Photoshop Pen Tool

Photoshop’s pen tool is used to make paths. It is very useful, although learning to use it is sometimes difficult.

Photoshop’s pen tool allows us to draw paths in a detailed way and with full possibilities, making both lines and curves. In addition, the pen has the particularity that allows us to alter a path once it has been done or, if we make a mistake, go back with the edit-undo command.

The downside of the pen tool, at first, is it’s almost always a bit hard to learn and sometimes it does things we don’t expect or control. Nonetheless, it is a very useful tool for doing a variety of things with Photoshop, not just complex paths or silhouettes, but also advanced selections.

The pen tool is as follows:

Below the pen tool are several other complementary tools that we may need to use at certain times to perform some actions with the paths or shapes.

To start operating with the Photoshop pen tool we can select it and click anywhere on the image. With this we will place a first point of the path. We can then click anywhere else on the image and we will place a second point, creating a path that goes from the first to the second placed point (these are called anchor points). We can continue putting anchor points and the path will be drawn, based on lines, between the different anchor points that we have been putting. It’s worth experimenting with the tool a bit at this point to see how it behaves.

Make curves with the pen tool

A curve with the pen tool is very easy to do. In our anchor point placement sequence, after placing an anchor point, by clicking, we’re going to hold down the mouse and drag in any direction. We will see that a curve is created and that when moving the mouse, dragging with the left button pressed, the curve is modified.

Once we have made the desired curve, we will try to place a new anchor point. We will see how the layout continues with another curve, which is adapted so that the previous curve and the new one are perfectly traced as a continuation of the other.

As we can see in the previous image we have two curves in the layout, one adapted to the other. If we want the second line of the path to ignore the previous curve, we can use the complementary tool Convert Anchor Point. Then we click on the line that goes out of the path, and we drag it to another position. We can see the result in the following image:

If we wanted the second line of the path to be straight, then we would place the line coming out of the anchor point on top of the anchor point itself.

We can continue placing anchor points until we finish the path, placing the new points with the pen tool as well. To complete or finish the path we have to click on the first anchor point that we created, we will see that the mouse cursor with the pen tool, that a small circle appears, to warn that placing that anchor point will close the path.

Transform a completed path

Once the path is finished, we can still continue transforming it, with the convert anchor point tool, to transform the curves or with other complementary tools. For example, with the Add Anchor Point tool, we can add new anchor points to the path, which we can turn into curves.

Continue an unfinished path with the pen

Sometimes it will happen to us that we are drawing a path with the pen, that we have not completed, that is, we have not placed anchor points making a complete path that ends in the first anchor point placed. Then we may need to operate with other Photoshop tools such as the move tool to reposition the path in another place. So we want to continue the incomplete path by placing new anchor points on it. But we select the pen tool and it happens that Photoshop starts a new path, instead of continuing with the one we were making.

To continue with an uncompleted path, then we have to, with the pen tool, click on the first or last anchor point made, depending on whether we want to continue the path through the first or last point drawn. We will see that the tool’s cursor appears as a little symbol with a line and a circle in the middle. After having clicked on the desired anchor point, first or last, we click elsewhere to place a new anchor point after the clicked one.

Experiment with the pen tool

As we have seen, there are many details to work with paths and various complementary tools that can help us to make the path or transform one already made.

It is best to experiment by ourselves to acquire some ease with the Photoshop pen tool, and the complementary ones, because it is not an easy thing to master.