Photoshop Pen Tool Tutorial

Tutorial might be too strong a word. This is more of a demonstration of how I use the pen tool in Photoshop. If you have a smoother way of getting around with it - I'm all ears.

The main point I want to make is you don't need to 'get it right' as you go along. You can just toss out something pretty rough, and make it better on a second pass. And don't use too many points. Let the spline do the work. 2points can make an S-curve.

http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2009/04/photoshop-pen-t.html

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Twitter's Fail Whale illustrated by Yiying Lu
http://www.yiyinglu.com/sc/illustration

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Photoshop
• pentool
• pen tool
• Fail Whale
• Twitter
• failwhale

[rancidglass]

every time I try and do a stroke path it says sub stroke path... what am I doing wrong?

[digitalArtform]

Not sure. Maybe you have more than one curve to stroke on a single path layer. You might need to make new path layers in the paths palette before you create a path.

[Kyoshi252]

i dont have pen tool, how do i get it

[digitalArtform]

It is a tool within Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.

[Kantasyxx]

Great tutorial! I have a problem though, when i stroke the path it only strokes some of the outline than gets lighter and disappears. basically it doesn't outline the whole picture just some, what am i doing wrong?

[digitalArtform]

Thanks. : )

You need to uncheck a box marked 'Simulate Pressure' - a useful feature in some cases, but not what you want in your example.

[rancidglass]

Thanks I totally screwed that one up

[Kyoshi252]

ya i have downloaded version of photoshop cs2, and its not there

[sparkleshaikh]

This is how I use the pen tool as well. Minimal points REALLY makes a difference. I have illustrator and I really love it for this pen tool, I find the photoshop one to be trickier because I can't change the strokes and what not, only change it to brush. I'm really liking your tutorials; they're simple yet VERY informative.

[Kantasyxx]

Oh ok thanks mucho! and no problem :)