Vector path in Objective-C

Maker QR Code JIS X 0510 in Objective-C Vector path

Figure 5-1

While bitmap selections are indicated by the dancing ants on the screen, vector paths are solid lines with anchor points

Clicking the Pen tool in the toolbox (as shown in the following illustration) reveals five variations of the tool: Pen Tool (normal) Freeform Pen Tool Used to draw a selection one point at a time Used to draw a selection freehand, as you draw normally Used to add anchor points to existing paths Used to remove anchor points from existing paths

Clicking the Shape tool in the toolbox (as shown in the following illustration) reveals six variations on the tool: Rectangle Tool Rounded Rectangle Tool Ellipse Tool Polygon Tool Line Tool Custom Shape Tool

The Pen and Shape tools have several options that are displayed in the Options bar, but the options themselves vary according to which tool is selected However, whether you ve selected a Pen tool or a Shape tool, you can further clarify the type of vector selection you re creating by choosing between the following buttons in that Options bar See Table 5-1 for a comparison of these three types of selections Shapes, Paths, and Fills

Specifies that what you re creating should be treated as a shape Specifies that what you re creating should be treated as a path Specifies that what you re creating should be treated as a fill

You can combine the Shape and Path tools to build complex paths When doing so, you may need to select certain points within those paths To do so, you use the Path Selection tool (found directly above the Pen tool in the toolbox) As shown in the following illustration, the Path Selection tool has two variations: Path Selection Tool Used to select entire paths or path components

Automatically creates a new layer in the Layers palette Automatically creates a new working path in the Paths palette X X

Fills the area within the selection with the color in the foreground swatch of the toolbox X Remains editable after deselected Alters the pixels within the selected area Accessible from all Pen and Shape tools Requires an editable layer to be highlighted in the Layers palette before use Can be affected by an option from the Style menu Can be affected by an option from the Mode menu Is deleted when Layer is deleted from Layers palette X X X X X X

Table 5-1

While the basic selection tools included in Photoshop are perfectly suitable for most applications, Photoshop enables you to create intricate selections with a process called masking When you work with masks in Photoshop, you see neither those silly dancing ants nor the solid lines of paths Instead, you can use brushes to paint your selections In fact, when using masks, the term selection takes on a whole new meaning Rather than being used as a synonym for highlighted area, selection refers more to protected and unprotected areas of an image when masks are involved Masked areas of an image are protected from editing For example, suppose I wanted to change the color of my daughter s bright-red sweatshirt in the following picture, because it is too dominant for the image Selecting that sweatshirt with any of the normal selection tools Magic Wand, Marquee, Lasso, and even the Pen tool would be cumbersome and difficult

To see how I ended up selecting only the color of this sweatshirt to edit, see the tip entitled Use Quick Mask Mode for Quick Paint-by-Number Selections

Painting a mask enables me to use a tool I m really comfortable with the paintbrush in a way that is very forgiving So when masking the sweatshirt in the previous illustration, if I start to get parts of the couch or my daughter s hair in the selection, I can easily fix that without having to fumble with those dancing ants again