How to Work with Paths in Photoshop

For those of use who are used to working with photographs and other raster type images in Photoshop, the paths tools and their resulting vector images can be a bit off-putting. Heaven knows, the first time you use the pen tool or the rectangular tool, and get all those little points, you go, "Huh"? And clicking on one of the points makes matters even more confusing, since Bezier curves are one of the least intuitive things in the universe.

This is unfortunate, since the paths are actually a very useful skill set to have in your arsenal. They give you the ability to produce vector based graphics, which are widely used in the printing and advertising industry because vector based images are infinitely expandable without diminishing the quality of the image. For this reason, I thought it wise to put together a simple tutorial, using Photoshop's paths objects, which will serve as a gentle introduction for the vector impaired. The following is fairly basic, and should work with any version of Photoshop at 6 or above.

To begin with, we'll create a rectangular path, and then trim off the edges to give it a smoother, rounder appearance. First you should go to the tools panel and select the Rectangle tool. Then you should place you rectangle on the canvas, stretching it to the size you want. This shape you've made is constructed of a rectangular path. If you can't see the individual points that make up the path, you can go to the Path Selection tool and click it, and then click on the path. The points should now show, and there should be four of them.

Next you go back to the Tool panel, and look under the Pen tool, where you will select the Anchor Point tool. Now, using this tool, you should add points to your rectangular path, by clicking wherever you like to add the point to the path. As you can see in image one, I have added two points, one to the top of the rectangle, and a second to the side.

Now, for the last step, you should go to the upper right corner and hover over it. Note that the Add Anchor Point tool disappears and is replaced by the standard cursor, which lets you move the points without putting down the tool you are using. Do this by clicking on the point and dragging it in, as shown in image 2. You will also see that the two points you have added have these two little bars sticking out on either side. By manipulating these bars, either by lengthening or shorting them, or by rotating them, you can drastically alter the appearance of the shape. That's it!