Photoshop II | Drawing with Vector Tools

Course Developer: Lesa Snider
Instructor: Kristen Becker
Layout: Patricio Sarzosa
Editors: Tara MacKay, Clara LaFrance

Drawing with Vector Tools

If your first thought when someone mentions drawing is, "But I can't even draw a straight line!" Don't worry: You can draw in Photoshop! The Line and Brush tools can get you from point A to point B, and the program includes built-in shapes like circles, rectangles, and rounded rectangles. But what about creating more sophisticated drawings and illustrations?

In this animation, you can see the paths that make up the basic shapes of this digital painting by Bert Monroy called "Oakland."

The good news is that you don't have to worry about drawing anything freehand, whether it's a simple line or a complex, curvy shape like the paths Bert created above. Instead, the vector drawing tools you'll learn about in this lecture let you set down a series of points, and then Photoshop creates paths in between those points to form an outline. Unlike drawing by hand with the Brush tool or a real-world pencil, these vector objects are infinitely editable. You can move points and adjust the paths to create any shape you want. You can create complex yet flexible works of art from scratch without drawing freehand.

 

Learning to draw with Photoshop's vector tools takes time and patience because they work very differently than any tools you've used so far. But taking the time to master them sets you on the path (pun intended) to becoming a true Photoshop guru.

In fact, once you get the hang of these tools, you can use them to add elements to your images that don't exist and can't be photographed (think ornamental shapes and embellishments) and to create precise selections that you can't make any other way. You can also use the vector shape tools to hide parts of your image with a vector mask, which are more flexible than their pixel-based cousins.

The camera in this illustration is surrounded by ornamentation created with Photoshop's vector tools.

Before you dive into using the vector tools, you need to understand exactly what vectors are.

Pixels vs. Paths

The images you'll work with and create in Photoshop fall into two categories: those made from pixels and those made from paths.

Raster images are made from tiny blocks of color called pixels. The number of pixels in an image depends on the device that captured it (a digital camera or scanner) or the settings you entered when you created the Photoshop document. The size of the pixels depends on the image's resolution, which specifies the number of pixels in an inch. Usually pixels are so small that you can't see them individually, but if you zoom into a raster image, the pixels appear bigger, and the image starts to look like a bunch of blocks.

Vector images are made up of points and paths that form shapes, which can be filled and stroked (outlined) with color. You can create vector images in Photoshop, but they're also commonly made with programs like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw. The paths are based on mathematical equations that tell monitors and printers exactly how to draw the image. Because there aren't any pixels involved, you can make vector images as big or small as you want and they'll always have perfectly crisp edges.

In this closeup of the earlier camera and vectors image, the many vector paths are selected. These can be modified—resized and reshaped—with no loss of their crisp edges.

Drawing Modes Overview

In the physical world, the word "drawing" implies that you're sketching lines and shapes by hand. Here in the digital world, drawing refers to creating objects using Photoshop's vector tools: the Pen tool and the various Shape tools. Drawing with these tools is more like drafting technical illustrations such as blueprints; you create precise outlines of shapes, instead of the more organic lines of a sketch or painting.

The Pixels mode is grayed out because you can only use it when one of Photoshop's Shape tools is active.

Press P to activate the Pen tool. Your Options bar depends on the tool mode you select (right).

Photoshop has three different drawing modes that determine exactly what happens when you use the vector tools. Now it's time for you to follow along!

Shape Drawing Mode

These are all vector drawing tools.

Let's look at each of the three drawing modes before we start actually drawing. You can use any vector Shape tool you'd like to follow along. I'll use the Rounded Rectangle, but any tool shown on the right will work.

Choose Shape mode from the Options bar (left). In this mode, your first click with the Pen or a Shape tool creates a new shape layer—technically, it's a vector-based object layer. Give it a spin by clicking and dragging with a Shape tool on your canvas while you're in Shape mode. Here's what our Options bar looks like in Shape mode:

When you finish drawing the shape, Photoshop automatically creates a new layer for your object and auto-opens the Live Shape Properties panel. The panel features nearly the same tool options as the top bar, where you can also set three features for the stroke: align type, line cap type, and line join type.

When you finish drawing the shape, Photoshop automatically creates a new layer for your object. You can use the Options bar to apply strokes and fills; try changing your shape's stroke to a dashed line or filling your shape with a gradient instead of a solid color. Drawing in this mode is like using a pair of scissors to cut shapes out of construction paper; these shapes can hide content on any layers underneath, where the layers overlap.

This mode is great for creating geometric shapes that you can use in your design or overlay onto your image. You can also use this mode to add a symbol or logo to a product in your image.

