The Pen Tool Tutorial (part 2): Drawing & Selections

(This is a re-post of an old guide I did for the old blog. I'm re-posting this tutorial to archive it.)

Ok, so in The Pen Tool Part 1 I went over the very basics of what the pen tool does, what vector graphics are, and a quick and dirty on how to start drawing with the pen tool. This time I'll do my best to show you how to really do some drawing since I already got the basics out of the way. Once you know how to draw with the pen tool, you can also use it to make complicated selections in Photoshop and a number of other useful things.

First we'll go over the vector tools in Illustrator and Photoshop, some of this might be review from part 1 so bare with me. I will go over both Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time because the vector tools are very useful in Photoshop, and Illustrator is made for vector art, so you should know how to use both. If you missed part one, you can read it here.

The Tools
Almost all the different types of pen tool are available to you in both Illustrator and Photoshop. All the shape tools are also vector tools, but we are interested in the pen tool today. This is a nice list of the tools from Photoshop with all of them labeled. You can come back to this chart if I'm talking about a tool and you don't remember what it is.

Drawing with Paths in Photoshop

I will go over how to get started in Photoshop first and then go over the basic vector drawing part that will be the same in both Photoshop and Illustrator.

Photoshop isn't a vector drawing program so you can't really just start drawing with the pen tool right away without some setup because vector paths are used in a lot of different ways in Photoshop. You can't even really draw a visible vector line in Photoshop, but you first draw a path, (the invisible vector line) that is only visible when selected. When you are happy with your path you can then tell Photoshop to trace or "stroke" the path with a brush of your choice, thus making a visible line that isn't vector. I will show you all this in a bit.

Let's get started. Make a new document with enough room to play around in, make the background white to start with. Select the pen tool, you'll notice the tool bar at the top of the screen change to the pen tool options. We want to draw with just paths right now, (no real lines) so click the 2nd button from the left, if you hover the cursor over it long enough a tool-tip will label it as "Paths".

Paths also have their own layer system. There should be a Paths tab on the Layers pallet. It will look like this:

You can save, make new paths, and delete unwanted paths here. The buttons along the bottom also do some nice tricks that I'll show you after I've got you drawing. Select the pen tool and continue reading.

Drawing with Vector Lines

Here are the basics to drawing with the pen tool. I already told you about the parts of a vector line in part 1 and the diagram is above so I won't go over them again here.

Unlike a brush or line tool, you don't click, hold, and drag to draw. Drawing with the pen tool is like playing connect the dots, you click once where you want a dot and then move on to the next dot or "anchor point". To make a curve, when you click to make a new anchor point just hold and drag in the direction you want the curve, the farther you drag the larger a curve you are making.

A video is the best way to show you. You will need QuickTime installed to view it. The video was taken from Adobe Illustrator, but if you followed the steps I gave you for Photoshop, it should act about the same.
UPDATE I've added YouTube videos. The quality isn't as good on YouTube so you might want to download the QuickTime videos instead.

Basic Drawing with the Pen Tool 314 KB 1:08 QuickTime

As you can see, it's really quite easy. Give it a try. Also notice that I closed the path by connecting the last anchor point with the first one, this makes a shape.

One tip you may find useful; if you just made a large curve by pulling the control handles way out on the anchor point you just made, but then want the line to say go back to make a "zig-zag", you'll find the curve will not allow you to and will get all "funky". To prevent this problem, just hold down the option key (on Mac), or the alt key (on PC), the pen tool's cursor will change, and just click once on the anchor point you just made.

Path Curve Control 350 KB 1:01 QuickTime

You can see when I hold the option key and click the anchor point it removes the control handle that was sticking out. I also used the V shaped tool to change or add curves to control points. If you click once on an anchor point with the "V" tool it will remove all curve from that point. Practice using curves for a bit and continue reading when you are ready.

Tracing With the Pen Tool

Lets practice using the pen tool by tracing a picture. In fact you'll end-up using the pen tool mainly for tracing scans and photos. Most of my vector art is traced from a sketch I did and scanned.

Start with something illustrated, like an anime picture that has visible lines or edges. If you are working in Photoshop paste the image into a new layer. If you are working in Illustrator, (as I am) make a new layer and "Place..." the image from the file menu and lock the layer so you don't select it when you are drawing, make sure you have an unlocked layer on top of the one with the picture for you to draw on.

Tip: You may also want to zoom in so you get better detail. A fast short-cut to do this is to hold the Space and Apple keys down, (on Mac) or the Space and Control keys (on PC) to bring up the magnifying glass, click and drag a box around where you want to zoom into.

Tip: You can also scroll around by holding the space key, clicking and dragging. This comes in handy when you are drawing with the pen tool and zoomed in.

Tip: Follow the curves of the edge of the picture you are tracing with curves in the path you are drawing. You will learn with practice where to put new anchor points, but don't over use them.

Tracing with the Pen Tool 300 KB 0:49 QuickTime

(This one was made smaller to save on file size.) Not hard is it? Try that out a bit.

In Illustrator you can make layer upon layer of vector shapes to create some very nice looking graphics. I'll have to do an advanced vector tutorial some time to show how some of it can be done. For now I'll jump over to Photoshop to show how to make paths into real lines or even selections.

Lines and Selections from Paths in Photoshop
I'm going to assume that you've got some nice paths drawn in Photoshop now by practicing the above drawing techniques. Now I am going to show you how you can make a real line graphic from the path, you can also fill it with color or make it into a selection if you want.

Remember the little paths pallet I showed you above? Open that and select the path you've been working on in it.

The buttons at the bottom are what we'll be using. From left to right, this is what they do;

1. Fill path with foreground color.
The foreground color, (the fore most color box in the tools pallet) will be used to fill the shape you drew.

2. Stroke path with brush.
Select the brush tool and pick the size and softness you want, then click this button and it will stroke the path with it making a very smooth line that you could never draw by hand.

3. Load path as selection.
This selects the path, (the same kind of selection you make with the selection box tool) you can then use it to cut, copy, or delete anything in it. This is great for cutting a person or object out of a photo. This is by far the best way to make a complicated selection in Photoshop. I find this works better than the magic wand tool in most cases. It may seem like a lot of work, but in the long run it's a lot less work than cleaning-up a magic wand selection.

4. Make work path from selection.
Let's say you made a great selection with the magic wand tool, you can save it for later or use it to make a shape by using this button.

The last two are new path and delete selected path.

Final Word
The pen tool is one of the most powerful tools in any design application, so make sure you put it to good use. I hope this was enough help to get you started with vector graphics and the many other uses for the pen tool. All you can do now is practice using them.

You are also welcome to ask questions in the comments or on the message board about something you don't understand or need a little extra help on.