Basic Pen

page one
The pen tool is one of those things in life that seem impossible to learn when you first try it, but which become second nature once you get the hang of it. It's a lot like learning to ride a bicycle, or drive a car.
     If you will observe the examples, and explanations given here, and do the exercises at the end of the tutorial, I can get you started.
     You've probably already seen the illustrations of what the various pen icons mean, and the diagrams of how to draw a straight line, and one curve. It's that third curve point that gets you.
    For review, and a refresher on terminology, I will go over the basics first.
         When you select the pen tool, and hover it over your document, you see the cursor below, which indicates that the pen will create a new path when clicked. Note the little x next to the tip.

If you have created a path segment, and you hover the pen over that segment (not a point), you will see the add anchor point cursor, shown below.

If you hover the pen over an existing point (not a segment), you will see the delete anchor point icon.

If you hover the pen over the endpoint of a selected path, you will see this icon, which indicates that the pen will edit the point - either by dragging handles from it, or if you click elsewhere, by continuing the path. Note that this looks a lot like the delete point icon, shown above, but is not at all the same.

If you have deselected your path, either intentionally, or by accident, and want to add to it, hovering the pen over the end point of the path will show you the icon below, which means you can click here to reactivate the path and continue editing or adding to it. You can also reactivate the end point by clicking on it with the direct selection tool.
      This is actually the “join” cursor, and, while it works as described above when there is no path selected, if you do have one path selected/active, and then hover the pen over an anchor point in a separate, inactive, open path, this cursor means you will join the two paths when you click.

And, finally, when you see a little circle next to the pen cursor, it means you are hovering the pen over the start point, and clicking will end, and close your path.

Any time you want to deactivate, or deselect a path, you can do so by clicking an empty area in the Paths palette, or by clicking in the image, away from the path, with either the black or white arrows (path component tool, or direct selection tool). When using the pen tool, the arrows can be temporarily accessed by pressing Ctrl. You must deactivate any active path before you can create a new, separate path.

I'm sure you must have already learned how to make straight lines with the pen tool. Click, click, click. As long as you don't drag with the pen, you will create only corner points connected by straight lines. Those should not give you any problems. This tutorial focuses on how to make the more difficult curved paths.
     Rather than try and explain how to draw curves, I'm going to have you look at some that are already made.
     Choose the elliptical shape tool in the toolbox. Set its options bar to make a new work path, as shown below, and drag several elliptical shapes. With the path component tool, select one of the elliptical shapes.

Press Shift, and select all the others. Then click one of the anchor points (the little black squares) with the direct selection tool. Press Shift, and select each of the other points.

With the option of altering the shape of the curve independently on either side of a point, you will have a much easier time creating odd shapes.
     You can do this on the fly, without using the convert anchor point tool, by pressing the Alt key, as you drag with the pen. I'll show you more, next.
Continue on page two

Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich.
All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright ©2000 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com