Path Drawing Mode

As you learned earlier, paths are lines and curves between points. Path mode doesn't create a new Shape layer or fill the path with color; it creates an empty outline. Try it now with your Shape tool.

You can use this mode to make selections with the Pen tool by right-clicking (PC) or Control-clicking (Mac) and choosing Make Selection. You can also use this mode to create a resizable vector mask. For example, if you mask a photo with a shape—the Rounded Rectangle tool or the Ellipse tool, as shown at the end of this lecture—you can experiment with the size of the mask itself without losing any edge quality.

You can also fill these paths with color and give them a stroke, by right-clicking (PC) or Control-clicking (Mac). However, Photoshop doesn't automatically create a new layer when you use the Pen tool or a Shape tool in Path mode; you have to create a new layer first and then add the fill or stroke. The paths you create in this mode live in the Paths panel.

Pixels Drawing Mode

Pixels mode works only with the Shape tools. Instead of creating a vector-based Shape layer or a path as described above, Photoshop creates a pixel-based shape filled with your foreground color. Like the Path mode, Pixels mode doesn't create a new layer for your shape. Try it now on a new, empty layer and notice the difference between this layer and the one Photoshop created for you when you used Shape mode earlier.

This mode is handy if you need to edit a shape using tools that don't work with vectors, like filters, painting tools, and so on. That said, you could just as easily rasterize a Shape layer (Layer > Rasterize > Shape) and then use those tools. So unless you know for sure that you'll never need to change the shape of the object you're drawing, you probably won't use this mode very often.

The basic drawing process is the same no matter which mode you choose: You pick the Pen tool or one of the Shape tools, choose a drawing mode, draw the shape, edit the shape, and then save it for future use. In the following sections you'll learn how to do all that and more.

Now that you have a bird's eye view of the process, it's time to dig into drawing with Shape tools.

Drawing with the Shape Tools

Photoshop has a selection of built-in, vector-based shapes, which are perfect for adding artistic embellishments or using as vector masks (discussed later in this lecture). These include a rectangle, a rounded rectangle (great for making round-edged selections or masks), an ellipse, a polygon, a line, and many custom shapes. These preset goodies are huge time savers; they keep you from drawing something that already exists. And since these preset shapes are made from paths, you can use the techniques described in this lecture to morph them into anything you want.

The Shape tools work in all three drawing modes, though this section focuses on the first mode: Shape layers. Just like any other kind of layer, you can stroke, fill, and add layer styles to Shape layers, as well as load them as selections.

Straight from the factory, Photoshop's Shape tools are set to the Shape drawing mode so Photoshop puts each shape on its own Shape layer (circled). You can resize and rotate a shape using Free Transform; both the Shape and Type layers are activated here so they'll rotate together.

You can change a shape's color by double-clicking its layer thumbnail and adding embellishments like drop shadows with a layer style.

You can select Live Shape Properties in the Properties panel to change the radii on rectangles and rounded rectangles (see the figure at right).

Let's say you want to create a starburst shape to draw attention to text in your ad. There's no sense drawing the starburst from scratch because Photoshop comes with one. Since the shapes are vector-based, they're resizable, rotatable, and colorable. For example, if you need to make the shape bigger, select the Shape layer, press Ctrl/Command-T to summon Free Transform, and then use the handles to make it as big as you want with no fear of quality loss.

Using the Shape Tools and Custom Shapes

You can customize how each Shape tool behaves by changing its settings in the Options bar.

You can also use the Properties panel to access shape options by toggling between the Live Shape Properties and Masks at the top of the panel: .

The figure below displays options for the Line tool (yep, a line is a shape!). These settings let you create shapes with specific sizes and proportions, specify the number of sides in a polygon, indent the sides to make a star, choose how rounded to make a rounded rectangle, and so on.

When you select the Line tool, you can use its options (shown here) to add arrowheads to either end of the line—or both ends—as well as determine line thickness (weight). To make sure that vector objects look as sharp as possible, select Align Edges at the far right of the Options bar to align your vector shapes to the pixel grid.

To find useful shapes that come with Photoshop, you have to do a bit of foraging. Choose the Custom Shape tool (which looks vaguely like a lumpy starfish) from the Tools panel. Trot up to the Options bar and open the Custom Shape picker by clicking the Shape menu's downward-pointing arrow. As soon as the menu opens, click the gear icon circled below and choose All.

When you click All, a dialog appears asking if you want to replace the current shapes, so just click OK.

Now you can see a preview of all the built-in shapes right in the Custom Shape preset picker. (Why Photoshop doesn't load these shapes automatically is anyone's guess.)

You draw custom shapes just like the basic shapes. You can also press and hold the Shift key to make the shape perfectly proportional, modify the shape by changing its fill and stroke colors, apply layer styles, and customize these shapes by using the Direct Selection tool to tweak their anchor points and control handles.

