Pens, Paths and The Bird

• The pen tool is a very powerful and flexible tool. It's used to create "paths." Paths have many uses, including filling, stroking and what we will use it for, selecting. Paths give us control, which can sometimes be difficult when selecting pixels using the other tools. If you want to experiment with these tools, you may want to create a new document, say 300 pixels by 300 pixels.
  
  
• There are several different pen tools. Let's start with the main one. This is what's called a "bezier" curve tool. It works much like the pen tools that can be found in Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand and Fireworks graphics programs. Using it sounds simple: For straight lines and corner points, click from point to point (A). For curved lines and points, click and drag out control handles from the point (B); these handles control the direction of the curve. For combined curves and sharp corners (C), click and drag for curves, then with the mouse button still down, hold down the Alt(PC)/Option(Mac) key to break the control handles at the point, so you can point one side in a different direction, or drag it back into the point. Making this work takes some practice. Don't worry about getting the path perfect, because you can go back later with the Pen selector (arrow) to select points and move control handles. You can also use the Add-point pen (+) to add points or the Delete-point pen (-) to remove points, or the Convert-point pen (arrowhead) to manipulate points.
  
  
• Once you draw a path, it appears in the Paths palette, usually as "Work path." It's a good idea to give each path a name by double clicking on the palette item and typing in a name. This keeps your paths separate and lets you know which path you are dealing with.
  
  
• Drawing paths well takes some practice. You can make an adequate path simply by zooming in and clicking point to point, using lots of points. If you want to master the main pen tool, practice clicking, clicking and dragging, and using the Alt/Option key. Don't worry too much if you don't quite get it, as there's a quick-and-dirty version of the Pen tool we'll look at next, as well as many other ways to make selections.
  
  
• Let's take a look at the Magnetic Pen tool. The idea is that it is "magnetized" to be attracted to lines of contrast.

23. Open "oceanbird.jpg" from your computer to try this on. (oceanbird.jpg)

24. With the Magnetic Pen selected, take a look at the Options palette. There are numerous controls for the Magnetic Pen. Curve Fit controls how tightly curves will be drawn. Pen Width controls how far your cursor can stray from the contrast line and still have the pen attracted to it. Frequency controls how many points the tool generates. Edge Contrast controls how much contrast must be present for the Magnetic Pen tool to recognize it. In our example, the edge of the bird's wing is the contrast line with the background ocean. The body has lots of contrast. The wing tips have moderate contrast. The tail feathers have very little. Set your Options to the ones shown here, and try running the Magnetic pen around the edge of the bird. Notice how the line jumps out and sticks to the edge. When you return to the beginning of the path, release the mouse button. If the path doesn't close automatically, you may need to double click to close the path.

25. Invariably, some parts work well, others not so well. Zoom in on the bird. If you still have the Magnetic Pen tool selected, notice that it changes to the Add-points pen when you put it over the line. This allows you to add new points. You can also switch to the Delete-points pen to remove points, or the Pen selector arrow to move points and handles around. Eventually, you can make the path nice and clean.

26. Now, though, we're going to cheat. Close "oceanbird.jpg." Saving is optional ... do so if you wish to save your practice paths. Open the file "bird_all.psd" from your computer. Make sure the Paths palette is showing. Click on the "bird outline" path to select it. This is a nice, clean path that I've drawn for you. (bird_all.psd)

27. Pull the Paths palette submenu (look for the arrow on the upper right side of the palette window) down to "Make Selection…" In the dialog box, under "Feather Radius" type in a 1 for 1 pixel. Click ok.

28. The bird is now selected. But so is the "bird outline" path. If we were to copy now, we would get the path, or nothing useful. Deselect the path by clicking OFF the "bird outline" item in the Paths palette. Now, go to the Edit menu and select Copy.

29. Let's go back to "mydemo2." Pull down the Edit menu to "Paste." The bird (part of it anyway) now shows up, on its own layer.

30. Pull the Edit menu to "Free Transform." Holding the Shift key, drag any corner point up and in to scale the bird. Notice that even though only some of the bird is showing, we are scaling the entire bird. Using a combination of moving, scaling and rotating, get the bird roughly into the position shown here. Hit the return key to set the transformations.

Save your file.

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