Photoshop Tutorials: Paths Part I

Step 1: Preparation
Open photoshop and start a new document. I made mine 500px x 500px at 72dpi (dpi is a print term and irrelevant for this exercise. But that is another tutorial altogether). Next make sure the paths palette is visible by clicking Window > Paths (it may be a nested menu on the layer palette.)

Step 2: Selecting A Path Tool
You can make paths either by drawing them with the pen tool, or by using preset shapes (e.g. rounded rectangle tool.) In our first exercise we will use a rounded rectangle path to make a vector mask border. So first select the rounded rectangle tool (it may be hidden under another tool) and make sure paths is selected as in the picture below. I have imported one of my own pictures to my new document for demonstrating the border on.

Step 3: Creating A Work Path
Now that you have your rounded rectangle tool selected and it is set to make paths, set the radius of the corners to 39px (because we are so precise here) and draw a path right to the edge of the picture. Now when you look in your paths palette you should see a new work path which shows up on your picture when selected like a pencil thin gray square with rounded edges.

Step 3: Creating A Vector Mask
Now comes the fun part. First click the path selection tool (the black filled in arrow adjacent to the rounded rectangle tool, remember it might be under another tool.) Then click anywhere inside your path to select it. Now, making sure your photo layer is selected, right click the path and select Create vector mask from the drop down list.

That is all you need to do and you should end up with a nicely curved border for your photo. If you want a thin black line to emphasise the border you can stroke your path by right clicking it in the paths palette and selecting stroke path, and make sure simulate pressure is not selected. Use the brush tool from the drop down list but first click the brush tool in the normal tools menu and make sure its set to 1px and 100% hardness.

And that is that for vector masks for now. Let’s move on to drawing paths by hand.

Step 1: Preparation
Start a fresh document to make things easy. Go for 500px x 500px again just because we can. Now we can start drawing some cool paths.

Step 2: Drawing A Path
You can free-form draw a path or draw it point to point. I prefer point to point as you don’t end up with anchor points all over the place which are a pain to delete as there is usually a whole lot of them. So go ahead and select your pen tool. Now let’s draw a wavy line from top right to bottom left and then back to the start like in the picture.

Notice when you draw a point of a path you have the ability to stretch out those two lines at either side of the point, those are called handles and are very helpful later on.

At first drawing a path will seem awkward but you will quickly get the hang of it. To end a path when you get back to your start point, wait till you see the little circle appear when you hover next to the start point and then click. This will end your path into a complete circuit.

Note that it doesn’t have to be a complete circuit but can be just a straight line.

Path points can be undone at any time by standard undo of Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on Mac) then Ctrl+Alt+Z (Cmd+Alt+Z on Mac) to undo multiple steps because Adobe likes to make life so easy – not. I couldn’t get the little circle representing the end of a path in the screen-shot so you’ll have to pretend it’s there at the top red selected area.

Step 3: Using the Path
Now you can do many things with this path. The main advantage of using paths of course is that you can resize them at any time by using free transform Ctrl+T (Cmd+T on the Mac) to however big or small you prefer without losing a scrap of quality because it is a vector.

But right now I will show you two of the most helpful things you can do with your path. First you can make it into a selection which is great for cutting people out of photos as you can easily edit your path (with the add anchor point tool which is underneath the pen tool in the tools menu.) Or you can stroke/fill your path by right clicking it in the paths palette.

You will be presented with a number of options when you right click the path which are all pretty straightforward. If you click Make Selection you can also feather the selection to however much px you like (well, up to 250px anyway.)

Have fun with these options and feel free to ask if you have any questions. A fun thing to play around with is Simulate pressure when you stroke a path as you can first make up a brush pattern in the brush tool area then stroke your path with that brush.

There are many more things you can do with paths, but now that you know the basics, working from here should be a lot more straightforward.

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Related Articles

• Illustrator Tutorials: Clipping Masks and Live Trace January 18, 2010
• Photoshop Tutorials: Making the Most of an Average Photo–Part I January 7, 2010
• Photoshop Tutorials: Things You Probably Don’t Know December 22, 2009

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