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            <div class="Photoshop"><table><tr><td class="banner">Adobe Photoshop CS4</td><td class="pod"><img src="images/PDF.gif" width="16" height="16" hspace="15" valign="50%" />&#160;&#160;
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                <h1>
                    Drawing shapes and paths
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                <div><p>Drawing
in Adobe&#160;Photoshop&#160;CS4 involves creating vector
shapes and paths. In Photoshop, you can draw with any of the shape
tools, the Pen tool, or the Freeform Pen tool. Options for each
tool are available in the options bar.</p>
<p>Before you begin drawing in Photoshop, you must choose a drawing
mode from the options bar. The mode you choose to draw in determines
whether you create a vector shape on its own layer, a work path
on an existing layer, or a rasterized shape on an existing layer. </p>
<p><dfn class="term">Vector shapes</dfn> are lines
and curves you draw using the shape or pen tools. Vector shapes
are resolution-independent—they maintain crisp edges when resized, printed
to a PostScript printer, saved in a PDF file, or imported into a
vector-based graphics application. You can create libraries of custom
shapes and edit a shape’s outline (called a path) and attributes
(such as stroke, fill color, and style). </p>
<p><dfn class="term">Paths</dfn> are outlines that you can turn into selections,
or fill and stroke with color. The outline of a shape is a path.
You can easily change the shape of a path by editing its anchor
points.</p>
<p>A <dfn class="term">work
path</dfn> is a temporary path that appears in the Paths panel
and defines the outline of a shape. </p>
<p>You can use paths in several ways:</p>
<ul><li><p>Use a path as a vector mask to hide areas of a layer.
(See <a href="WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7866a.html">About layer and vector masks</a>.)</p>
</li>
<li><p>Convert a path to a selection. (See <a href="WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-737ba.html">Convert paths to selection borders</a>.)</p>
</li>
<li><p>Fill or stroke a path with color. (See <a href="WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7376a.html">Fill paths with color</a>.)</p>
<p>Designate a saved path as a clipping
path to make part of an image transparent when exporting the image
to a page-layout or vector-editing application. (See <a href="WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7713a.html">Create transparency using image clipping paths</a>.)</p>
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