How To Use Pen Tool, Pen Tool Photoshop Tutorials 05: Drawing Curves using Control Handles

Pen Tool Tutorial Captions

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Welcome to PEN TOOL Photoshop. In this tutorial, we’ll cover drawing curves using control

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handles. The previous tutorials we were just placing anchors, creating a new path, selecting and

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dragging parts of the path. So they’re really beginner steps. This technically is a beginner area as

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well, but it becomes intermediate because working with control handles can be quite difficult. So

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this is pretty much essential that you would drag your control handles. Very rarely do you just

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click and click, click. You always drag out these control handles, normally, most shapes are rounded. So

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it’s a matter of clicking on part of a path and dragging. You see these control handles come out.

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So I’ve got no keyboard shortcuts held down. I just literally clicked with the mouse and dragged.

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So in this case, this is just an example of how to work with it. But if I hold down the shift key,

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it’ll constrain these control handles to a 45 degree line. So I click and drag and on this diagram I’ve

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got these pink control handles you can match. So I click where that anchor is and I click and

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drag.

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So you can see its creating this curve shape.

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And I’ll go into more detail about how to place and where to place these but for now just get

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comfortable with clicking and dragging these control handles out. And try to get comfortable

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with this pattern and how you’re putting an anchor down here and dragging the control handle

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out. So this point here you can sort of look at previous anchors and control handles and say okay,

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I’ll put a point here, click and drag. You can see it drags into place. That previous one was there

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so I think I’ll copy that, click and drag.

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Holding down the shift key. So you see this one here is not in line with that one so I can hold

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down the command key or I can just use the arrows like in the previous tutorial and nudge it up.

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Click and drag hold down the shift key. Use the arrow keys to nudge. Click and drag.

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So we created a smooth flowing line. I can save that as a path. The next option here is that’s

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continuous. The control handle going from one side to the other. So in this option, the example

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below where it changes direction so it goes up and then comes back down again so you can save that

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So we’ll create a new Path so in this case I’ll click there, It’s named Path 2. In this case I can click and drag

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hold down the shift key. Zoom in on this point. So I can click here and drag, hold down the shift key

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constrains it. So to change direction, I can now press the alt key or option (on mac) and that would change

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the direction. As I come back down I see its come back down now this way. See how that works?

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I’ll just show you an example here like that. If I was to let go it pops out the top path, comes out

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the top of there. So I hold down the option key or alt, click on that little circle, it now comes out

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that direction. So wherever that control handle is, that’s the direction it’ll come out of. So if I

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come back to here, hold down click and drag, hold down the shift key, click and drag, hold down

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the shift key. I happen to let go. Nothing selected now. Hold down the option key or alt. I can

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click and drag that down to place. Click and drag. The quicker way of doing it is click and drag

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hold down the shift key and then literally while I’ve still got the mouse button held down, so I

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haven’t let go of the mouse button, I’m now pressing alt or option and shift held down so you

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can constrain. Click and drag. Click and drag. Press alt. Drag down. Click and drag and then

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escape to end that path. Path one and two.

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So this tutorial, I would practice this over and over again a few times, really get comfortable with

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how this works, how the alt key works. The trick with the alt key, get used to clicking, holding,

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pressing alt and then let go of the mouse button. Always let go of the mouse button first. So that

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is drawing with curves and control handles. I’ll see you in the next tutorial.