Creating Custom Shapes

The real power of using shapes, however, lies in defining your own, which can save you time. For example, if you have a piece of vector art that you need to use over and over, you can save it as a custom shape!

Let's create a custom Photoshop shape from an existing vector file: in this case an EPS. Download the files for this lecture, which include twirl.eps. Start a new Photoshop document and choose File > Place (you have the option to "Place Embed" or "Place Linked". Choose "Place Embed".) to import twirl.eps into Photoshop. The art will have a bounding box around it, so you can resize it. When you're finished resizing it, press Enter or Return.

Now we want the vector art we just placed to be a selection, so Ctrl-click (PC) or Command-click (Mac) its layer thumbnail in the Layers panel. (It's important to click the layer thumbnail and not the layer name.) The shape is surrounded by marching ants, indicating a selection.

Save this selection as a vector path by opening the Paths panel (Window > Paths) and choosing "Make Work Path" from the panel's flyout menu. Leave the Tolerance setting at the default and click OK. Finally, choose Edit > Define Custom Shape and, in the resulting dialog, give your new shape a name and click OK.

From that point on, your custom shape appears in the Options bar's Shape menu any time you're using the Custom Shape tool. To draw the shape you added, just select it from the Shape Preset Picker menu in the Options bar and then drag to draw the shape in your document.

You can also use Edit > Define Custom Shape on paths that you've created with the Pen tool, and that's what we'll focus on next.

Drawing with the Pen Tool
Pen Tool Vocabulary

The mighty Pen tool lives below the middle of the Tools panel. Other tools here let you tweak paths in order to create any shape you can imagine.

When the Pen tool made its debut in Adobe Illustrator in the late '80s, it offered precision and control unprecedented by previous versions. The only problem was that the tool was (and still is) darn hard to use. It was met with resistance because it didn't work the way artists expected to work with digital graphics (not to mention pens and pencils). Instead of clicking and dragging to draw a line, the Pen tool creates anchor points and control handles, collectively referred to as vector paths or Bezier curves (named for their inventor).

With the Pen tool, you have to click twice to create a line: The first click creates the line's starting anchor point, the second click adds the ending anchor point, and Photoshop automatically creates the path in between. It's kind of like digital connect-the-dots: Each time you add a new anchor point, a line segment connects it to the previous point. If you click and drag with the Pen tool—instead of clicking once and then clicking somewhere else—you'll create curved line segments with control handles, as shown below.

This boomerang shape is made from a series of points and paths.

Anchor points mark the beginning and end of each line segment. In Photoshop-speak, a line segment is called a path. To change a path's shape after it's been made, you can drag the points, adjust the control handles, as well as add or subtract points. The control handles aren't actually part of the path; they're little levers you use to control each line segment's shape or curve.

You use two different kinds of anchor points to tell Photoshop whether you want a curved or straight path:

	Smooth anchor points: Use these anchor points when you want your path to curve. If you click to set an anchor point and then drag in any direction—before releasing your mouse button—the Pen tool creates a smooth anchor point and control handle that you can drag to make the next path curve. (The direction you drag is extremely important, as you're about to learn.) When you click to make the second anchor point, Photoshop creates the actual path—a curved line between the two points. Corner anchor points: Use these anchor points when you want to draw a straight line. Simply click without dragging to set a point, and you won't have control handles. Instead, the Pen tool creates points connected by straight paths. To draw perfectly horizontal or vertical lines, press and hold the Shift key while you click to set more points. This limits the Pen tool to drawing straight lines at angles that are multiples of 45 degrees (45, 90, and so on), which is great for drawing geometric shapes.

Once you have, well, a handle on points and handles, you can create any shape you want. So now let's get some practice...

Drawing Straight Paths

The easiest thing you'll ever do with the Pen tool is draw a straight path. Start a new Photoshop document and press P to activate the Pen tool. In the Options bar, choose Path mode. Though you could use Shape layers mode for this example, Photoshop would automatically fill your path with color as soon as you start clicking which could be confusing (mastering these tools is tricky enough as it is!).

Mouse over to your document and click once (and release) to create your first anchor point. Photoshop puts a tiny black square where you clicked, and that's it. Move your cursor to the right of the first anchor point and click to create a second anchor point. Photoshop adds a straight line that connects the two points. Each time you click, Photoshop adds another anchor point, and connects each point with a path that forms your shape.

Notice that the active anchor point is black. Previous anchor points are white.

Now, move your cursor down an inch or so and click to create another anchor point. Photoshop continues to connect the points with paths after you place each point. When you're finished drawing your lines, press the Esc key or Ctrl-click (PC)/Command-click (Mac) elsewhere in your document. The anchor points you created disappear and a thin gray line represents the path you just drew.

