
Many photographers have looked with curiosity at the vector tools in Photoshop’s Tools palette for years but have dismissed them as ‘not for me’. Vector lines and shapes are constructed from geographical markers (anchor points) connected by lines or curves. The creation of silky smooth curvaceous lines (called paths) that can then be converted into staggeringly smooth curvaceous selections makes the effort of learning the Pen Tool all worthwhile. investing your time over a short period of time will pay you dividends over a longer period of time. Mastering the Pen Tool in order to harness a selection prowess known to few mortals is not something you can do in a hurry it falls into a certain skill acquisition category, along with such things as teaching a puppy not to pee in the house, called time-based reward, i.e. The question then comes down to ‘how much effort am I prepared to apply, and for how long?’ It‘s about this time that many image-editors decide to better acquaint themselves with the Pen Tool. The resulting ragged selections can be fixed in Quick Mask mode, but sometimes not without a great deal of effort. Not everything you can see with your eye can be selected easily with a selection technique based on color or tonal values. Although graphic designers are quite adept at using this tool, many photographers the world over have been furiously waving magic wands and magnetic lassos at the megapixel army and putting graphics tablets on their shopping lists each year in an attempt to avoid recognizing the contribution that this unique tool has to offer. Who exactly is this little fellow with the ‘ye olde’ ink nib icon and the awkward working persona? The Pen Tool was drafted into Photoshop from Adobe Illustrator. The Pen Tool has an unfortunate reputation neglected by most, considered an awkward tool by those who have made just a passing acquaintance, and revered by just a select few who have taken a little time to get to know ‘the one who sits next to Mr Blobby’ (custom shape icon) in the Tools palette. The Pen Tool creates vector paths instead of selections these, however, can be converted into selections that in turn can be used to extract or mask groups of pixels. The Pen Tool is often used in the creation of sophisticated smooth-edged selections, but strictly speaking it is not one of the selection tools. Pen Tool Tutorial - Creating Selections With Photoshop's Pen Tool Get Photoshop CS5 now at the Adobe Store.
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