Well hi there! I remeber, that back in the day when i was still a beginner photoshopper i had quite a trouble figuring out what curves and paths were made for and how to use them, so to help many people who are in this stadium right now help to understand it faster, i made this tutorial.
And for those of you, who might find it a bit hard: Don't worry. We won't be building tanks out of matches and ducktape.
Lesson 1:
Why? Where? When?
Can you imagine yourself creating this:
Using only rectangles and the eraser tool? Well it's possible, but pointless. Which brings us to the first question:
Question: Why?
Anwser: Because paths and curves fasten and easen your image creation and manipulation.
You probably visit many webpages on one day. Can you name one webpage that is built copletely out of squares and circles? Well maybe, but I think that you don't find it as "attractive" as the other web pages.
Question: Where?
Anwser: Almost everywhere. Every creation could use some interesting shapes starting with webpages and ending with full-time paintings. And creating those interesting shapes is as easy as one-two-six using curves and paths.
I'm sure that you have sometimes felt like this: "Aww man this is taking way too long".And then you probably mess around for quite a time just to find out that the image is not as good as you expected. And then you start over. Again.
Question: When?
Anwser: When ever you feel like you need to "speed up". Don't be affraid that your image will look too basic. Easy is better. People often "over do" their images and the end outcome can be a total circus.
Lesson 2:
Tools of the Trade
In lesson two I will make you familiar with most tools you will be needing while creating/editing paths.
Tool No 1:
The Pen Tool
 | Don't worry if you have a bit different toolbar. I am using Photoshop CS3. But I belive that you are able to find the correct position without a separate tutorial for it. If this is not the mini-logo you have at the shown position, then you can choose it by right clicking on the shown position. This is the pen tool. This is our tool of the trade for this tutorial. You can choose other helpful tools that work with the pen tool by right clicking the shown position. But for now we'll concentrate our attention on the pen tool and how it works.
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Custom Shapes
First off we'll be working with custom shapes. For that we need to have the options shown below selected (In order of appearance: Shape Layers option and Pentool option). For begginners the Pentool option is recommended, but later on you may find it interesting to also try the Freeform Pentool option just to the right of the normal Pentool option.
| After selecting the options and a color of your liking (prefer colors that are contrast to the background while creating the shape) You can simply start off by doing a few clicks on the canvas in a new document. For those of not so click-alot type: Click 3+ times to actually see something happen. To create a shape you need atleast three anchor points (read below) After you have the desired shape click on the first anchor point again to close up the surrounding lines. |
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Anchor points are the little dots you just created by clicking, which with the lines connecting them form the outline of the custom shape. The more anchor points, the more complex the shape you'll have. You may create lots of interesting shapes this way, but this is not where the fun stops.
After playing around a bit you may notice, that when clicking to create an anchor point (the little dots), holding the mouse button down, dragging it away from the anchor point itself and then releasing the mouse button, some new lines and dots are created and the form of the lines between the anchorpoints is changed. The new dots are not anchor points and do not mark the outline of the shape. But they do change the outline
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Question: How do these draggable nobs work?
Anwser: The nobs work on trigonomeric basis and are a bit hard to explain plain and simple, but I'll give my best:
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The nobs work on calculations based on trigonometry of the triangle. Without giving you a headache like I already have thinking how to explain this as easy as possible I will not talk precisely about any of the calculations done. Basically the nobs make Photoshop create a smooth line from A to B through C (the centre of the triangle) and the direction and the size of the curve (and the triangle itself) are situated by the nobs. Might sound complex but the schematic ont the left should make it alot easier to understand.
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Paths
After fully learning (and understanding) the previous part of this tutorial, paths should be no problem for you. For paths you must select the Paths option, but you'll soon discover that in method of creating, paths work exactly like custom shapes. Only the output is different.
With custom shapes you create custom shapes fill inside a path, but using a path you don't have to have a steady hand to make multiple tools do the same. You can make your tools "stroke" (follow) the desired path by (having the pen tool selected) rightclicking and selecting stroke. For exaple you can brush the path and then smudge it all at once! Just remember to specify the desired tools' options before clicking stroke.
There are many options left for you to discover on your own like Make Selection and multiple tools to speeden up your work. Convert Point tool is perfect if your arc didn't turn out just perfect and Delete Anchor Point tool is always there to erase away those un-needed corners. Just right click the Pen Tool icon in the toolbar. The world is at your fingertips.
