Creating Realistic Wires using Adobe Photoshop - Part 2

Before you get started actually drawing with you pen tool, press the 'd' key on your keyboard. This will set your colors to default. ( Black to foreground and white to background ).

Create a new layer and begin to make your wire on the new layer. As you can see I began to draw OFF of the canvas. This will save you from having to erase too much excess wire later on. With the pen tool selected, simply click were you want your points to be, the program will connect the points automatically. Once again, start and end off of the canvas.

Your drawing should look still open like mine does below. DO NOT CLOSE OUT THE PATH YET. By saying that, I mean do NOT connect the end point to the start point. Before you do that we need to move some points around to help 'smooth' out the wire shape.

You'll only really need to use two things to make the perfect shape for a wire. Left-click, and CTRL+left-click.

Moving your cursor over an existing point will change the cursor to a - sign, and clicking will delete that point. Moving your cursor over a blank spot on the line, will change it to a + sign, and clicking will add a point. Moving your mouse over a point, then hold down the 'CTRL' and the left mouse button, will allow you to 'move' the joints around...this is the key part, and will help you 'smooth' out your wire and get rid of those sharp corners. A good tip is to removing the joints that are there were you wish to making changes, and add new ones..then move the new ones. This will result in a much smoother line and no sharp angels.

You want to make your path as smooth as possible BEFORE you close out the path. Here is mine after I played around a minute or so:

This resulted in removing a few points, adding a few, and moving some around using the key and mouse combos I spoke about above. Its fairly easy once you get the hang of it, so try not to get frustrated at first.

OK now that we have that done, time to close out the path. With the pen tool still selected, move your cursor over the start point and when the cursor changes to a point with a circle next to it, left click and it will close the path out.

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