I haven't yet seen a good tutorial on using the pen tool to render, so I have decided to make one. There are several reasons to use the pen tool over, say, the polygonal lasso. First: You can change the selection as you go. Second: Small point, but the scrolling is easier, you can use the sidebars. Third (and most important): You can select partial pixels. This creates immensely smoother renders. When I switched to the pen tool my renders finally became premium quality. People say "The pen tool takes so much more time." This is not true, the pen tool can do everything the polygonal lasso can. Simply turn off anti-aliasing. There are two ways to render images with the pen. One way, you select the area around the image and delete it, the other you select the image and copy it. To begin, open the picture in adobe photoshop that you are going to render. For this tutorial, to make it simple, I will use this picture: Now right click the first layer and select "Duplicate Layer", then fill it with a color that does not appear in the picture. I chose this obnoxious green. The first step is to zoom in. I use anywhere from 500%-800%, but others prefer higher or lower. Select the pen tool. BE SURE THE PEN IS SET TO "PATHS" IN THE OPTIONS BAR AT THE TOP OF THE SCREEN! Using the pen, begin to click around the picture, following roughly the center of the anti-aliasing with the background. You can hit ctrl+z to undo your last click at any time. Also, if you find you have lost the edge, zoom out to get a better view. When you have clicked around the edge, finish off by re-clicking your starting point. Right click in your selection, and click "Make Selection". Set your options as below. If you selected the image, hit ctrl+c to copy. Select File > New and use the clipboard settings from the dropdown menu. (They should be default). You may wish to redo step 2 to recreate the background. If you selected the background, simply hit delete to remove that area. You can remove small sections this way. Once you have completed the pen tool rendering, there are options how to save it. You can save as a .png file, which preserves transparency. To do this, simply hide the background by clicking the small eye near its layer, then save. This is what you should get: You may not see the transparency in IE browsers, but it is there. You can also leave the background and save as a .jpg. I hope this helps, and I will expect to see premium renders from all of you soon.
w00t. But would you suggest the pen tool for cartoon-y renders and poly / lasso / magnetic for others?
Actually, this is a pretty bad place to use the pen tool. The select > color range or magnetic lasso work fine here, the only reason i used this is it was an easy example. The pen tool really shines in complex patterns with shifting backgrounds. P.S. To those who use the lasso: THE PEN CAN DO ANYTHING THE LASSO CAN BUT EASIER!
You can go back if you mess up a spot on the pl, but only before it's completed... (not sure if you meant afterwards or not.)