You'll learn more about these tools when you edit paths later on.

If you want to move an anchor point and change the angle of your line, grab the Direct Selection tool by pressing Shift-A until the white arrow appears in the Tools panel.

With the Direct Selection tool active, click and drag one of your line's anchor points. As long as you hold your mouse button down, you can move the point wherever you want. When you get it positioned just right, release the mouse button. Press Esc when you're finished editing the path.

Drawing Curved Paths

Drawing curves with the Pen tool is more complicated because you'll use the control handles mentioned earlier to tell Photoshop how big you want the curve to be and in what direction you want the curve to go.

With the Pen tool, click to set your first anchor point and—without letting go of your mouse button—drag to the left or right to make the control handles appear. (They pop out from the last point you created.) These handles indicate the direction your path will take: if you drag to the right, your path will curve right when you add your next anchor point; if you drag left, your path will curve left. For this exercise, drag upward and to the right about half an inch, and then release your mouse button.

About two inches to the right of the first point, click to add a second point and, while holding your mouse button down, drag the new handle downward and to the right half an inch and then release your mouse button.

As you pulled the first handle upward, the curve obediently bent upward. By dragging the second control handle downward, your next curve will head in that direction too.

Create a third point by clicking and dragging upward and to the right. The path that appears when you click to add this third point curves downward because you pulled the control handle downward in the previous step. Drag the third point's control handle upward and slightly to the right to make the curve shown below.

The direction in which you drag the control handle determines the direction of the next path; you can watch the path between two points twist and bend as you drag the handle.

Notice that the two opposing handles are connected and they move in tandem. If you pull a handle farther, the curve gets bigger.

When you're finished, press the Esc key to let Photoshop know you're finished drawing your path.

This is complicated stuff, so watch the animation below to see another curve being created. Can you replicate this curve?

Congratulations! You've just drawn your first curved paths. With practice, you'll get the hang of using the control handles, and determine the direction and size of the curves with ease. There is more to drawing in Photoshop, so brace yourself as we we're about to dive in deeper!

Converting Anchor Points

As you learned earlier, there are two kinds of anchor points in Photoshop: smooth and corner. To draw complicated paths, you need to know how to switch between point types so you can create curves within a single path that go the same direction, as shown below. To do that, you start by creating a series of curves, and then convert some of the smooth points to corner points. With smooth anchor points, your paths curve in the direction you dragged the control handle of the preceding anchor point.

Once you convert smooth anchor points into corner points, you can adjust each control handle separately to create a series of curves that bend in the same direction.

Create a new Photoshop document several inches wide, so you have plenty of room to play. With the Pen tool, click and hold your mouse button to create your first point Drag the control handle up and away from the anchor point to set the direction of your next curve. Release your mouse button when you're ready to create your next anchor point.

Step 1

Move your cursor an inch or so to the right, and click to set your second point to the right of the first, and drag downward. When your path has the curve you want, release your mouse button.

Step 2

Move your cursor another inch to the right, and click and drag downward to create a third point, as shown below.

Step 3

Hop to the right another inch or so and then click and drag downward again to create a fourth point.

Step 4

Now, we'll start converting points, so you'll need to switch tools. Head over to the Tools panel and grab the Convert Anchor Point tool , found inside the Pen toolset. Click and drag the bottom control handle of your third anchor point, and drag it up so it's close to the opposite control handle on the same anchor point:

Step 5

The Convert Anchor Point tool "breaks" the bottom half of the control handle away from the top half so it can move all by itself. This converts the anchor point from a smooth point to a corner point, and changes your path from a smooth curve to a sharp angle. Once you break control handles, they behave much like the hands of a clock; you can move them independently to adjust the angle and curve of your path.

Next, use the Direct Selection tool to grab your path's second point from the left. Unfortunately, you can't select points with the Convert Anchor Point tool, so to see the second anchor point's control handles, you have to use the Direct Selection tool. Grab the Convert Anchor Point tool, click the bottom control handle that just appeared, and drag it upward next to its partner, as shown below.

Step 6

If you move both parts of your control handle so they're on top of each other, you can only see one handle (like the third anchor point shown here), just as you would see only one hand of a clock at noon. If that happens, grab the Direct Selection tool to drag one of the handles out of the way so you can see them both.

Curvature Pen Tool

Another kind of pen tool called the Curvature Pen tool can be found grouped with the standard Pen Tool in the toolbar. The Curvature Pen tool was designed to allow the user to create curves without the need to manipulate control handles.

