Photoshop Clipping Mask in Pen Tool Photoshop Tutorials 18: Pathing Curves to Clipping Mask

Pen Tool Tutorial Captions

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Welcome to PEN TOOL Photoshop. In this tutorial, I’ll be using the pen tool to cut around this

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object and then save the path as a clipping path. This is a hard edge, I don’t need it to be a layer

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mask with a soft edge. It’s a good example for you to practice on, because it’s a lot of curves.

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Curves is where you can see where someone’s good at cutting out or not, because it really shows

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up some of the flaws of their path handling. So, I’ll go through this process and explain as I go.

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I should say, it’s a good habit to click on this and create a path straightaway.

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So, using the pathing formula that I’ve explained in earlier tutorials. You can see it left a gap

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here. So when I click, there’s a gap there, I click, fill in the gap. You can see there’s a slight gap.

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Click. Fill in the gap. Use the alt key to change direction. So you have a gap here. You can see

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the gap between the rubber band. This gap here, between the rubber band and the edge of the

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line. So put a point here, knowing that if I put a point there, it’s going to pop out the wrong

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direction. There’s a bit of a gap here, so I put a point here. And you can see, I filled in that gap

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here. Use the option key. Point there. I’ll just do it a little bit quicker.

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And see where I placed the line? It’s just inside.

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I don’t want to use really long control handles. See there it starts to get a bit long? If I put the

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point down here, it works, but what’s going to happen is it’s going to get harder and harder to

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move it. See how it’s pushing out here? And it’s pushing out there. That’s why it gets a lot

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harder to path. So, you don’t want to have long control handles like this.

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Keep them short, lots of points, put the anchor up here, and then position the anchor visual on

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the top of the screen, then work your way down.

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If you follow the pathing formula, you’ll have no problems at all. It is a bit difficult at first.

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Sometimes people put the control handles like this. They can’t really get the flow of how to

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move these control handles around. It’s just practice. It literally is going undo, put another one

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in, undo, until you get the right position and position these control handles- that gap there and

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that gap there the same.

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That’s all the practice is. Once you’ve got that bit down and you understand how that works, it

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literally is like riding a bike. And it’s the hardest part of pathing. It’s the reason a lot of people

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don’t path very well, because just to get over that little hurdle can be quite difficult for some

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people. Or they just don’t commit the time to practice.

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You can see, I don’t need to go back and fix any of these paths. Get it right the first time. Maybe

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that one is a bit in, so that’s where I’d drag it in. But, very rarely will I need to go back and fix it. It

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depends how fast I’m trying to go. But as you can see, if you go faster, you start to make

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mistakes. So I wasn’t going to put a point here. Starts to get a bit too hard to manage. Just put as

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many points as you need. As I said earlier, don’t worry about how many points you put down.

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It’s completely irrelevant.

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Should any ever have to change direction, use the alt key or option key when you actually get to

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a point that changes direction. I shouldn’t need to use it here. I need to use it here, where it

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changes direction. I would never use like here. I wouldn’t put a point a point there and then

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change direction like that. You can make it this sort of shape.

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So that’s quite obvious, but even if you have little ones like this, it will be noticeable. If you’re

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working on premium for a premium client, or you’re doing something that’s really important, or

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it’s for a poster, or maybe you’re doing it for a logo, you can’t have little points like that.

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And to be honest, in the long run, it’s actually a bit slower. You can see here, I overstretched

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with the control handle. It’s a bit long.

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There’s a good one for using the alt/option shortcut.

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Leave a gap there between the circle and the line.

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That is the trick to being fast at this process.

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So I’ve closed that path off, because I want to get this inside bit here. Don’t leave

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these bits right to the end, because it does sometimes become a bit hard to work out where all the

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bits were that you came across as you’re pathing around the outside. It’s just better to get them

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done as you come to them.

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So you know you put a point here and you have to come back to that point.

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You don’t want to be right on the edge there, because I’ll end up with a halo around this image.

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Especially being a clipping path it’s going to be a really sharp edge.

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The objective is to path this is one go and not have to come back and fix the path up.

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You just want to be right the first time.

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So now I can command click over that path to select it again. Click on that point. So as long as

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it’s setting to exclude overlapping shapes, I know these inside bits here will cut out. Always

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check that that’s on that setting there. If these inside bits don’t cut out for whatever reason, it’s

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because that setting has changed.

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Another inside bit. Command click to get off that path. So my hand hovers over the alt option

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and command key. That’s where my thumb is. I’m left handed, so I’m using the mouse with my

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right hand.

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And my left thumb shifts between the space bar and the command key, and the option key.

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It shifts between those three.

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So it’s literally left mouse click and drag. And my left hand is on the shortcuts.

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You don’t need to use a Wacom tablet for Clipping Paths. In fact, I personally prefer a mouse.

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Obviously, an object like this could have been wanded, the magic wand making a selection. But

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you might want this path for a logo. You might want to bring it into Illustrator. You might want

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to make an SVG file. There’s any number of reasons why you might want to have a path. You

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would never convert a selection to a path. That’s when you enter too many points. You might

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have RIP errors things like that. I go into more details about that on

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PenToolPhotoshop.com and further information about pathing and pen tool and paths.

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There. So, that’s the whole entire object cut out. And just visually look around a few different

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paths and make sure it’s cut out. So, there’s a path over there. Deselect it. Now, I want to check

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the path before I make it a clipping path. So command and then click on the path. Makes it a

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selection, then I press Q for the quick mask. This was covered earlier in the earlier tutorial. I can

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zoom in and I can just hover around and check the quality of the cut out. This is how I check it.

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Command I to invert. So what I’m doing is inverting the quick mask down here. I can see what

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bits I’ve cut off and see if there’s anything funny going on. I can make sure that I’ve cut out the

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inside bits here. Check the curve. You can see maybe this line here juts in a bit. So I make a note

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of that. It can’t really be fixed. Kind of maybe even come in a little bit. Sometime like this might

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be quite small anyways. That’s probably ultra precision. You’ll probably do a little bit less

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precision than that.

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Once you’re happy and it looks like a pretty good cut out. Press Q. Command D. Deselect the selection.

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Otherwise, I would have left this selection and clicked on here and added a mask. In my case, I

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just want to click on the path. Go up to here, choose clipping path. Select path one. Leave the

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flatness blank. If you want to know more about flatness, just visit PenToolPhotoshop.com

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We cover flatness there in detail. With that select path 1, hit okay, now the text goes slightly

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bolded. You can see it’s not bolded. Now it’s bolded. That’s a clipping path. That’s just a regular

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path. Whereas bolded now will be cut out. I can save this as a JPG file. Doesn’t matter what your

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settings are, this will be cut out.

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So, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and I’ll see you in the next tutorial.