Adobe Photoshop CS3 Tutorials
Drawing / The Pen and Paths
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Subtitles of the Movie (Adobe Photoshop CS3 / Drawing / The Pen and Paths)
We're gonna talk about the pen tool right now because this is the tool that really throws people off because it doesn't work in the way that you would think. In other words when I grab the brush tool and I move my mouse in the canvas it gives me a brush stroke like a real brush would in the real world. Let me undo that and if I grab a pencil once again, when I move my mouse I get a pencil stroke. But the pen tool is the rebel of the bunch and when you click and move your mouse you get nothing but confusion and you have to scratch your head because this tool creates what are known as busy a curves so if I click and drag you see this curve here. So I'm gonna undo that and show you exactly how this tool works. But before we do that I want to show you that there is hope for people who don't want to use that pencil in that fashion. If you click and hold your mouse down on the pencil you will see we have a free form pencil, this tool does in fact work like the brush and the pencil. So I can click and draw out a curve with the pencil in this fashion. So I'm gonna undo that and show you how this tool works here. The regular old pen tool I'm going to click and when I let go of my mouse you see that I have this black dot here this is called a point when I click again I have another point and I have this line. This line is known as a path, think of it this way, if you're taking a train somewhere this is the first point and this is the second point of your travel and the path you took to get there. So if I continue to move my mouse, click, let go of the mouse button, click, let go of the mouse button, click, let got of the mouse button I'm able to continue and draw custom shapes and the way you close this shape is by putting your mouse over the very first point until you see these little circle. So when you click you now have closed path. So I'm going to select all and delete that and show you how to use the pen tool to create curves. This time what we're gonna do is click and hold the mouse down and then pull up. So what you're doing is you're literally dragging your mouse up. Now let go of the mouse button, now move over here, click and drag down. What you wanna keep your eye on in order to get perfect curves is the height of these handles. They should be about the same height to get a nice curve. So these control points control how this curve is formed and we're gonna talk about how to edit this later on, how to fix this curve an and do what you want to with it. So once again I'm gonna delete that and step backwards a little bit and show you that what you have to do is practice to master this tool. You have to click, and you don't always have to drag with the first one by the way you can come over here and click and drag, so it depends on what you're drawing a as a which will determine whether you're gonna click and drag from the very first point or not. So once again I'm gonna delete that and show you that what you might want to do is exercise like this, you might want to click and then move your mouse over here, and then drag, click, drag, click, drag and just try to create different shapes and do it in both directions. So you wanna go this direction and then what you wanna do is start doing it in this direction as well. So you wanna click and drag click and drag until you get the feel for how this tool works. The secret is that the tool will give you a curve in the opposite direction in which you pull or drag. For example, if I click and drag up and I want the curve to go this way I have to go over here and click and drag down, alright, you understand that. So let's go ahead and do that again. If I want to click and I want to get a curve to go this way, I'm going to click, I'm going to drag up, I'm a come over here click and drag up like this. Then I can get this kinda interesting little shape. Then I come over here and if I want the curve to go this way, I have to click and pull this way. So you have to know exactly which way to pull to get the shape you're going for and that's the really, the secret to the curve tool actually. You have to know which way to pull to get the shape you're looking for. So let's do one more exercise before we close this particular chapter. Let's try to create an S. So I'm going to click and pull this way, then I'm gonna come over here, click and pull down. I'm gonna come over here and click and pull this way and then I'm gonna click and pull this way and then I'm gonna click and pull this way and I'm gonna go around click and pull this way, click here, pull, click here, pull, click here, pull, and then go to the very first point and pull. Now as you can see it takes a little practice and this is not perfect of course but that's where the editing of the curves come in handy. You don't always want to get your shape perfect at first because you can always go to the editing tools and then fix these things. So we're gonna talk about that next.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Adobe Photoshop CS3 |
| Author: | Dwayne Ferguson |
| SKU: | 33782 |
| ISBN: | 1-933736-98-4 |
| Release Date: | 2007-08-02 |
| Duration: | 9 hrs / 161 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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