While the pen tools are designed for a different approach, both of them are pretty similar since they are creating a vector path in the end. The vector path from the Curvature Pen tool is no different from the vector path created from the standard Pen Tool. Many of the techniques used to edit or manipulate the path will work. When creating a path with the Curvature Pen tool, the control handles are not visible but they will be revealed if the Direct Selection tool is activated and an anchor point is selected.

The standard Pen tool is great when learning the behavior of a path and anchor points. Once mastered, other tools related to vector parths such as the Curvature Pen tool will become easier to control.

 

Path Drawing Tips

Since it's impossible to know exactly what you'll be drawing with the Pen tool, here are some handy tips to keep in mind while you're creating paths.

Selecting and Moving Paths

Because Photoshop's paths are made from multiple line segments or individual shapes, you can select, move, reshape, copy, or delete parts of your path—or the whole thing—using the Direct Selection tool and the Path Selection tool. To select them, click the arrow icon in the Tools panel, press A, or press Shift-A to switch between them.

Use the Direct Selection tool to choose specific points (left). Black points are selected; white ones are not. Use the Path Selection tool (right) to select a whole path, turning all points black.

As we saw a moment ago, the Direct Selection tool turns your cursor into a white arrow and lets you select specific points in a path or individual line segments and apply changes only to them, leaving the rest of the path alone. The Path Selection tool turns your cursor into a black arrow and lets you select a whole path, so you can move, resize, or rotate the whole thing.

Once you've selected a path or part of a path, you can do all kinds of things with it! For example, you can copy it by Alt-dragging (PC) or Option-dragging (Mac). This is handy if you're making a pattern or want to add a bunch of shapes to your document. Add the Shift key to copy the shape in a straight line. You can resize a path by using Free Transform (Ctrl/Command-T). To delete a selected path or segment, select it and press the Delete key. If a point is selected, you can delete the entire path by pressing Delete twice.

Exaggerating Curves

To create an exaggerated curve, or one that curves back on itself, drag one side of the control handle in the opposite direction that you drew the path. Also, keep in mind that the length of the handle determines the height or depth of the curve. You can lengthen a control handle by dragging it farther in any direction.

Below is an example of what happens when you drag the control handles in different directions. In all of these examples, the path was drawn from left to right. The top image shows what happens when you drag the control handle in the same direction as the path is traveling (left to right), the middle image shows what happens when you drag the handle up and to the left, and the bottom image shows what happens when you drag the control handle down and to the left.

The farther you drag control handles, the longer they get and the more curved your path becomes. The example below shows the effect of different length handles on two similar paths.

Long control handles make for a really deep curve (top). Short controls handles result in a shallow curve (bottom).

Closing a Path

The paths you've seen so far have all been left open, meaning that the starting and ending anchor points aren't connected. If your goal is to draw an arc, you want to leave your path open. But if you want to fill your path with color, you need to close it to create a closed shape, where the path's ends are connected. To create a closed path, add your last anchor point and then hover your cursor over the path's starting anchor point until a tiny circle appears (it looks like a degree symbol) next to your cursor. Once you see the tiny circle, click the starting anchor point and Photoshop adds a path that joins the two points and closes the shape.

Creating Straight and Curved Path Segments

The paths we've been drawing so far have all been straight or curved, but we've not yet created a path that has both straight and curved segments. Let's say you need to create a straight segment followed by one that's curved. To do so, you need to add a control handle to an anchor point that doesn't yet have one, such as the starting or ending anchor point of a straight line. Once you've drawn a straight line using the Pen tool, Alt/Option-click the ending anchor point. You'll see a tiny caret (an upside-down V) appear next to your cursor. Keep holding your mouse button down, and drag outward to create a new control handle. You won't create the curve until you set another anchor point, which is the next step. (If you Alt/Option-click an anchor point that already has handles, you'll just grab that point's handles instead of creating a new one.)

Release Alt/Option and then click another area to add a new anchor point. Once you do, you get a curve that heads in the direction in which you dragged the new control handle. If you want to change the direction of the curve, Alt/Option-click the control handle again and drag toward the path. If you want to add a straight segment to a curved path, Alt/Option click the anchor point to break the bottom half of the control handle away from the top, as you did earlier in the Converting Anchor Points section. Once you click to add the next anchor point, you'll create a straight path segment instead.

Adding and Deleting Points

At first, you may have a wee bit of trouble drawing paths that look exactly like you want (surprise!). The Pen tool and others in its family are very forgiving, so don't stress; just add more points, move them around, and adjust the curves until you get the shape you want. You'll need fewer and fewer points as you get more comfortable using the vector drawing tools. And if you've had yourself a point party, you can always delete the extra ones. The trick lies in knowing which tool to use to make the changes you want!

