Pen Tool Photoshop Tutorials 06: Adding, Removing Anchors & Adjusting Control Handles with the Pen Tool

Pen Tool Tutorial Captions

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Welcome to PEN TOOL Photoshop. In this tutorial we’ll cover adding, removing anchors and adjusting

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control handles. So select the path, press P, and activate the path. And see here, I want to convert this

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path here which is a triangle sort of shape to just follow this green line. So at this point here, it doesn’t

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know which anchor I’ve got selected. If I hover over one of these points, like in this case here, hover over

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that point and click, it automatically deletes it.

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So in this second example in the middle, this arc, if I click a point here, if I hover over the line, it will just

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add a point automatically. Now when I hold down the command key and click on that point and drag it

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into place. Clicked on it again and you can see it removes it. So you click to add and automatically it

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chooses add or delete. So if you hover over an anchor it will delete it. If you hover over a line it will add

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an anchor.

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So in this case here, I want to adjust this control handle. So you see I’ve got this shape here but I want to

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be, this line here, I want it to curve in this green area. So in the previous case I added on a point here and

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I can drag it up. But maybe I want just to adjust the control handle.

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So if I was to click on it I would remove it. So the option is, like when I was changing direction in the

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previous tutorial, so hold down the alt key and click on the anchor. You’ll drag out two control handles.

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So in this case here at the moment it’s only got one control handle, this line from here there’s no control

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handle. So by holding down the alt key or option, click and drag, hold down the shift, I can drag the lift

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lines in place like that.

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You can see that’s in place and I can hold down the option key, drag that into place. So this shape here, I

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want to create this curve at the point there.

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Drag that into place. In this case here it’s got this bowing on both sides. Hold down option. Click like that.

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In this case here I can add a point here. Just click and drag.

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It’s about getting comfortable, whether you want to add a point & drag it into place or whether you want to alt click

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And drag this into place. Start getting used to adding an anchor by clicking and using the command to drag it

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Hovering over to remove anchors and dragging out the control handles.

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So if I held down the option key on this anchor and clicked, it would remove the control handles. If I

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hold down the option key or alt and click and drag, it adds the control handles back. If I let go and I hold

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down the option key again, it breaks the control handles. That’s the way it changes direction.

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So just use this tutorial to get comfortable with reshaping these lines by using these shortcuts.

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I’ll see you in the next tutorial.