Editing with the Path Selection Tools

Photoshop’s Path Selection tools reside directly above the Pen tools on the toolbox, as shown in figure below. The Path Selection tools allow you to edit your paths. Not happy with the way your path turned out? No problem. The Path Selection tools allow you to change, push, and pull the different areas of your path as needed.

The Path Selection tools consist of the following:

• 
  
  Path Selection Tool: When you click a closed path with this tool, the entire path becomes selected. You can see where all the anchor points exist within the path. This tool allows you to move the entire path at once.
• 
  
  Direct Selection Tool: This tool allows you to grab an individual anchor point, and then move it, expand it, or reduce it with the direction lines. In short, this tool allows you to alter the shape of your path.

Let’s take a look at both of these tools in action.

Moving Closed Paths with the Path Selection Tool

To move an entire path, perform the following:

1. 
   
   Select the Path Selection tool from the toolbox.
2. 
   
   Click on the closed path you just created. You’ll notice the anchor points display.
3. 
   
   You can use the Path Selection tool in a couple of different ways once you’ve clicked on the closed path:
   • 
     
     Move the closed path pixel by pixel using the arrow keys on your keyboard. You can hold down the Shift key while using the arrow keys to move the path 10 pixels at a time.
   • 
     
     Click and drag the closed path with the Path Selection tool cursor.
4. 
   
   Using either one of those methods above, drag the closed path down and to the left on your image window, as shown in figure below.
   
   
   

The Path Selection tool allows you to move your entire path at once. But what if we want to alter the look of our path? Say you want to increase the curve of an area or straighten a part of your path. For that, you’ll want to use the Direct Selection tool.

Fine-Tuning a Closed Path with the Direct Selection Tool

The Direct Selection tool allows you to move and work with anchor points within a path (rather than just moving the whole path at once, like the Path Selection tool does). Let’s try an example and see the Direct Selection tool in action:

1. 
   
   Select the Direct Selection tool from the toolbox.
2. 
   
   Click on the closed path you just created. Notice the anchor points display; however, they’re all unselected. The anchor points are clear boxes instead of filled in, as shown in figure below.
   
   
   
3. 
   
   With the Direct Selection tool, click on the anchor point in the center of the bottom portion of the path.
4. 
   
   Click and hold this anchor point. Notice the anchor point becomes dark, meaning it’s selected. Drag this anchor point to the right. Notice that the curvature of the path changes, as shown in figure below. 
   
   
   
   You can also change the curvature on anchor points where there are direction lines. Notice there’s a direction line currently attached to the second anchor point in your closed path.
5. 
   
   With the Direct Selection tool selected, click and hold the direction line, then drag it to the left. This increases the curve to the right of your path, as shown in figure below.
   
   
   

The Direct Selection tool’s great for tweaking existing anchor points. But what if you want to add or remove anchor points from a closed path? What if you want to add direction lines to an anchor point? The answer to these questions lies with the Pen tool.

Not only does the Pen tool provide a means for drawing paths, it also contains several editing options. Let’s take a look at some of the path-editing options of the Pen tool.

In this tutorial:

1. Creating Web Headers
2. Exploring the Pen Tool
3. Creating Curved Lines with the Pen Tool
4. Editing with Path Selection Tools
5. Editing with the Point Tool
6. Changing Path to Selections
7. Adding Patterns to your Selections