Adding and deleting points is really easy since the Pen tool figures out what you want to do depending on what your cursor is pointing to.

To add a point, grab the Pen tool, hover your cursor over an existing path (but avoid hovering over any anchor points), and your cursor turns into the Add Anchor Point tool automatically. Alternatively, you can choose the Add Anchor Point tool from the Pen toolset. Click anywhere on the path to set new anchor points, then manipulate them using the Direct Selection tool .

To delete a point that you no longer need, grab the Pen tool, place your cursor over the point, and a tiny minus sign appears next to your cursor to let you know that the Delete Anchor Point tool is active. Or you can open the Pen toolset and grab the Delete Anchor Point tool . Either way, click once to get rid of that point.

Watch this animation to see an anchor point deleted.

Extending Existing Paths

There are many ways you can modify your existing paths, such as by using the Direct Selection tool to move points around or using the Convert Anchor Point tool to switch the type of point you're working with. You can add to, and join, existing paths.

To add a segment to a path, place your Pen tool cursor over the ending anchor point of an open path and then click, or click and drag, to continue drawing. A tiny forward slash appears next to your cursor to let you know you can add to your path.

To join the ends of two open path segments, making them a single path, grab the Pen tool again. Click one segment's endpoint and then hover your cursor over one of the other segment's endpoint. When a tiny box icon appears, click to connect the two, as in this animation:

Watch this animation to see two paths joined. Keep an eye on the cursor.

Saving Paths

After all your hard work creating a path, it's a darn good idea to save the path for future editing and use. Or you might want to use the path with other objects in your image, like when you're using a path as a vector mask as explained later in this lecture. Since paths are vector-based, they don't take up much memory and won't noticeably increase your Photoshop document's file size, so feel free to save as many of the little buggers as you want.

As you're drawing a path, Photoshop stores it in the Paths panel as a temporary work path and displays it in your document as a thin gray line. (Don't worry, it won't print.) If you want to hide the gray line—so you don't accidentally edit or move it—just press Enter. To create multiple paths in a single document, you have to save each path before starting on the next one, or Photoshop adds the subsequent path to the previous one.

Photoshop gives you a bunch of different ways to save a path. For example, you can choose Shape mode from the Options bar before you start drawing and Photoshop stores your path as a vector-based object on its own layer. Other methods include:

	Save the path before you draw it by clicking the "Create new path" button at the bottom of the Paths panel . Photoshop names the currently empty placeholder "Path 1," but you can double-click its name later to change it. Save the path after you draw it by choosing Save Path from the Paths panel's flyout menu. Save the path as a custom shape that you can access through the Options bar's Custom Shape menu. You can save as many paths as you want (they won't bloat the size of your file), so go ahead and feel free to have a path-saving party so you can reuse them again later. Save the path as a clipping path that you can use to isolate an object in a page layout program like InDesign, though a layered Photoshop file with a layer mask is generally preferred. Unless you're importing art into a really old version of QuarkXPress (version 5 or earlier), you'll never need to use a clipping path. These days, a layered Photoshop file—with a layer mask to hide the portion you want to knock out—is preferred by both QuarkXPress and InDesign.

Stroking and Filling Paths

Alright! Now we get to add some color to these paths we've been working so hard on. There are two ways to do this: adding an outline (called a stroke) to the path or filling the path with color.

Adding a Stroke to a Path

Unless you've got a graphics tablet, trying to create this brush stroke by hand could take days. Therefore, using the path techniques described here will make your life a lot easier.

After you create a path with the Pen tool, you can add a stroke (outline) to it using any of the painting tools. This is handy when you're trying to draw a long, smooth, flowing line like the one here. Try drawing this Z freehand using the Brush tool; it's really hard to create such a perfect Z shape. But with the Pen tool, you can draw the path first, edit it (if necessary) using the techniques described in the previous sections, and then add the fancy red stroke using your favorite brush.

Once you create the path, add a new, empty layer. With the new layer activated, you can add a stroke to a path in a couple of ways. Both ways involve using the Paths panel (Window > Paths), labeled in all of its glory below.

To try the first approach, choose a foreground color, then choose Stroke Path from the Paths panel's flyout menu shown below. In the resulting dialog, pick the tool you want to use for the stroke.

The drawback to this method is that the stroke picks up the settings you last applied to that tool (you don't get a chance to change them). For example, if you set the Brush tool to a certain blend mode or lowered its opacity, your stroke uses that blend mode or opacity. So if you want a different type of stroke, you'll have to undo (Ctrl/Command-Z), go to the Brush tool and change its settings, then repeat the Stroke Path process.

