouse, or even with a pen tablet, and when you've finally given up, you'll still be left with a selection full of rough, jagged edges that just scream "amateur!

No one likes to be called an amateur, especially when there's no need for it thanks to the Pen Tool! Examine The Object First Whenever you're about to select something with the Pen Tool, before you begin, take a moment to examine the object carefully to get a sense of where you're going to need to place your anchor points. Forget about all the details in the object and focus only on its shape. Where are the areas where the shape changes direction?

Which parts of the shape are straight? Which parts are curved? If there's a curve, is it a smooth, continuous arc or does the angle change at a spot along the curve? Visualize in your mind where you're going to need to place your anchor points, because when you place one, you always want to be thinking about the next one and what the path segment between the two points needs to look like.

It's not a nail gun or a staple gun. You don't want to just go clicking around your shape adding anchor points all "willy nilly" that's a technical term. When using it to draw curves, you want those curves to be nice and smooth, otherwise we might as well just stick with the Lasso Tool.

To keep the curves flowing smoothly, we need to limit the number of anchor points we use to create them. That's why you want to take a moment to examine the object first and visualize where the anchor points need to be. If you can outline a large section of the shape using only one curve with an anchor point on either end, that's what you want to do, because that's what's going to give you the kind of results you're looking for.

The kind of results that scream "definitely not an amateur! Let's select these dolphins. I'm going to start my path in the middle of the photo, at the spot where the side of the dolphin on the left overlaps the rear flipper of the dolphin on the right. There's no right or wrong place to begin a path. This is just where I've decided to start. The first part of that rear flipper is straight, so since I don't need a direction handle to create a straight path segment, I'm simply going to click once with my Pen Tool to add my first anchor point, which will serve as the starting point for my path:.

As I mentioned earlier, you'll probably find it helpful to zoom in on your image as you're drawing your path. To scroll the image around on the screen as you're zoomed in, hold down the spacebar , which will switch you temporarily to the Hand Tool and allow you to move the image around on the screen by clicking and dragging it. The top of that flipper actually has a slight curve to it as it approaches the dolphin's tail section, so for my second anchor point, I'm going to click at the point where the flipper and tail section meet, and I'm going to drag out short direction handles, dragging up and to the right in the direction that the tail section is moving.

Notice that I've now created a slight curve along the flipper:. As I continue up along the tail, I can see that it stays straight for a short distance, followed by a curve to the right, so I'm going to click to add a third anchor point at the spot where the curve begins.

This gives me a straight path segment between the previous point and the new one. I know there's a short direction handle extending out from the previous anchor point, which normally means that my new path segment will be a curve, not a straight section, but because the handle is so short and is also moving in the same direction as the path segment, there is no noticeable curve to it. Consider it a "mostly straight" path segment:.

Continuing along, we come to the first real curve in our path. Notice how I'm only dragging out a handle from the one side of the anchor point, not both:. To add the curve, I'll click and drag at the spot where the curve ends, shaping the curve as I drag out the handles until it matches the curve of the dolphin's tail. If I needed to, I could also go back and change the length and direction of the handle at the start of the curve to fine-tune it, but in this case, I don't need to do that:.

The next area of the dolphin is pretty straight, right up until its back begins to merge with its dorsal fin, at which point there's another curve, so I'm going to click to add an anchor point just before the curve up the dorsal fin begins, which is going to give me another "mostly straight" path segment between the previous point and the new point. The left side of the dorsal fin consists mainly of one continuous curve upward until it gets near the very top, at which point the shape changes, so to create this curve, I'm going to click and drag at the point near the top where the curve will change direction.

As we can see in the screenshot, this adds a curved path segment between the previous anchor point and the new one, but the curve is not yet following along the shape of the fin. It's going to need some fine-tuning:.

I've also rotated the top direction handles slightly in a clockwise direction just to be nit-picky, but the majority of the adjustment was done using the bottom direction handle:. To add a curve around the top of the fin, I'll click and drag on the opposite side of it to add another anchor point with short direction handles.

Notice though that we run into a bit of a problem. The direction handle on the left side of the curve is too long and it's pulling the curve away from the top of the fin:.

Let's finish creating our path around the dorsal fin. The remainder of the fin is basically a straight line, so I'm going to click at the base of the fin to add another anchor point which adds the straight path segment, completing our path around the fin:. Since you and I would both be here all day if I was to continue commenting on every anchor point, direction handle and path segment as we make our way slowly around the dolphins, and since we've covered everything we need to know at this point, I'm going to go ahead and draw the rest of the path, outlining both dolphins:.

The dolphins have now been outlined with the path, and if we look at the Paths palette, we can see that sure enough, we have a path in the shape of the dolphins:. As we've learned, Photoshop automatically names the path "Work Path", which means it's temporary and will be replaced if we start a new path.

If you wanted to save it, you would need to double-click on the name "Work Path" and rename it to something else, like "Dolphins" in this case. I'm not going to worry about that, since I have no need to save it. All I want to do at this point is convert my path into a selection, and since I'm already in the Paths palette, I'll do that by clicking on the Load path as selection icon at the bottom of the palette:.

