Photoshop® CS4 Bible

11.3. Creating Vector Paths

It may seem complicated at first, but creating paths is fairly simple once you understand the tools and options defined in the last section, and practice using them. Understand that no amount of reading will ever replace the act of opening a new Photoshop image and spending some quality time experimenting with the different vector tools, panels, and menus. Experimentation is the best way to retain the concepts you discussed in this chapter.

11.3.1. Making simple open and closed paths

As noted earlier, an open path is a line segment that has beginning and end points (anchor points), and which do not close the path component off from other parts of the document. For the examples that follow, keep in mind that you could, if you wanted to, create the anchor points anywhere on the document. Locations are suggested here to keep things as simple as possible the first time.

For these Pen tool exercises a digital stylus is not required. The first example is the most simplistic. Follow these steps to create a straight (open) path segment:

1. Open a new Photoshop document and press the P key or click the Pen tool on the Toolbar.

2. Click anywhere on the left half of the document canvas with the Pen tool.

3. Move the Pen tool to the right half of the document (hold down the Shift key if you want to form a perfectly straight line segment) and click a second time with the Pen tool. The finished path is seen in Figure 11.16.

Figure 11.16. A simple linear path segment (open ...