An alternate method is to activate the tool you want to use to stroke the path first, adjust the settings in the Options bar, and then click the Stroke Path button at the bottom of your Paths panel. This method helps you avoid having to undo the stroke because the tool's settings are all screwy.

Filling a Path

Before you fill a path, take a moment to consider whether you will create an open or closed path. As described earlier, the starting and ending anchor points of an open path don't meet. If you try to "fill" an open shape, Photoshop uses an imaginary straight line to connect the starting point with the ending point, then fills the area closed by that imaginary line. This can lead to some rather strange results:

When you fill a closed path—one in which the starting and ending points meet—Photoshop fills the whole shape just like you'd expect.:

Not surprisingly, filling a closed path adds color to the whole shape.

Of course, there are as many ways to accomplish a task in Photoshop as there are Photoshop users. Draw a quick closed path in Path mode, create a new layer for the fill color, then choose from the following fill methods:

	Choose Fill Path from the Paths panel's menu. You can choose how to fill the shape in the Fill Path dialog. This is handy if you want to use a pattern or a specific blend mode (blend modes are covered later in the course). You can use this dialog to tell Photoshop exactly what you want to fill the path with and change the fill's blend mode or feather its edges. To open the Color Picker, choose Color from the Use pop-up menu. Click the "Fill path with foreground color" button at the bottom left of the Paths panel , and Photoshop fills the shape with the foreground. You won't see a dialog with this method. Selecting the path in the Paths panel and then dragging it onto this button does the same thing. Alt/Option-click the "Fill Path with foreground color" button to summon the Fill Path dialog, shown above. You can do the same thing by selecting the path in your Paths panel and then Alt/Option-dragging it onto this button.

When you choose the type of fill you want by way of the Fill Path dialog, you have three main settings:

	Contents. The Use menu lets you decide whether to fill the path with a color, Content-Aware, a pattern, or the last saved history state in the History panel. Blending. Use the Mode menu to change the fill's blend mode, and the Opacity field to change the fill's opacity. Turn on the Preserve Transparency checkbox if you're filling a path on partially transparent layer. Photoshop will only fill the part that's not transparent. Rendering. If you want to make the fill's edges soft and slightly transparent, enter a number in the Feather Radius field. The higher the number the softer the edge will be. Leave the Anti-alias checkbox turned on or else your fill's edges will be jagged.

You can get very precise with your fills if you select certain parts of a complex drawing. Below is a close up of paths from the Bert Monroy painting at the beginning of this lecture. On the left, you can see that the triangle shapes were selected; you can select multiple points or paths by holding Shift with either path selection tool. On the right, just the selected paths are filled.

Making Paths Intersect

You can use the Options bar to change the intersect mode of two or more overlapping paths. These modes let you combine overlapping shapes in a variety of ways to create more complex artwork, much like the Pathfinder panel in Illustrator. These features work in Shape or Path drawing modes.

Draw a shape in Shape mode with a solid fill color. Now switch to Combine Shapes mode from the "Path operations" menu in the Options bar (shown below, left) and draw a shape that partially overlaps your first shape. Choose the Path Selection tool and select both shapes by clicking while holding Shift. Then select Merge Shape Components from the bottom of the "Path operations" menu. Merge Shape Components adds one shape to another so that the combined shapes merge into one. Photoshop deletes the paths in the shapes' overlapping areas.

Use the Path Selection tool to grab all the shapes that comprise your design, and then click Merge Shape Components from the "Path operations" menu. As you can see on the right, Photoshop joins the selected paths together into a single shape.

Start a new shape (in "New layer" mode) elsewhere on the document so you can try the next mode.

Subtract Front Shape mode cuts out the area where two shapes overlap. Draw an overlapping shape in Subtract Front Shape mode to knock the shape out. On the right you can see that I have knocked out a circle from the center of the flower design.

You can use Intersect Shape Areas mode to get rid of the areas of your shapes that don't overlap, as shown below. Below I have hidden the top and bottom of the flower by clicking Intersect Shape Areas from the "Path operations" menu and dragging a rectangle around part of the flower.

Want to see your work without lines and handles as shown here on the right? You can hide the shape outlines and handles by tapping the Enter key; press Enter again to bring them back.

Finally, Exclude Overlapping Shapes mode hides the areas where your shapes overlap. For example, you can hide the whole flower except its tips by excluding overlapping areas. Start by trotting up to the Options bar and selecting Exclude Overlapping Shapes from the "Path operations" menu. Then grab the Rounded Rectangle tool and drag over the flower to hide the parts that overlap your rectangle. Since the circle in the center of the flower was already hidden, it flips back to its original color.

Since the circle in the center of the flower was already hidden, it flips back to its original color!

