Photoshop_ The Pen Tool - In Depth (HD)
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Level Up Your Design Skills with Adobe Photoshop
Join us on this exciting journey as we dive into the world of Adobe Photoshop. Whether you're a beginner looking to master the basics or an experienced designer seeking advanced techniques, our tutorials have something for everyone.
From photo editing and manipulation to creating stunning digital artwork, Photoshop offers limitless possibilities. Learn how to:
Edit and enhance photos: Adjust colors, remove blemishes, and add creative effects.
Design graphics: Create logos, posters, and social media content.
Manipulate images: Combine multiple images, add text, and apply filters.
Create digital art: Explore painting, drawing, and illustration techniques.
Subscribe now to get access to step-by-step tutorials, tips, and tricks that will help you unlock your full creative potential in Photoshop."
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LearningTranscript
00:00Hey there, welcome to another Photoshop tutorial from tutcast.com.
00:03The pen tool is probably one of the most difficult tools in Photoshop to use.
00:07It's a very complex and precise tool, and if you're not very well educated on how the
00:12pen tool works, it's going to be a pain to figure out how to use.
00:17But if you do know how it works, and you can use it properly, it's probably one of your
00:21best friends in Photoshop.
00:23And in this tutorial, I'm going to show you exactly how the pen tool works, and hopefully
00:27you'll learn some of the ins and outs of how to use the pen tool.
00:31Now the pen tool can be found in our tools palette.
00:33It can be accessed either by pressing the P key, or going over to the side here and
00:39clicking on this tool right here, which is our pen tool.
00:42Now at the top in our options bar, we have a few options.
00:45We have our shapes layer option, and we have our paths option.
00:50Those are the two main options that we're going to be discussing in this video.
00:53We're going to start off with the shapes layer.
00:56The shapes layer allows us to use our pen tool to create any sort of shape we want.
01:01Unlike the rectangle tool, which allows you to create predetermined shapes just like this,
01:05the pen tool will allow us to create vector shapes in any sort of shape we want.
01:10So if we grab our pen tool, and make sure that the shapes layer button is checked on,
01:14we can go ahead and start clicking, and create any sort of shape that we want in any shape
01:19and size, just like this.
01:22But the great thing about the pen tool is that we are not limited to creating polygonal
01:26shapes.
01:27The one that you just saw was polygonal, but if we wanted to create curves in our shape,
01:31we can very easily do that as well.
01:33Let me show you how that works.
01:35Let's say you're in the process of creating your shape, and you want to finish your shape
01:38with a curve.
01:39All you have to do is click on the last node here, and then drag your mouse.
01:43You'll notice that a curve starts to form.
01:45You can drag your mouse as far out as you want to create any sort of curve that you
01:49please, just like this.
01:52Now let's say you wanted to create some sort of a circular form.
01:56So for this example, I'm going to be going ahead and tracing out the bottom half of this
02:00orange down here at the bottom, to show you how to create a curvy shape using the pen
02:05tool, and I'm going to show you some of the problems that you may run into when using
02:09the pen tool.
02:10So I'm going to start off by making my first node right around here, and then I'm going
02:14to click and drag somewhere around this area to create our first curve.
02:19Now once that curve is finished, we're going to choose another curvy area somewhere around
02:23this area, and as you can see, it completes the curve for us.
02:28But we may run into a problem when we get to an area like this, a sharper area.
02:31We run into two problems here.
02:33Number one, we can't see where we're going to trace, and number two, when we start making
02:37our line, we have this big curve at the top right corner.
02:40We don't want that.
02:41So problem number one, we can't see underneath.
02:44There's an easy fix for that.
02:46On your keyboard, use the number keys to increase or decrease the opacity of your shape.
02:50So let's say we want to see through a little bit.
02:52We're going to go ahead and press the number four to decrease our opacity of this shape
02:56to 40%.
02:57If you want to increase it later on to 100%, press the number zero.
03:01So let's go back to 40%.
03:03So now that we can see through, we can continue tracing the bottom half of this orange, but
03:07we have a problem.
03:09If we go ahead and try and make a curve here, we have this big loopiness at the top right
03:14corner.
03:15We don't want that.
03:16So we're going to eliminate that curve for now.
03:18So we're going to hold down Alt on a PC or Option on a Mac and click on our last created
03:24node.
03:25This will eliminate the curve that we're about to make, and now we can go ahead with a fresh
03:30start and create a brand new curve just like this, and we can continue around the orange
03:38like that, and we have our completed shape using curves, using the pen tool.
03:43We can once again increase the opacity back to 100%.
03:46Now here's one thing that people get annoyed by.
03:49You can see this line going around our shape.
03:51That's just the path of our vector shape.
03:54To get rid of it, on a Mac, hold down Command Shift, on a PC, hold down Control Shift and
04:00press the letter H. That will hide or show the path of your vector shape.
