Archive for the ‘Tutorials’ Category

Tutorial 3 – Pen tools and what to do with them.

If you’ve followed the previous two tutorials you can draw simple shapes and have an idea how to control the vector pen. Today we learn what the rest of the vector tools palette can offer.

To do this you need to familiarise yourself with the menus.
Under the pen tool are four further options

Free transform
Add Anchor Point Tool
Delete Anchor Point Tool
Convert Point Tool

Convert Point Tool

But first, using what you have learned so far open a new file about 200 pixels square with a white background. Use this space to draw a vague “S” shape with a pe tool. Don’t worry about how rough it is, we will fix it with the convert tool. You should have something like this

Now select the Convert Shape Tool from the menu bar.
First using this new tool, left click on the curve that you would like to alter.
The pointer will be a white arrow until you move over an anchor point

You should now have an anchor that you can adjust your curve with. Like this

Select another curve to adjust and left click to convert the tool and make your adjustments

To get this:

Not happy about where you placed an anchor? Want to move it? You need the Direct Selection Tool.

Use it to move the anchor around until you are happy with the position.

Reselect the Convert Point Tool and continue or use the handles to redefine the curve.

With a bit more adjustment I turned the red shape into the black one.

You can also select the Convert Anchor Tool directly while using the Direct Selection Tool by pressing Alt and Control while your mouse hovers over the anchor you want to change.

TRY THIS
Instead of selecting an anchor point, click on your path when you hold down Alt key and drag, this duplicates it.

You can do the same thing by choosing the Move tool

Draw a box around your path Can’t see a box outlining it? Don’t worry, you don’t need to see it, All the anchor points will be displayed. If you hold down the alt key and use the arrow keys it will move the image one pixel at a time. Hold down the shift key and it will move10 pixels.

If you hold down the Control key and use the arrow keys it will reposition your entire path by one pixel.

To bring up both handles of an anchor point click twice on the anchor point of your choice, this creates a smooth point and affects positioning of the adjoining segment too.

Adding and deleting Anchor Points

Use these tools to add and delete anchor points. Self explanatory I think. The same tools are also automatically available to you from the regular pen tool. Click on a curve segment to add a point to it and click on an anchor point to delete. PS automatically allows you to do this but you can turn off the automatics by unchecking the Auto Add/Delete function in the additional options bar.

Freeform Path Tool

Select the Freeform tool from the menu, open a new file about 300 wide and 200 high.

Make sure that you uncheck the Magnetic function in the additional options bar.

Draw your name.

Now in the Additional Options bar at the top open the pop up menu and change the curve fit setting to .5 to get a smoother line with more points. The larger the number you put in here (from .5-10) the smaller the number of points that PS puts in, the rougher the outline. Conversely the smaller the number the smoother it becomes.

Here isa version with thecurvefit option changed to 0.5

Similarly there is a hidden submenu when drawing with the Pen Tool. You can turn on the Rubber Band feature, which I sometimes prefer, makes it easier to see what you are doing.

The magnetic Option works like the Magnetic Lasso Tool but we will go into it in detail later.

I’d like to quickly cover the Shape Tools that come with PS before we go onto Clipping Paths and Shapes and all the wonderful things we can do with them in the next tutorial.

Shape Tools

Rectangle Tool
Draws rectangles unless you constrain the proportions to make a square by holding down the shift key as you draw out the shape. Hidden contextual menu in the same place as the others

Unconstrained: default – rectangles any size any shape
Square: Same as holding down the shift key
Fixed Size: put in the dimensions you require
Proportional: put in the dimensions you require but it is scalable
From Center: Where you click becomes the centre point of any box shape you draw.
Snap to pixels: This is from the PS help files - Snaps edges of a rectangle or rounded rectangle to the pixel boundaries. Helpful? Not really. What this means is once you enter your proportions all you have do is click where you what your shape to appear and hey presto, it appears. Can be a timesaver.

Rounded Rectangle Tool
The same as the Rectangle Tool but with rounded edges. Has the same contextual menu as that tool

EllipseTools
Draws elipses of any shape or size unless you constrain the proportions to make a circle by holding down the shift key as you draw out the shape. Hidden contextual menu in the same place as the others. Has the same functions as the previous two with the exception of the Snap to pixels function.

Polygon Tool
Draws polygons. Hidden contextual menu in the same place as the others. The tools are different however. The options are self explanatory.

These are just some of the shapes you can make using the Polygon Tool by changing the options and the number of sides.

Line Tool
The contexual menu refers to the arrowheads and Weight to the line thickness.

Custom Shape Tool:
These are preset shapes that you can use. As well as the ones that come with PS, there are many more available on the net, either free or for sale. Just type Photoshop and “custom shapes” into your favourite search engine and follow your nose.

A good place to begin is the Adobe Exchange which has over 300 sets available for download. These are vector shapes and you can create and save your own too.

The contextual menu has the usual settings and there is an additional pull down menu.

Use the scroll bar to search for the shapes already loaded on your system. To add more click on the arrow by the scroll bar.

You can Rename existing shapes or delete them.
You can view the shapes as text only (not really useful for ones you download from the Internet because they often are just called “shape 14” or similar which doesn’t give anything away.) You can view them as small or large thumbnails or as a combination of both.

The bottom section is the list of custom shapes that come with your copy of PS and you can load the lot in one hit (All) or one set at a time as you like. Once loaded they remain until you delete them.

In the centre section we have a bit of duplication going on.

The Preset Manager
This is typically for when you create your own shapes and sets. (To save a shape you simply make your vector shape and then from the Edit menu in the top menu bar select Define Custom Shape, give it a name and it is ready to use.)

Reset Shapes
Reloads the default set and replaces those currently in the list

Load Shapes
Lets you load preset sets

Save Shapes
Click on a shape and save it with a new name

Replace Shapes
Replaces the current sets with the one you choose.

Some Final Things

The first tool creates filled shapes or shape layers.
The second is the tool you have been using until now and it draws paths
The third (only accessible when using shapes) fills the shape you draw with pixels

Add/Subtract Paths Options

These two last groups of tools need a better explanation than time permits, so they will be covered in detail as part of the next tutorial.

Lots of new ideas for you to play with until next time.
Logging Off,
Jools