Making Selections and Masks with Paths
Making Selections

Photoshop is loaded with selection tools that you learned earlier on in your studies. However, when you're trying to select something really detailed, the regular selection tools aren't always cut out for the job.

The lack of contrast between the item you want to select and its background makes it nearly impossible to select just part of the façade (left). But with the Pen tool, you can draw a path around the section you want by hand (zoomed, right).

Luckily, you can use the Pen tool to draw a path that follows the contours of any shape you can imagine, no matter how intricate. The beauty of this method is that the Pen tool is very forgiving. If you don't get it right the first time, just edit the path with the Direct Selection tool or any of the other techniques you've learned. After you convert your path to a selection, which we'll discuss momentarily, you can touch it up even further.

The Make Selection dialog lets you feather the selection, apply anti-aliasing to its edges, or combine it with an existing selection.

When you have created a path that you want to use as a selection, open the Paths panel flyout menu and choose Make Selection. This summons the dialog (right) where you can adjust the selection's feather amount to soften its edge. In the Operation section, you can choose to turn the path into a new selection, add to or subtract from an existing one, or create a selection from the intersection of this one and an existing one. If you don't have any active selections in your document, Photoshop assumes you want to make a new selection and doesn't let you choose any of the other options.

To bypass this dialog, you can click the "Load path as a selection" button at the bottom of the Paths panel . In this case, Photoshop applies the settings you used the last time you used the Make Selection dialog (like to the feather radius).

Once your path has become a selection, you can do anything to it you normally would do to a selection, such as invert to select the background, add to it or subtract from it with other selection tools, refine its edges with the Refine Edge button, or switch to Quick Mask Mode (Select > Edit in Quick Mask Mode) to fine tune it.

Using Vector Masks

Unlike the regular pixel-based layer masks you've worked with in the past, vector masks are extremely flexible and you can easily create one once you've made a path—one that you've drawn by hand or created with one of Photoshop's built-in Shape tools. This masking method is quick and easy, and you're going to love its flexibility. (Vectors are infinitely resizable and editable, remember?) And, because a vector mask is made from vector-based paths, they give you much smoother edges than pixel layer masks. You can also resize them using Free Transform as well as feather them non-destructively—on the fly—by using the Feather slider in the Masks section of the Properties panel. Woo-hoo!

From the files you downloaded earlier, open the guitar and crowd photos. Let's create a vector mask to overlay the guitar seamlessly onto the crowd.

The easiest way to create a vector mask is from a path outline made by the Pen tool or a Shape tool. It works just like the regular ol' layer masks you learned about in your previous Photoshop studies and adds a mask thumbnail to the currently active layer.

Remember, layer masks are just like digital masking tape; they let you hide part of that layer's content by painting inside the mask with black. The difference with vector masks is that you can resize them all you want and their edges stay nice and sharp. (Note that if your Background layer is locked, you'll need to double-click it before adding a vector mask.)

For our example, we're going to create a quick oval vignette that fades the guitar into the crowd, so we'll use a simple Shape tool. So start things off by placing the guitar on a layer above the crowd image. Whenever you're combining images in this way, the layer you want to mask should be on top.

Grab the Ellipse tool from your set of Shape tools (not to be confused with the Elliptical Marquee tool!). You can press Shift-U repeatedly to cycle through all of the Shape tools. In the Options bar, choose Path drawing mode. Next, mouse over to your image and then click and drag to draw an oval roughly around the guitar and hand, as shown below.

Here you can see the faint gray outline of the oval path.

Now, in the Layers panel, add a vector mask by Ctrl/Command-clicking the "Add vector mask" button at the bottom of the panel . (The Ctrl/Command click is important!)

Another way to do the same thing is to go to the Options bar and click "Mask" from the three Make options. Either way, Photoshop adds an infinitely resizable vector mask to your layer.

To make the edges of the oval mask soft, so the image fades into the layer below, make sure your vector mask is active in the Layers panel, open the Properties panel (Window > Properties), and drag the Feather slider to the right, as shown here. The beauty of feathering your mask in this way is that if you save the document as a PSD, you can always reopen the Properties panel and remove the feather be dragging the slider to the left (or by entering 0 in the field above it). Now that's versatility!

The Feather slider softens the edges of your path so one image appears to blend into another.

To edit the vector mask, say if you want to reshape it or move it, select its thumbnail in the Paths or Layers panel and use the Path Selection tool or Direct Selection tool to activate its anchor points and control handles. To resize the mask, activate it and then press Ctrl/Command-T to summon Free Transform.

As you can see in this lecture, drawing with paths and vectors offers you infinite creative potential in Photoshop... and you have the opportunity to explore this in the exercise!

Discussion Share your thoughts and opinions on Photoshop with other students. Exercise Use vector tools to create a backstage pass design.