Adobe 23101335 User Guide - Page 182

172 CHAPTER 6 Drawing and Editing To display the Paths palette: Choose Windows > Show Paths, or click the Paths palette tab. To select or deselect a path in the palette: Do one of the following: • To select a path, click the path name in the Paths palette. Only one path can be selected at a time. • To deselect a path, click in the blank area of the Paths palette, choose Turn Off Path from the Paths palette menu, or click the OK button ( ) in the options bar if you are using the shape or pen tools. To change the size of path thumbnails: 1 Choose Palette Options from the Paths palette menu. 2 Select a size, or select None to turn off the display of thumbnails. To change a path's stacking order: 1 Select the path in the Paths palette. 2 Drag the path up or down in the Paths palette. When the heavy black line appears in the desired location, release the mouse button. Note: You cannot change the order of layer clipping paths in the Paths palette. Editing paths (Photoshop) A path is composed of one or more path components-collections of one or more anchor points jointed by segments. Because they take up less disk space than pixelbased data, paths can be used for long-term storage of simple masks. Paths can also be used to clip sections of your image for export to an illustration or page-layout application. (See "Using image clipping paths" on page 369.) About anchor points, direction lines, direction points, and components A path consists of one or more straight or curved segments. Anchor points mark the endpoints of the path segments. On curved segments, each selected anchor point displays one or two direction lines, ending in direction points. The positions of direction lines and points determine the size and shape of a curved segment. Moving these elements reshapes the curves in a path. A B C D E A. Curved line segment B. Direction point C. Direction line D. Selected anchor point E. Unselected anchor point