I know some people that use Photoshop very often but still don’t want to think about using the pen tool for anything. Why? Because it does scary things, draw lines and curves I don’t want, etc…

To bad because the pen tool is in my opinion one of the most powerful tool in photoshop. I really discovered it when I learned how to delete the history vectors on curves.

Let’s have a look at a little example:

Create a new document, select the pen tool and start to draw some curve. Each time you click to draw a line you can hold the mouse button and drag the cursor to curve your line. You will see to vectors appearing at the tangent of your curve.

Now if you continue and draw a second line from the last one it will automatically curve it to make the transition between the two smooth. Close your shape and you get a nice potato.

Start again by a curve but this time we don’t want the vector to curve the second line. First press alt and click on the last point. This will delete the vector. Know draw a new line and curve it how you want it to be.

The pen tool, once masterized will be an invaluable help for cutting off background on a picture or making your own shapes.