Preserved Topic: Deleting Anchor Points?

How to delete an anchor point in the middle of a path without breaking the path? I want to weld, but that's a 3DS Max thing.

I scanned in a line drawing with real thick lines. Selected the Black then converted to Path. Now I want to clean it up, but deleting extra Anchors breaks the Path.

If there is a way to do this, I would like to know. In the meantime, I'll be building Paths from scratch using the scan as a guide.

-sig be gone

[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 11-09-2001).]

Hey - simple. (I assume you're in Photoshop????)

Use the pen tool. The plain old pen tool. It's smart! When you put it over an existing point it turns into the delete point tool automatically. When you put it over a segment where there's no point it becomes the add point tool. Automatically.

I just *love* the photoshop pen tool. You really don't need to take your eyes off the screen. In addition to the above mentioned, command/control key gets you the selection tool for dragging points or handles, and option/alt gets you the convert point tool, for adding or subtracting control handles or dragging them independently.

It's so well engineered.

LOL Here, I'll clarify a bit.

Let's say I have a path with 5 Anchor points. Well, I don't like point #3 and I want to get rid of it. If I delete #3, I'll end up with 2 sub-paths, each with 2 points each. I dont' want that. I want to end up with a 4-point continuous Path.

How's that?

Seems to work fine with a shape layer. I'm prolly better off going this route. Add the outside, subtract the inside, add more inside things. This will work for what I'm up to.


[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 11-09-2001).]

That's not how it works for me. If I select the point and press delete, maybe it breaks the path (can't remember); but if I click on it with the remove point tool as I described above, the path remains intact, just minus a point.

Try it.

In related news, I just figured out the whole corner/brazier thing.

So you have anchor in the middle of a path and you want to make it bezier. So you grab the convert and drag it out. The handles are straight. Straight - know what I mean? If you want them to remain straight, either drag the curve itself with convert tool or drag the handles with direct select. If you drag a handle with convert, you break it into a corner. So, if you accidently break a anchor by dragging a handle with convert, you have to un-convert and re-convert all over again, if you want to keep it straight that is.

Follow that?

This is something about anchors and bezier curves that has always baffled me. Some were corners and some weren't. Now I know and I'm passing the savings on to you.

One more thing. I should have clarified that I was talking about a Work Path in my original query. This whole vectors in PS 6 is getting kind of complicated.

play.fiddle.learn

Steve, I just tried it and it's working just fine with a Work Path. Something screwy is going on. Now I can't get Delete Anchor to break the Path.

This is gonna drive me nuts.

I got it. If I select an Anchor and hit Delete, it breaks the Path. If I use a tool to do it, the Path is mantained (again, talking about a Work Path).

:whew:

That was tough one. I hope someone out there learns from this.

So... who's gonna give me a cookie?


[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 11-09-2001).]

Cusp! Cusp! There are several types of points: smooth curves where the control handles are in line; a corner point where there are no handles and no curve, a cusp which is half and half - a corner point going in and a curve going out (one handle), and then the trick one that has two handles but not in line. I don't know its name off hand

Such control! And as I already said, all available to you with one tool and two modifier keys.

Oh BTW - a brazier is something you cook over

A bezier has handles you can drag

I think it goes like this:

Corner: no handles.
Bezier: 2 handles that are straight out from each other.
Bezier Corner: 2 handles that are independent. I think this includes a coner with one handle - the other handle is 'hidden' on the Anchor itself, but I'm not entirely sure.

What have I learned today? Hitting Delete and deleting an Anchor with a tool makes a difference. How to keep a Bezier a Bezier instead of accidentally turning it into a Bezier corner.

The nuances are astounding. Anybody else got a log to toss onto the fire?


[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 11-09-2001).]

*grabs the axe and heads out into the asylum garden* ~Vp~

I learned the nuance of the pen tool silhouetting wine bottles for one client and sleek high tech telephones for another. You use just about every type of point there is, going around a bottle or a smooth high-design appliance. The ability to change and modify the nature of a point on the fly as you lay out the path is the stuff dreams are made of (if you dream of things like this).

Photoshop's pen tool and a Wacom tablet - a dynamite combination.

BTW - since I can't draw with *any* implement, I never draw with the pen tool. But I do lots and lots of outlining of products.

So thats how they cut pictures out for magazine and stuff?

That pen tool always confuzes me, I guess I just havent used it enough eh?

oh yah... i already ate the cookies... sorry... not...

::::izzay

[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 11-09-2001).]

Must say I also love the pen tool. I use it a lot.

*sigless, pointless post*

If you use the convert point tool, you can drag any of the handles independantly. If you want a cusp or corner, you can drag the handles out with the convert point, release the button, and re-grab either handle and move it independently from the other , so you can have a smooth curve on one side, and a sharp corner on the other.

There`s also a sub tool right above the convert point tool called the delete anchor point tool.

With the convert anchor point tool active, it acts like the selection tool ( for modifying line segments ) until you hover over an anchor point. Then you can brag out handles, or convert to a corner if handles are already present. Click between points and only the handles for that segment appear, and you can drag either side of the segment. If you hold CTRL, the convert point tool becomes the select tool so you can move the point with out converting it.

The pen tool is awesome.



Everybody has the right to no taste

[This message has been edited by docilebob (edited 11-10-2001).]

Cusp? Seriously? I just thought that Steve was having fits.

You doubt me???



Seriously. Back int eh days of my first Mac (a IICi) the first drawing program I had my hands on was Freehand 2 or something, for which I seemed not to have a manual (draw your own conclusions). Deke McClelland's book opened my eyes to that app, and provided my first exposure to bezier curves. "Cusp", as it related to computers, entered my vocabulary at that point. Years later, an Illustrator WOW book had some good pen tool exercises: they provided files with pre-drawn curves and dots where the anchor points should be placed, and you had to draw a curve on top of theirs that fit. Excellent training tool (you reading Krets?). Still, it was pretty abstract for me, because I had no ability or intention of drawing from scratch. Then the day came when I had to silhouette a hard edged, curved product and I woke up in a hurry. Deke to the rescue again. His Photoshop Bible had an excellent section on pen tool shortcuts. Suddenly they meant something. Suddenly the tool was useful. And I seriously mean that this is one of those things that separates the pros from the hobbiests. If a new kid comes to work for us, straight from art school, and reaches for the magic wand or the lasso tool to select an object with curved, defined edges, I sigh, roll my eyes, and gently lead them into the esoteric arts of the pen.

Mightier than the sword, oh yeah.

So let me get this straight...I can get a faster, 'better' selection using the pen tool? I did not know that. Thanks for the tip...getting to work. BTW - anybody have some online tuts for this? I've had fun with Stroking a path on the GN, but this stuff here is new to me.