Either way converts my path into a selection, and if I look at my photo, I can see that my path has indeed become a selection around the dolphins:. And there we have it! The dolphins are now selected and ready for whatever plans we have for them. And with that, we wrap up our look at drawing paths and making selections with the Pen Tool in Photoshop! For more about Photoshop's selection tools, see our How to make selections in Photoshop series.

Visit our Photoshop Basics section for more Photoshop topics! Pierre Bezier. The Options Bar in Photoshop showing the group of three icons representing each of the three Pen Tool modes. Photoshop Tutorials: Add a second anchor point by clicking somewhere else inside the document.

Not sure which option to use? Path: Creates a pen path that can be used to make a selection, cut out an image, create vector masks, etc. Set your pen to the path option when you are wanting to cut out an image or create a selection of any kind. This is the option you will most typically use. Shape: This turns your pen path into a shape filled with a specific colour. This option is great for graphic designers looking to create unique shapes.

The pen tool works exactly the same, except the pen path is defining the outer edge of our shape, not a selection. The pen tool simply creates anchor points each time you click. It connects all those anchor points with a solid line, otherwise known as the pen path. There is no limitation on how many anchor points you can add so feel free to go crazy when creating your pen paths. When you click and create two anchor points the connecting pen path is always a straight line.

This is all fine and dandy until we need to make the path curve around something… uh oh, now what? If you are wanting to create a curved line in your pen path, click and drag your mouse to curve the path. Do this each time you are creating a new anchor point around a curve! These are called the Control Arms. The control arms allow you to alter and change the curve of your pen path simply by adjusting them. You will adjust the control arms automatically when you click and drag your mouse while creating a new anchor point.

Rather than having to delete all the other anchor points you had already created, just hover over your pen path line and wait for a plus icon to appear beside the cursor. Once you see the plus icon, click on the pen path to add a new anchor point. This new anchor point can be adjusted exactly the same as any other! To delete an anchor point somewhere along your pen path, simply hover over the anchor point and wait for the minus icon to appear beside your cursor. Once you see the minus icon, click on the anchor point to delete it from your path.

If you want to delete your most current anchor point, just click on that anchor point and press delete on your keyboard! Unfortunately a pen path cannot be applied to a layer mask, so how can we convert it into a selection?

Method 1: Once you have a complete pen path by linking it back around to the starting anchor point , go up to the tool bar at the top of your window and select make selection. Method 2: Once you have a complete pen path by linking it back around to the starting anchor point.

Once you have completed the path, right click inside of the pen path and click make selection. Next the Make Selection Dialogue Box will appear, asking you to set the feather radius. I always set my feather radius to 0. If you want the selection to have more of a blurred edge, increase the feather radius to a higher number like 10 pixels and above for a more noticeable blur. Select the Brush Tool as the desired tool and leave the Simulate Pressure box unchecked.

Select the options, and click OK to view the end product. To remove the Pen Tool blue lines, simply hit the return or enter button on the keyboard. With so many tools in Photoshop with multiple capabilities, it is sometimes difficult to decipher when to use a specific tool. It is important to understand when to use the Pen Tool over other tools.

Before you start to edit, observe the subject you want to isolate, and notice the angles and curves that you need to create. If there is an image of a windmill in a yard and an individual just wants the windmill placed on a white background.

The windmill is made up of multiple angles that may be hard for other tools to accurately select, so the Pen Tool is the right tool for the job. In other instances, if there is an image of a person with long flowing hair then other processes and tools would be more advisable for the hair section of the image.

For the graphic design aspect of the Pen Tool, the Pen Tool is the most customizable tool when it comes to creating designs or logos. If you want to create certain designs or patterns, the Pen Tool is the best tool to start with since it can create precise angles and implement precise measurements. There are many ways that an individual can learn more about using the Pen Tool.

The first step to learning more about the Pen Tool is taking the time to practice. Simply open a blank canvas or image in Photoshop and test out how each of the Pen Tools works. The Curvature Pen automatically picks the lines and anchors as you drag the mouse around an area of the image. Try practicing on easier images so that the tool will not seem as intimidating and time-consuming.

Practice adjusting the anchors to see how each movement changes the path. After practicing, now try using the manual Pen Tool on an object that has different types of angles.

When looking for a reliable source to find various types of tutorials online, there are millions of different options to choose from but the question is which one is the best resources? This makes sorting through links a more time-consuming process. A simple search for one type of tutorial will return thousands of tutorials on that specific topic. This will force Youtube to present only videos with highly watched videos which can then help narrow down the search.

Many credible resources or well-known companies post tutorials on Youtube but the key is knowing how to search for them. Whether a project involves creating a logo or isolating an object, the Pen Tool is an important tool to learn. Always remember that although the Pen Tool may seem intimidating or time-consuming, it creates the most accurate and precise results.

In this day in age, editing software or apps are available on all different types of formats. Photoshop has expanded to not only be available on computers but on smartphones and tablets.

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