MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC 63
7
RETRACE YOUR STEPS You’ll probably
make errors as you create your path,
especially when you’re zoomed in so close that
you can’t see the forest for the trees. Open the
History palette (Window, History). Drag the
offending anchor points to the trash to get rid
of them.
8
COMPLETE THE PATH
Continue drawing the path
around the outline of the children and
place the last anchor point directly on
top of the first. The Pen tool icon will
change to indicate that it is going to
close the path.9
EDIT THE PATH You’ll need to
tweak parts of the path to make it
more accurate. Hold down the mouse
on the Path Selection tool icon to
choose the Direct Selection tool. Click
an anchor point and drag the control
handle to edit the curve.10
MAKE A SELECTION Select the path
thumbnail. Click the palette pop-up
icon and choose the Make Selection option. Set
the Feather tool at 1 pixel to soften the edge of
the selection. The “marching ants” will appear,
indicating the selected area of the layer.
11
CREATE A LAYER PATH Go to the
Layers palette and select the Kids
thumbnail. Click on the Add a Mask icon at the
bottom of the Layers palette. The sections of
the layer outside of the path will now become
invisible, so that all we can see of the scene is
our models.
12
MODIFYING AN EXISTING MASK The handy thing about layer
masks is that you can modify them to hide more sections of the
layer whenever you like. This helps us handle any stray bits of the image that
might have been missed.LAYER MASKS When you spray a black brush on a layer’s mask, the
corresponding pixels on the layer will be hidden. You can restore the
layer’s missing detail by spraying white onto the layer mask. Unlike
the Erase tool, layer masks are nondestructive, so no information is
permanently lost. This is why they are so useful.How To
ADD TO MASK With
the path selected, go to
the layer mask and fill
the selection with black
to hide whichever parts
of it you want.NEW PATH The section under
the girl’s crossed feet also
needs to be hidden. Create a
new path in the paths palette
to select the section.