Lesson 9. Basic Pen Tool Techniques

The pen tool draws precise straight or curved lines called paths. You can use the pen tool as a drawing tool or as a selection tool. When used as a selection tool, the pen tool always draws smooth, anti-aliased outlines. These paths are an excellent alternative to using the standard selection tools for creating intricate selections.

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to do the following:

• Practice drawing straight and curved paths using the pen tool.

• Save paths.

• Fill and stroke paths.

• Edit paths using the path-editing tools.

• Convert a path to a selection.

• Convert a selection to a path.

This lesson will take about 50 minutes to complete. The lesson is designed to be done in Adobe Photoshop. Adobe ImageReady does not have a pen tool and does not support paths.

If needed, remove the previous lesson folder from your hard drive, and copy the Lesson09 folder onto it. As you work on this lesson, you’ll overwrite the start files. If you need to restore the start files, copy them from the Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Classroom in a Book CD.