How to Isolate Image using Photoshop Pen Tool (Clipping Path

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Tutorial

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Sometime it is tedious job for the photographers to change the background of the photos they take in regular basis, it because of the difficulties of handling the Photo Pen Tool. Some practice is must to draw accurate path around the photo and cut-out the image efficiently. But before that, you need to know how to actually handle the Pen Tool (in proper way), otherwise you are just going to spend time acquiring nothing.

In this tutorial you will learn exactly how to draw path around the photo and how to apply clipping path on it. I will take you through some of the steps and after that hopefully you will be able to apply that in your photos and finally successfully take the background off.

1. Open Adobe Photoshop in your computer and go to file menu then select "Open". From the open dialogue box, choose the file you would like to remove the background from and then click "Open".

2. Make sure that the tool box, layer palette & path palette is shown in your monitor screen. If not, go to window menu and select the palettes you are looking for. Select "Pen Tool" from the tool box also choose "Paths" from the pen tool properties box which is located underneath of the main Menu bar. This is to make sure that the path we will be drawing will not have fill color rather than the stroke.

3. Now, click on the edge of the image and drag the mouse pointer towards the next step and release the mouse. You have now created one anchor path point, after an appropriate distance, again click on the image edge and continue in the same manner until you have completed moving around the image and finally see this "O" symbol. This "O" symbol means that you are going to close the path. Click on it (starting point) in order to close the path.

4. Once the path is completed check that again if there is any inaccurate portion. To save the path, go to "Path Palette", double click on the "work path" and heat Ok. Now the path is saved and you are almost done.

5. Go to "pop up" menu from the Paths palette and select "Clipping Path...". A dialogue box will appear asking to choose your desired Path and Flatness. Select "Path 1" since we have drawn only one path which is available there and put the flatness you would like to use (flatness is the desired amount of pixel you want to make blur of the edge of image) and click "OK". The more amount you use in Flatness the more blurish will be the edge of your image. In general, leave the Flatness box blank (0) and the image edge will be 100% sharp which is most of the time appropriate.

6. You can now save the file in PSD or TIFF format and are ready to place into the program you are working with for your design. And his time you will get the image without the background.
If you would like to learn more about clipping path, visit Clipping Path Tutorial and if you have images that need to be clipped and are looking for cheap clipping path service provider, visit: Clipping Path Specialist

A R Sumon
Clipping Path Specialist
Clipping Path Specialist Blog

Tutorial Comments

Showing latest 3 of 3 comments

Wow great tutorial on clipping path.
Thanks for sharing.
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By colorexpertsbd on Jun 10, 2010 3:59 pm

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By sblgraphics on Mar 11, 2009 4:49 am

Tutorial Details

Author sumonmg View profile
Submitted on Jan 29, 2009
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Reviewer interpretation View profile
Approved on Jan 29, 2009