Photoshop Clipping Path: How To Use Photoshop Pen Tool

Bezier Curve, Widely known as Photoshop Pen tool curve

The idea behind the pen tool, or less commonly known as the Bezier tool  is that geometric constants can be used to create flowing, curvaceous lines and designs. It was because of this tool, developed by Pierre Bezier in 1962 and then put to work in the auto manufacturing industry, came about the advent of curvy, smooth cars rather than the Caprice Classics of the day. Adobe has put Beziers mathematic principles to good use in many of its previous versions of Photoshop and Illustrator up until today.

pen tool is primarily used to make quick, smooth, profess cutouts of anything ranging from a bikini model with hair blowing in the wind to a tree with a multitude of branches (in combination with some color specific selections).

Today, we’ll concentrate on pathing out a simple object from its background, let’s say a freshly cut orange with shadows on a white surface:

Oranges

Firstly, we need to identify a few key features we’ll need to pay attention to as we path. First, the base shadow and the shadow reflection on the actual oranges. We will be removing the base shadow and leaving the shadow reflection on the orange for now.

Secondly, let’s choose our pen tool ()

We need to verify that the pen tool is set correctly for what we’re doing – the graphic below depicts how your pen tool options should be set:

Pentools

Now, we begin to path. Usually, I like to start at a spot where two circular shapes meet at a rough, sharp angle. In this case, it’s on top. Click once there as shown to create your first anchor point.

Step 1

Next, follow (with your eyes) along to the right around the circumference of the orange. Since the orange is not a perfect circle, follow until you see a jitter of some sort in the smoothness of the circle, in this case its near the stem.

Click and HOLD the left mouse button where you see a jitter to create another anchor point and pull the handle it creates to manipulate the resulting path to snugly fit around the shape of the orange as shown on the left. Don’t be afraid to take the tool outside of the white work area. You can now release the mouse button.

Step 2:Drawing the curve

The next step, while holding down the Alt key, grab (click and hold) the handle that extends in the direction you’re traveling with the pathing tool (clockwise), in this case the handle on the bottom right. Drag this handle point into the origin of the anchor point as shown and release. You’ve just created your first path line!

Step 3: Going along the curves of the orange

Note: The Bezier tool is only capable of creating partial circles with each pair of path points. Anything more than a quarter-circle will require another pair of anchor points as it will become oval, thus losing its roundness.

Continue these 3 steps while following snugly around the oranges. Make sure not to spread your anchor points too thinly.

Once you follow around the oranges, taking care to exclude the base shadow from your path as shown. Close the path by simply clicking and holding on the path point where you first started as shown, while pulling the handle out until the desired final shape is achieved.

Step 4: The path is completed

You now have a completed path. You can use this path to create a cutout selection using the paths panel alongside the layers panel, while also knocking out the shadow that was previously given to this picture.

Final Cutout Image of Oranges

In order to knock out the shadows remaining on the oranges themselves, you have to simply grab the dodge tool at maybe 10% and start to lightly brush away the shadowy areas on the bottom until the area is a nice orange. On top of that, you can also create your own shadow and lighting direction since you will have knocked out the original shadow and now have a layer with an actual shape to it.

I hope this helps all of the aspiring Photoshoppers out there to begin delving a little deeper into the powers of the Photoshop. Thanks for reading folks.

Credit: MakUseOf.com