clipping paths primer

A
Posted By
Anonymoose
Dec 4, 2003
Views
458
Replies
5
Status
Closed
Newbie question #345:

Can someone set me straight on clipping paths and when their effect is shown?

I have a background layer and I copy in a new image on it. I select the new layer and make a selection of part of it using the magnetic lasso.
I select Make Work Path from the right-click menu.
I select that path from the paths panel and select Save Path from the paths pallete menu and name it Path 1.
I select Clipping Path… from the pallete menu.

From here on I’m lost – maybe lost earlier, but I tried to follow the instructions in the Help up to this point. At any rate…

Where do I see the effects of the clipping? It’s not showing in PS (7.0 btw).

I "Jump To" ImageReady…still doesn’t show. I Save As an EPS file and look at that in ImageReady…still doesn’t show. I see a note in the help that says that it might not show if the EPS has a TIFF preview so I do the Save As EPS and uncheck the TIFF preview option…still no clipping.

I’ve obviously missed something …

Thanks in advance.
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Eric Gill
Dec 4, 2003
Anonymoose <menolikeyspam> wrote in news:Xns944796D8AEF6Emenolikeyspam@ 216.196.97.136:

Where do I see the effects of the clipping?

When you place the EPS format pic in a page layout package such as Quark, PageMaker, or Indesign.

It’s not showing in PS (7.0 btw).

It won’t. Clipping paths are very specific to page layout for offset printing.

If you want to use the path to clip something in Photoshop itself, make the path a selection, invert the selection, and hit delete. Note this is destructive whereas a clipping path isn’t, but if you do not need the background it shouldn’t matter.
T
tom187
Dec 4, 2003
Eric Gill wrote:

—snip—-
It’s not showing in PS (7.0 btw).

It won’t. Clipping paths are very specific to page layout for offset printing.

If you want to use the path to clip something in Photoshop itself, make the path a selection, invert the selection, and hit delete. Note this is destructive whereas a clipping path isn’t, but if you do not need the background it shouldn’t matter.

To the OP:

Eric is absolutely correct; however if losing the portion of the image outside the path is a problem, use the selection as a layer mask and mask the unwanted portion or the image instead of deleting it.. That method will_not_ work in page layout software as Eric’s does, but it is non-destructive to your image since you never really mentioned exactly what you are expecting to use it for.
——————————-
Tom

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A
Anonymoose
Dec 4, 2003
(Tom Thomas) wrote in
news::

Eric Gill wrote:

—snip—-
It’s not showing in PS (7.0 btw).

It won’t. Clipping paths are very specific to page layout for offset printing.

If you want to use the path to clip something in Photoshop itself, make the path a selection, invert the selection, and hit delete. Note this is destructive whereas a clipping path isn’t, but if you do not need the background it shouldn’t matter.

To the OP:

Eric is absolutely correct; however if losing the portion of the image outside the path is a problem, use the selection as a layer mask and mask the unwanted portion or the image instead of deleting it.. That method will_not_ work in page layout software as Eric’s does, but it is non-destructive to your image since you never really mentioned exactly what you are expecting to use it for.
——————————-

Ah, thanks to both of you. I guess I can safely ignore clipping paths for now then…on to the next item on my list of Things I Don’t Understand.
M
Madsen
Dec 4, 2003
Tom Thomas wrote:

[Layer masks]

That method will_not_ work in page layout software as Eric’s does, but it is non-destructive to your image since you never really mentioned exactly what you are expecting to use it for.

InDesign knows what to do with a layer mask. If you use a layer mask to make part of an image transparent in Photoshop, it’ll be transparent when you place the PSD file in InDesign.

—
Regards
Madsen.
T
tacitr
Dec 5, 2003
I have a background layer and I copy in a new image on it. I select the new layer and make a selection of part of it using the magnetic lasso.
I select Make Work Path from the right-click menu.

Bever make a clipping path this way. You get a poor-quality path with many points, unsuitable for high-quality offset printing. Always make a clipping path with the Pen tool.

Where do I see the effects of the clipping?

When you place the file into a professional page-layout program like QuarkXPress or InDesign.

Clipping paths are generally used for preparing an image for professional offset printing on a printing press.

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