From the course: Photoshop CC 2017 One-on-One: Mastery
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Tracing an image, point-by-point - Photoshop Tutorial
From the course: Photoshop CC 2017 One-on-One: Mastery
Tracing an image, point-by-point
- The stuff that I showed you in the previous chapter works great, and I mean absolutely great, for selecting people against contrasting backgrounds and preserving fine filigree details, such as the strings in that guy's tennis racket and, of course, hair; but it doesn't always fare as well for smooth, well-defined contours, such as those associated with faces, man-made objects, and product shots. In which case, what you need is the pen. This elegant but demanding drawing tool allows you to trace any sometimes cornered, sometimes smooth, but always well-defined contour on a point-by-point basis. Like the shape tools that I reviewed back in Chapter 22 of the advanced course, the pen tool always draws a vector-based outline; but instead of creating a shape layer, it results in a freeform path outline that you can use to select even the finest elements of a photographic image. Now call me a sick puppy, but we're going to use the pen to select this little boy's face, add it to this…
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Contents
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Tracing an image, point-by-point1m 33s
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Introducing the Paths panel5m 38s
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The Freeform and standard Pen tools5m 57s
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Adding and deleting anchor points5m 10s
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Starting a path outline with an ellipse7m 9s
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Drawing smooth and cusp points7m 25s
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Deploying path outlines as a vector mask5m 45s
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Combining a layer mask with a vector mask6m 58s
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Brushing along a path outline8m 8s
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Adding to an existing vector mask7m 59s
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Perfecting hair inside a vector mask6m 9s
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Bolstering hair with an Overlay layer6m 48s
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Drawing perfect eye masks7m 5s
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Duplicating and masking entire groups7m 28s
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Masking with vector-based letterforms3m 48s
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