Paths, expansion and fills...
Design & Publishing Center . / . Photoshop . / . Tips & Tricks
Tip #108
Paths, expansion and fills...
Yor-El writes in via @bloomingdalemusic.org
" Thanks for a great website folks! I tried your X-Piles tutorial, it is awesome. However how do you expand if it isn't higlighted or fill without filling the entire canvas or draw paths. I know it's a lot but please help me if you can. Thanks."
Oooops... sorry Yor-El... my mistake...
Actually here's another of those traps where the version change did us in. The "X-Piles" tutorial was done in the days of v3.5 when all you had to do was select all and hit the up/down arrow to tighten the full-layer selection to the actual object perimeter.
__ In version 4 (and 5) Adobe wanted us to use a new layer whether we want to or not.
So now you've got two choices to make the type active so you can modify it:
1 - Command/Click the layer in the layers palette. This selects ONLY the pixels on the layer and not the whole layer.
2 - Hold down the Control/command keys and press any of the arrow keys. You'll now have the object "floating" (They took away the Float command but this is just as good.)
Now you can Select > Modify > Expand then Fill or whatever. If you plan the selection to land in exactly the same place you'll have to arrow-key it back using the opposite arrow from the one used to create the floater. To "drop" just hit Command/D
Yor-El continues..."Also how do you draw a path? The X-Piles turial called for drawing a path to create light spill. Perhaps there's a path tutorial you could point me to."
I still think the path tutorial in the book is a good place to start. I'm not copping out but a path tutorial is beyond this month's weight limit. See the "Paths" seminar at http://www.graphic-design.com/photoshop/seminars/.
"Whew. Now Yor-El can finish the X-Piles tutorial.