Editing an ImageLesson 22 of 78

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Editing an Image

Lesson 22 of 78. Sign in to keep your place.

Module 3 · Selections, cut-outs and edges

Two handles and a curve: making the pen tool obey

10 min read

From path to cut-out, and the number that decides itAnchor onlywhere the curvechangesdirectionA bottle has ashoulder, awaist and a basecorner. Twelveanchors, notforty: everyextra one isanother placeyour hand can beslightly wrong.Sit the pathhalf a pixelinside the edgeOn the edgeleaves a rim ofthe oldbackground allthe way round,and that rim iswhat reads as ahalo once thesubject is onwhite.Load the pathas a selectionName the path inthe Paths panelfirst, or thenext path youdraw replacesthe temporaryWork Path andthe tracing isgone.Feather 0.3 to0.5 pixelsZero reads ascut withscissors. Twopixels reads asa glow. Anormally shotphotographicedge is abouthalf a pixelsoft, andmatching it isthe whole trick.Add a layermask, neverDeleteThe pixels stay,so next week’srevision is abrushstroke. Thepath stays too,inside the PSDor TIFF, so thecut can beredone in sixmonths.Every e-commerce cut-out that looks expensive was made this way. The pen tool is the wrong choice forhair, fur, foliage against sky or anything out of focus, because a path draws a boundary and thosesubjects do not have one.
Every e-commerce cut-out that looks expensive was made this way. The pen tool is the wrong choice for hair, fur, foliage against sky or anything out of focus, because a path draws a boundary and those subjects do not have one.

Figure

Why it feels hostile

The pen tool is the one that makes people close the application. It behaves unlike every other tool: clicking does not draw, dragging does something unexpected, and the line jumps around after you thought you had finished it.

It is worth twenty minutes because for any manufactured object (a bottle, a phone, a box, a shoe, a car) a path gives an edge that no pixel-based tool can match. The curve is mathematical, so it is exactly as smooth at 400 per cent zoom as at fit-to-screen, and it can be nudged a week later without redoing anything.

What a bezier curve is

A path is a chain of anchor points. Between any two anchors, the curve’s shape is controlled by direction handles sticking out from them. The handle’s angle sets the direction the curve leaves the anchor in; the handle’s length sets how strongly it pulls before the next anchor takes over.

That is the whole model. Everything else is consequences.

  • Click to place an anchor with no handles: a corner.
  • Click and drag to place an anchor and pull out a pair of handles: a smooth point, where the curve passes straight through.
  • The direction you drag is the direction the curve will leave in. Drag in the direction of travel, not away from it.
  • Alt/Option-drag a handle to break the pair, so the curve can arrive smoothly and leave at an angle. This is how you make a rounded corner meet a straight edge.

The rule that halves your anchor count

Beginners place forty anchors round a bottle. Professionals place twelve. The rule:

Put an anchor where the curve changes direction, and nowhere else.

A bottle’s silhouette has a shoulder, a waist, a base corner. Each of those is a direction change and deserves an anchor. The smooth run between them does not; that is what handles are for. Extra anchors do not add accuracy: they add wobble, because each one is a place where your hand can be slightly wrong.

A second rule that helps: place anchors at the extremes, the topmost, bottom-most, leftmost and rightmost points of each curve, with handles horizontal or vertical at those points. Hold Shift while dragging to constrain a handle to 45-degree increments and the curve snaps into a clean shape.

Editing after the fact

The path is not committed until you decide it is.

  • Direct Selection tool (A) moves anchors and handles.
  • Ctrl/Cmd held while in the pen tool temporarily gives you the Direct Selection tool, so you can adjust without switching.
  • Alt/Option held over an anchor converts between smooth and corner.
  • Clicking on a path segment with the pen adds an anchor; clicking on an existing anchor removes it.

Paths live in the Paths panel and are saved inside the PSD or TIFF. Double-click the temporary “Work Path” to name and keep it, or the next path you draw replaces it. That one habit prevents the commonest loss in this lesson.

Turning a path into a cut-out

The Paths panel’s buttons: load as selection (or Ctrl/Cmd + click the path thumbnail), fill, stroke.

The practical sequence for a product:

  1. Trace the silhouette. Sit the path half a pixel inside the edge, not on it, so no rim of old background survives.
  2. Load as a selection.
  3. Feather 0.3 to 0.5 pixels: enough that the edge is not aliased, not enough to look soft.
  4. Click Add Layer Mask, never Delete.

The feather number matters more than it looks. Zero gives a jagged, cut-with-scissors edge that reads as fake instantly. Two pixels gives a soft glow that reads as fake for the opposite reason. On a normally-shot photograph, the subject’s real edge is about half a pixel soft, and matching that is the whole trick.

Clipping paths, for print

A path stored in a TIFF or EPS and designated as a clipping path tells layout software the outline to flow text around and the shape to knock out. Printers and magazine designers still ask for this, and supplying a PNG instead is not the same thing.

In Photoshop: name the path, then Paths panel menu > Clipping Path, and set the flatness (a device tolerance: leave it blank unless the printer specifies). Save as TIFF or EPS. GIMP can export paths as SVG but does not write Photoshop clipping paths, which is a genuine gap if you do print production; Photopea does write them.

Practising in the right place

The pen tool in Inkscape, Illustrator, Photoshop, Photopea, GIMP, Figma and Affinity is the same tool with the same handles and nearly the same modifier keys. Learn it once and it transfers everywhere, which makes it one of the highest-return half-hours in this whole course.

A good practice exercise, and it is how people learn it: open a photograph of a wine bottle at 200 per cent and trace it, aiming for under fifteen anchors. Do it again tomorrow. By the fourth attempt it will stop feeling hostile.

When not to use it

The pen tool is wrong for anything with a soft, fibrous or transparent edge. Hair, fur, foliage against sky, smoke, out-of-focus flowers: a path draws a hard boundary, and those subjects do not have one. Forcing a path onto hair is the technique that produces the helmet look.

It is also slow. Tracing a complex machine can take forty minutes. When the subject is a person in a soft-focus photograph, the automatic tools plus a painted mask will be faster and better. The skill is not using the pen tool for everything; it is recognising the twenty per cent of jobs where nothing else gives that edge.

Every lesson here is open. Your progress is recorded once you pass the Design, before Any Software exam.

Check your understanding

A retoucher traces a phone with the pen tool using forty anchor points placed evenly around the outline. The resulting cut-out edge looks subtly wavy along what should be dead-straight sides. Why did more anchors make it worse?

Pick the one you would defend. Your answer stays private.

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How to cite: Addaly (2026) ‘Two handles and a curve: making the pen tool obey’, in Editing an Image. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/image-editing/the-pen-tool-properly (Accessed: 13 October 2026).