With all of Photoshop’s automatic selection tools powered by Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s powerful artificial intelligence technology, you might think the glory days of the Pen tool are long gone.
There’s still a good reason why learning how to use the pen tool in Photoshop is recommended by most seasoned designers. Even after years of updates, the Pen tool remains one of the best ways to create precise and clean selections.??
With multiple, different Pen tools and settings to choose from, the task of learning how to master it may seem daunting. However, it’s as easy as knowing the right Pen tool to pick for the job.
Let’s start by figuring out what the Pen tool actually is.
The Pen tool in Photoshop can create both selections and vector shapes. Using the Pen tool, you create paths connected by anchors. You can then convert the path into selections, strokes, or shapes.
The paths created by the Pen tool are vector-based, as opposed to pixel-based. This means you can create and adjust a path without it degrading in quality. If using a path to create a stroke, the stroke will be pixel-based, but the path will remain until deleted.
However, you can convert paths into vector shapes and vice versa as well. A path will not appear in an image when exported, if not converted into a shape, stroke, or otherwise.
The Five Pen Tools in Photoshop
There are multiple, different Pen tools in Photoshop, each excelling at different creative styles or use cases. You can use the Shift + P key to cycle through the other tools in the Pen group.
1. The Standard Pen tool — The standard Pen tool lets you create both curved and straight segments with unmatched precision. It’s ideal for extracting human subjects or objects with smooth edges. It’s the most commonly used Pen tool and the one I recommend learning first.
2. The Freeform Pen tool — The Freeform Pen tool allows you to create paths as if you were drawing using the Pencil tool. It’s ideal for creating freeform shapes like swirls or other abstract designs.
3. The Curvature Pen tool — The Curvature Pen tool was explicitly designed to help create curved paths. You can use the Curvature Pen tool to create selections and extractions. It’s often considered to be more intuitive than the Standard Pen tool. It excels in making script-like shapes, paths, and designs.
4. The Magnetic Pen tool — The Magnetic Pen tool creates a path that snaps to the edges of denied objects or subjects. Unlike the other pen tools, it is not found in the Pen tool group. You can find the Magnetic Pen tool in the Freeform Pen tool’s options bar.
5. Contact-Aware Tracing tool — The Contact-Aware Tracing tool creates automatic paths, tracing hard edges and defined pixels. Unlike the Magnetic Pen tool, you do not drag the Content-Aware Pen. Currently, you need to activate the Content-Aware Tracing tool by going to Preferences > Technology Previews > Enable Content-Aware Tracing tool.
Now that we’ve covered the different Pen tools, let’s look at creating shapes, selections, and strokes.
How to Create a Selection Using the Pen Tool
First, let’s cover how to make a selection using the Pen tool in Photoshop using the default Pen tool, as it’s the most versatile of all the Pen types. It’s also the one you’ll likely be reaching for the most and is arguably the hardest to get the hang of, so mastering the Standard Pen means all other Pen types will come easier.
Step 1: Set the Pen to Path
With the Standard Pen tool active, look towards the top Options bar and make sure it’s set to Path.
Step 2: Place Your First Anchor Point
Choose a starting point, and click to place an anchor. We will be circling our way back to this anchor when our path is ready to be completed.
Step 3: Create a Second Anchor Point and Path
Place another anchor further down the edge of the object you’re extracting.
A path will be created between the two anchors. The path will start straight. Pull-on the anchor to adjust the path, so that it outlines the edges of the object.
Step 4: Adjust the Anchor Handles
Depending on the object’s edges you are extracting, you might need to adjust the current anchor’s handles before placing your following anchors.
You can do this by holding Alt and then dragging the handle. The anchor handles influence the direction the anchor will go.
A trick I’ve learned is to bring the handle closest to your mouse in and over the anchor point.
Step 5: Complete the Path
Place more anchors, making sure the adjoining paths outline your subject until you reach your starting anchor point.
You can undo and redo placing an anchor point, using Control + Z to undo and Shift + Control + Z to redo.
You can add and delete specific anchors using the Add Anchor Point and Delete Anchor Point tools found in the Pen tool group.
