Photoshop Tutorial for Beginners
How To Use Pen Tool Video Tutorial Outline
- Key to learning How To Use Pen Tool is Drawing a smooth flowing curved line: Click hold and drag to pull out control handles. Hold shift to constrain
- Drawing a curved line then changing direction: Click hold and drag to pull out control handles. Hold shift to constrain. To change direction, do not release the mouse button, press and hold ALT, drag mouse in the direction you want the path to continue (use the angle of previous Control Handles as a guide) release the mouse button first then ALT
Click here or the image below to download the exercise file
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.