04:05Now let's say you're not 100% happy with the curves of the shape that you just created
04:09and you want to edit them a little bit.
04:11Well luckily, there's a way to do that.
04:13If we head over to our tools palette, we can go ahead and grab our direct selection tool,
04:17which allows us to edit all aspects of our shape.
04:20We can go ahead and click on that, click on our shape, and then find any of the nodes
04:24that we want.
04:25So we can click on these nodes here, let's say we want to edit this curve right here.
04:28We can click on it, and we can edit the curve of both sides of the nodes, just like this.
04:33We can pull it any way we choose, we can decrease the curve, we can increase the curve, we can
04:38even move the curve up or down.
04:40So we have complete flexibility over how the curves of our object curve around the
04:44shape and we can control it any way we like.
04:48The only problem that you may run into is if you remember a few minutes ago when we
04:51eliminated one of the curves at the top here, we took this node and we eliminated the curve
04:56at the top.
04:57Right now you can't edit the curve right in this corner here, but if you hold down on
05:01a Mac, Command and Option, or on a PC, Control and Alt, we can go ahead and create a brand
05:08new curve by just dragging on that node like that, and we now have that curve back once
05:13again.
05:14So we can go ahead and control it like that, so it's not as sharp as it was before.
05:18But I'm going to go ahead and leave it the way it was.
05:20So if you're looking to edit any of the curves on your vector shape that you just created
05:24using the pen tool, definitely check out the direct selection tool, that will allow you
05:28to edit any of the curves and even add curves if you wanted to.
05:32One more thing I should note, if you right click on the path, we have a few other options.
05:36We can go ahead and add an anchor point so we can add more curves to our object, just
05:41like this.
05:42We can also define it as a shape.
05:45Once again, if you right click on your shape, you can go ahead and click on Define Custom
05:48Shape and name your shape Orange Peel, and it will save it to your shapes library so
05:54you can use it anytime you want in the future.
05:57And of course, one last thing I should probably mention, just like you can with other shape
06:01tools, you can go ahead and add to your shape area, you can subtract, you can intersect,
06:06and you can exclude overlapping shape areas, just like you can using your other shape tools
06:10and selection methods.
06:12And that's pretty much about it for creating custom shapes using the pen tool in Photoshop.
06:16We're now going to quickly discuss what the paths option is.
06:20Now unlike the shapes tool, we cannot create custom shapes using the path tool, but we
06:25can do a few other things.
06:26So let me go ahead and delete this layer.
06:28Now the path option works identical to the shapes option.
06:31So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to make sure to create a new layer.
06:33When you're creating a new path, it's always good to start it on a new layer, not the background
06:38layer.
06:39Now because the path option works identical to the shapes option, I'm going to quickly
06:42go around this orange and create the path, just like this.
06:47And you'll notice that this time it's not filling in with black because we're not creating
06:51a shape, we're only creating the path.
06:54So there we go, we have the path and you can see the path defined by the path that we can
06:58see around the orange.
07:00Now we have a few options this time, a few different options.
07:02We can go ahead and right click on our path.
07:05We can make it as a selection, as you can see we have our make selection dialog box.
07:09We can feather the radius, anti-aliased, any of these options here.
07:13We click OK and we now have a selection from that path.
07:17We can right click the path once again and choose fill path, but the problem with filling
07:21the path, we can fill it with foreground, background, a custom color, pattern, history,
07:25anything like that.
07:26The problem is, unlike using the shapes option, this is not a vector shape, so you can't resize
07:32it and keep the quality like you can when we created a custom shape using the shapes
07:36option in the pen tool.
07:38So that's another option.
07:40We can right click and then click stroke path.
07:42A lot of people wondered what this does.
07:45Basically we can use our brush settings, let me cancel out of this and go into our brush
07:48settings quickly.
07:50And here we have a 13 diameter pixel brush, hardness at 100%.
07:55Going back to the pen tool, right click, stroke path, and we can go ahead and fill
08:01it with our brush settings.
08:02Click OK and it will outline the path for us just like this.
08:06We can also choose to simulate the pressure.
08:10Stroke path, simulate pressure and click OK and you'll notice it kind of fades out towards
08:15the end just like that.
08:16So you can use the stroke path option to really make some nice designs using custom lines,
08:21using your brush settings or your pencil settings or anything like that.
08:24And once again, just like we're able to using the shapes option, we can right click, add
08:29anchor point or we can go ahead and use the direct selection tool to adjust curves on
08:34our path.
08:35We can also go to the top and add to our path, subtract, intersect or exclude just like we
08:40can using the shapes tool and most of the other tools in Photoshop.
08:44So that's pretty much it for the pen tool.
08:46It is a very confusing tool, very complex and very precise.
08:50It may take a while of playing with it to really get used to it, but if you do know
08:54how to use it properly, it can be one of your best friends in Photoshop.
08:58And until next time, this is Howard from tutcast.com.
09:01Take care.