Pen Tool - Tutorial 2

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This tutorial is the second tutorial of a series of Pen Tool tutorials. This Tutorial is all about making selections with the pen tool.

For this tutorial we will be using the Paths option for the pen tool. Click the Paths option [] on the pen tool options bar.



Rendering

Rendering shapes with straight lines

This is the easiest rendering you can do. Images with straight lines are very simple because all you have to do is click around the shape.

For this part of the tutorial, we will be using this image on an arrow.
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Save and open the image. Use the pen tool and just click around the arrow until you have made it all the way around the arrow. Then right click the path you just made and select "make Selection". It is always wise to feather the selection by a pixel or two, just to make the rendering a bit more smooth. After you have made the selection, we want to inverse the selection. To do this go to Selection -> Inverse or press CTRL + Shift + I. After you have made the selection inverse either go to Edit -> Cut or hit the delete key.


And there you go, you rendered that arrow.


Rendering Shapes with curved lines

This is a tiny bit harder than rendering images with all straight lines. You have to use the pen tool to curve around the image. I have chosen to use a very easy image for this tutorial for two reasons 1) so people just learning can have something easy to do and 2) I didn't want to make a 10 minute video showing me render an image.

For this part of the tutorial we will be using this image of a weird red water drop thing.
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Save and open this image. Using the pen tool go around the image, just as you did with the arrow, but holding down the mouse key and dragging to make the curves. Don't forget about the ALT and clicking trick I taught you in the last tutorial. Once you have made it all the way around the image, right click the path you just made and select "make Selection". once again, feather the selection by a pixel or two to allow for a more smooth selection. After you have made the selection, we want to inverse the selection. To do this go to Selection -> Inverse or press CTRL + Shift + I. After you have made the selection inverse either go to Edit -> Cut or hit the delete key.


There you go, you have successful rendered this weird water drop thing from it's background.

Rending can become very complex, especially when dealing with large images or images with very much detail. I chose easy images for this tutorial to make it easy for you guys to learn the basics of rendering. Some more detailed images can take a very long time to render. Rendering can also become a very tedious thing, not all rendering is as easy as it was in this tutorial.

Filling in Selections

You can also use the pen tool to make sections and fill them in with a color, gradient, pattern, etc. For this part of the tutorial I will be starting out with a 600px by 600px document with a black background. First what you want to do is draw a shape with the pen tool. I will be drawing a tombstone-like shape. After you have drawn your shape right click your path and choose "make selection". Make sure the feather is at 0px for this. Click ok.The shape you just drew will not be selected. Now click on the paint bucket tool [] and choose any color you wish to fill your shape in with. (I chose white for this tutorial.) Click anywhere inside your selection and your shape will be filled in with the color you chose.


You can also use the pen tool to trace an already existing image and fill it in just as you did above. You do everything the same, you will just be tracing an image rather than drawing your own.

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