There are many situations that call for the precise selecting and masking of an object in a photograph. Many times, this can be achieved with simply using the Quick Mask mode; however, as you may have seen before, using the paint brush tool can result in some hazey selections around the edges of an object. Some situations call for a very clean line. This is when the pen tool as a selection method comes in handy the most. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through the steps required to select an object by using the pen tool in photoshop.
1. Open a photograph with the object that you wish to select and cut out. For the simplicity of this tutorial, we’ll use the pen tool to select an apple.
2. Select the Pen Tool.
3. Find a point along the edge of the apple. Click and drag the pen tool toward the direction of the curve in the object. When you click and drag upon first using the pen tool, this automatically creates shape handles to adjust the line of the curve. For now, don’t worry about this, since we can fine tune these later in this tutorial.
4. Click your next point along the path of the curve and hold down while you drag.
5. Just continue clicking and dragging new points around the curves of the object. When you need a point to be a corner point, then hold down the ALT key when you drag.
6. When you have completely set your path around the object (apple), then you will come to the point you first started with. Make sure you close the path by clicking this first point. You will know that the path will close, because a small circle will appear next to the pen tool cursor.
7. Next we need to fine tune the curves of the path. To do this, select the Direct Selection Tool.
8. Click on the path surrounding the apple. You will then be able to select the shape handles for the curves. Readjust any shape handles so that the path better aligns with the curve of the object (apple).
9. When you are done fine tuning all the points of the path. With the Direct Selection Tool still selected, right click the path, then choose Make Selection from the pop-up list.
10. Accept the default values in the Make Selection pop-up box. Click OK.
11. You should now have a super clean selection of your object.
