How to use the pen tool

Some of you may find the pen tool quite hard to use but many tutorials require you to use it. You make it to the middle of the tutorial and what you see? Use of Pen tool, you get confused by text and probably end up giving up. I’m going to teach you how to use the pen tool, probably the most powerful tool in Photoshop.

The pen tool (P)

You might find it very hard to use, but I’m going to give you step by step info to how to use the pen tool.

Create a new document any size you want

Get out your pen tool by clicking P.

Make a new work path by clicking anywhere on your image

Click the picture for full sized view

Now click anywhere else to create a new Anchor point, but don’t let go of the mouse yet, drag it anywhere to create the shape you want

Click the picture for full sized view

Now continue to create any anchor points until you are satisfied with the result. Or just leave it there

Click the picture for full sized view

Right click to open up lots of different options

Click the picture for full sized view

a)Delete path – when you did something wrong and want to redo
b)Define a custom shape – If you want to use the shape later on
c)Make selection – pen tool is also good for selecting things like wheels and so on…
d)Fill path – Fills the shape with color
e)Stroke path – Makes a stroke of your currently selected brush by following the pen path (scroll down for more in depth about stroking)
f)Free transform Points – Allows you to change the shape and size of anchor points

Let’s make a stroke at the moment. Go to brush tool ( B ) and select a hard or soft rounded brush, any size. Then, an custom color, I’ll select red.

Go back to pen tool ( P ) then right click and from the selection, select Stroke path

Click the picture for full sized view

Now you have a few options here, select Brush and don’t check the Simulate pressure.

It should look something like this

Click the picture for full sized view

If your happy with the result, right click and select Delete path, if not ( I ain’t ) then delete the “Stroke path” by going Edit > Undo stroke path or just delete from History

Open up the Stroke path again and this time check Simulate Pressure.

Now it looks like this

Click the picture for full sized view

Depending on what are you doing at the moment, select the method you like, I’ll stick with simulate pressure and Delete Path

Click the picture for full sized view

Now, play with some blending options to give it a good look and it’s done!

Hope you learned something from this tutorial, more tutorials coming soon!