Finish the path by clicking the starting anchor point. The white anchors will turn blue, confirming the path has been closed.
Step 6: Create a Selection
You can turn a path into a selection using three different methods:
First, you can Right-click > Create Selection.
Second, you can choose the Selection button in the top Options menu.
Third, you can press Ctrl + Enter/Command + Return to turn a path into a selection.
Step 7: Delete or Mask the Selection
You can either delete what’s in the selection or add a Layer Mask to the object’s layer to extract the object.
The mask will take the shape of the selection. Depending on how you create the path, you may need to invert the selection or layer mask to reveal the subject.
How to Create a Stroke Using the Pen Tool
Creating strokes with the Pen tool is helpful for both image editing and graphic design. The edges created by the generated path will be smoother, straighter, or more precise than what you might be able to draw by hand. It can even simulate pen pressure if you don’t have a drawing tablet. Luckily, it’s also straightforward to do.
Step 1: Set the Pen to Path
Like before, we want to make sure our Pen tool is set to path and the layer we want to add a stroke to is selected.
Step 2: Create Your Path
Let’s switch to the Curvature pen tool. Unlike the other Pens, the Curvature Pen tool does not rely on anchor handles, making it much easier to use, and is ideal for creating script fonts, as we see below.
Place an anchor, place a second anchor, and then adjust the path and anchor by simply clicking and dragging.
Repeat this until your design is finished.
Step 3: Create Your Stroke
Switch to the Brush tool, and choose the brush tip you’d like your stroke to be. It can be any brush tip.
Next, set the Foreground color to the color you’d like the stroke to be.
Now, Right-Click > Stroke Path, and set Tool to Brush. If you want your lines to taper, you can check Simulate Pen Pressure. If you’re going to create a uniformly even line, leave it unchecked.
Once the stroke is placed, you can Right-click > Delete Path.
How to Create a Shape Using the Pen Tool
Creating shapes and then converting them into custom shapes are great for design elements you might find yourself wanting to use repeatedly. You can also edit pre-existing shapes, as all vector shapes in Photoshop are based on paths you can edit using the Pen tools.
Step 1: The Options toolbar Settings
Finally, let’s create a custom shape using the Pen tool. This time, let’s look towards the top Options bar and set the Pen type to Shape.
Next, choose the color of your shape by setting its Fill. You can also add an outline to the shape by setting the Stroke color, thickness, and style.
Step 2: Create Your Path
Create your path just as you would normally, only this time it will fill itself with the color and stroke settings you choose. I’m using the Curvature pen tool again, but the standard Pen tool will work the same.
Finish the path by connecting the first and last anchor points.
As I’m using the Curvature Pen tool, I switched to the Standard Pen tool and then finished the path to get a straight edge on the left side of the shape. You can switch between pen tools to edit or add paths at any time.
Step 3: Add to or Subtract From Your Shape
If you want to add more or subtract from your shape, go into the upper Options bar and change the interaction settings.
Step 4: Combine Shapes
With the shape made, let’s create a quick heart by duplicating the shape, flipping it horizontally, and then placing them so that their flat edges line up.
Select the two shape layer, and Right-click > Merge Shapes. The shapes will merge, but the paths will remain adjustable. The shape also stays a vector shape, so you can freely change its color, stroke, and size anytime.
Step 5: Create Custom Shapes
Finally, as long as a path is active, you can turn it into a custom shape that can be saved and reused repeatedly.
With one of the Pen tools active, Right-Click > Define Custom Shape. Name your Shape and press OK.
Select the Shapes tool, and choose Custom Shapes. You will find your created shape at the bottom of your shape options.
You can create the custom shape as either a Shape or Path, using the Options toolbar.
Conclusion
Whether you’re creating shapes and selections or stroking paths with the Brush tool to create interesting and precise lines and designs, the Pen tool is still a tool worth learning.
While the Pen tool may not be the fastest, there is no better selection tool if you are after accuracy. Need custom shapes? The Pen tool can make them as well.
And while it is a bit notorious for being hard to understand, becoming familiar with the Pen tool is a surefire way to amp up your Photoshop game and well worth your time and effort.
