Photoshop – Quick Tip for Working with Paths

Greetings loyal nuts!

One of the best tools for making paths in Photoshop is the Pen Tool. Now this powerful tool strikes fear into the hearts of a lot of designers, so today I have some tips for creating paths WITHOUT the Pen Tool.

Hate the Pen Tool, no problem. My first tip is for you to try the Freeform Pen Tool, and be sure to check the Magnetic option. You’re now creating paths with a tool that acts like the Magnetic Lasso. That’s right! You can left click to set your own anchor points, or press the Delete key (Mac) or Backspace key (PC) to delete the anchor points you don’t want as you draw.

No worries about direction handles here.

Once you have your work path, you can use the Selection or Direction Selection tools to edit the path and make any adjustments.

If you want to avoid the Pen Tool at all costs, you can turn any active selection into a working path by clicking the 4th icon in the Paths Panel.

Try those quick tips next time you need to make a clipping path or vector path for your images. Cheers!