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Abbey Esparza is a mixed media artist whose composites are all based on photographs that undergo an intense treatment to transform them into the surreal, unusual, and macabre. She typically creates surreal themes, but is experienced in all different kinds of styles and genres, including child-friendly fantasy! She works with The Glorious Company, a content-marketing agency
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That again was no use: he but got another smile and a friendly look of the sort he no longer wanted. I said I thought I could gallop if Harry could, and in a few minutes we were up with the ambulance. It had stopped. There were several men about it, including Sergeant Jim and Kendall, which two had come from Quinn, and having just been in the ambulance, at Ferry's side, were now remounting, both of them openly in tears. "Hello, Kendall." We have this great advantage in dealing with Plato—that his philosophical writings have come down to us entire, while the thinkers who preceded him are known only through fragments and second-hand reports. Nor is the difference merely accidental. Plato was the creator of speculative literature, properly so called: he was the first and also the greatest artist that ever clothed abstract thought in language of appropriate majesty and splendour; and it is probably to their beauty of form that we owe the preservation of his writings. Rather unfortunately, however, along with the genuine works of the master, a certain number of pieces have been handed down to us under his name, of which some are almost universally admitted to be spurious, while the authenticity of others is a question on which the best scholars are still divided. In the absence of any very cogent external evidence, an immense amount of industry and learning has been expended on this subject, and the arguments employed on both sides sometimes make us doubt whether the reasoning powers of philologists are better developed than, according to Plato, were those of mathematicians in his time. The176 two extreme positions are occupied by Grote, who accepts the whole Alexandrian canon, and Krohn, who admits nothing but the Republic;115 while much more serious critics, such as Schaarschmidt, reject along with a mass of worthless compositions several Dialogues almost equal in interest and importance to those whose authenticity has never been doubted. The great historian of Greece seems to have been rather undiscriminating both in his scepticism and in his belief; and the exclusive importance which he attributed to contemporary testimony, or to what passed for such with him, may have unduly biassed his judgment in both directions. As it happens, the authority of the canon is much weaker than Grote imagined; but even granting his extreme contention, our view of Plato’s philosophy would not be seriously affected by it, for the pieces which are rejected by all other critics have no speculative importance whatever. The case would be far different were we to agree with those who impugn the genuineness of the Parmenides, the Sophist, the Statesman, the Philêbus, and the Laws; for these compositions mark a new departure in Platonism amounting to a complete transformation of its fundamental principles, which indeed is one of the reasons why their authenticity has been denied. Apart, however, from the numerous evidences of Platonic authorship furnished by the Dialogues themselves, as well as by the indirect references to them in Aristotle’s writings, it seems utterly incredible that a thinker scarcely, if at all, inferior to the master himself—as the supposed imitator must assuredly have been—should have consented to let his reasonings pass current under a false name, and that, too, the name of one whose teaching he in some respects controverted; while there is a further difficulty in assuming that his existence could pass unnoticed at a period marked by intense literary and philosophical activity. Readers who177 wish for fuller information on the subject will find in Zeller’s pages a careful and lucid digest of the whole controversy leading to a moderately conservative conclusion. Others will doubtless be content to accept Prof. Jowett’s verdict, that ‘on the whole not a sixteenth part of the writings which pass under the name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancients themselves, can be fairly doubted by those who are willing to allow that a considerable change and growth may have taken place in his philosophy.’116 To which we may add that the Platonic dialogues, whether the work of one or more hands, and however widely differing among themselves, together represent a single phase of thought, and are appropriately studied as a connected series. Before entering on our task, one more difficulty remains to be noticed. Plato, although the greatest master of prose composition that ever lived, and for his time a remarkably voluminous author, cherished a strong dislike for books, and even affected to regret that the art of writing had ever been invented. A man, he said, might amuse himself by putting down his ideas on paper, and might even find written178 memoranda useful for private reference, but the only instruction worth speaking of was conveyed by oral communication, which made it possible for objections unforeseen by the teacher to be freely urged and answered.117 Such had been the method of Socrates, and such was doubtless the practice of Plato himself whenever it was possible for him to set forth his philosophy by word of mouth. It has been supposed, for this reason, that the great writer did not take his own books in earnest, and wished them to be regarded as no more than the elegant recreations of a leisure hour, while his deeper and more serious thoughts were reserved for lectures and conversations, of which, beyond a few allusions in Aristotle, every record has perished. That such, however, was not the case, may be easily shown. In the first place it is evident, from the extreme pains taken by Plato to throw his philosophical expositions into conversational form, that he did not despair of providing a literary substitute for spoken dialogue. Secondly, it is a strong confirmation of this theory that Aristotle, a personal friend and pupil of Plato during many years, should so frequently refer to the Dialogues as authoritative evidences of his master’s opinions on the most important topics. And, lastly, if it can be shown that the documents in question do actually embody a comprehensive and connected view of life and of the world, we shall feel satisfied that the oral teaching of Plato, had it been preserved, would not modify in any material degree the impression conveyed by his written compositions. breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five The bargaining was interminable, something in this manner:— Then follows a long discussion in Hindi with the bystanders, who always escort a foreigner in a mob, ending in the question— There was a bright I. D. blanket spread on the ground a little way back from the fire, and she threw herself down upon it. All that was picturesque in his memories of history flashed back to Cairness, as he took his place beside Landor on the log and looked at her. Boadicea might have sat so in the depths of the Icenean forests, in the light of the torches of the Druids. So the Babylonian queen might have rested in the midst of her victorious armies, or she of Palmyra, after the lion hunt in the deserts of Syria. Her eyes, red lighted beneath the shadowing lashes, met his. Then she glanced away into the blackness of the pine forest, and calling her dog to lie down beside her, stroked its silky red head. The retreat was made, and the men found themselves again in the morning on the bleak, black heath of Drummossie, hungry and worn out, yet in expectation of a battle. There was yet time to do the only wise thing—retreat into the mountains, and depend upon a guerilla warfare, in which they would have the decided advantage. Lord George Murray now earnestly proposed this, but in vain. Sir Thomas Sheridan and other officers from France grew outrageous at that proposal, contending that they could easily beat the English, as they had done at Prestonpans and Falkirk—forgetting that the Highlanders then were full of vigour and spirit. Unfortunately, Charles listened to this foolish reasoning, and the fatal die was cast. "They said they were going for our breakfast," said Harry. "And I hope it's true, for I'm hungrier'n a rip-saw. But I could put off breakfast for awhile, if they'd only bring us our guns. I hope they'll be nice Springfield rifles that'll kill a man at a mile." "Dod durn it," blubbered Pete, "I ain't cryin' bekase Pm skeered. I'm cryin' bekase I'm afeared you'll lose me. I know durned well you'll lose me yit, with all this foolin' around." He came nearly every night. If she was not at the gate he would whistle a few bars of "Rio Bay," and she would steal out as soon as she could do so without rousing suspicion. Boarzell became theirs, their accomplice in some subtle, beautiful way. There was a little hollow on the western slope where they would crouch together and sniff the apricot scent of the gorse, which was ever afterwards to be the remembrancer of their love, and watch the farmhouse lights at Castweasel gleam and gutter beside Ramstile woods. "Yes, De Boteler," continued the lady, "I will write to him, and try to soothe his humour. You think it a humiliation—I would humble myself to the meanest serf that tills your land, could I learn the fate of my child. The abbot may have power to draw from this monk what he would conceal from us; I will at least make the experiment." The lady then, though much against De Boteler's wish, penned an epistle to the abbot, in which concession and apologies were made, and a strong invitation conveyed, that he would honour Sudley castle by his presence. The parchment was then folded, and dispatched to the abbot. "A very pretty method, truly! You know not the miners and forgers of Dean Forest!—why I would stake a noble to a silver-penny, that if you had discovered he was hidden there, and legally demanded him, he would be popped down in a bucket, to the bottom of some mine, where, even the art of Master Calverley could not have dragged him to the light of day until the Forest was clear of the pack:—but, however, to speak to the point," perceiving that the steward's patience was well nigh exhausted—"I saw Stephen Holgrave yesterday, in the Forest." HoME欧美一级 片a高清
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