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(Fig A)

A good way to learn to use the pen tool is to try this “follow the circle” exercise.
Drag this circle image (Fig A) to your desktop or right-click/save to desktop.

Open the image up in Photoshop and blow it up to 300%. Select the pen tool by hitting the (P) key. Follow around the edge of the circle by clicking with the mouse and setting “anchor points”.

Put your anchor points close together (almost touching each other). When you’re comfortable placing the anchor points, try spacing them out a little farther. (Fig B) If necessary, use the arrow keys to nudge each one into place along the edge of the gray circle.

(Fig B)

Follow the outline of the circle until you’re near the point at which you started. When you’re almost finished, hover your curser over the first anchor point that you created. You’ll see your cursor turn from a pen tool to a pen tool with an open circle next to it, this means you are about to close your path. (Fig 1)

(Fig 1)

When you’ve closed your path, zoom out to 100% and see what you’ve got. Click on your paths tab (by default it’s next to the layers tab in the layers palette). Save your new path by double clicking the layer that says “work path” and name it Path 1.

With Path 1 selected, click on the icon at the bottom of the paths palette that looks like a circle composed of tiny dots. (Fig 2)

(Fig 2)

This will load a selection from your path. With the “marching ants” selection activated, Go into edit in the main menu and select stroke. Choose a color, put 1 pixel, center.

Now you see you have a pretty flawless circle drawn out. This circle was created by nothing more than straight lines. This method works, but now we’re going to try a much faster method.

Deselect Path 1 by clicking in the negative space on the paths palette (below path 1). With the pen tool Create a new path and start following the circle again, only this time try to drag each anchor point a little.

When you click and drag, you’ll notice your anchor points don’t move, instead they have “handles” that come out. Try and line these handles up with the edge of your circle as you trace. Put more and more space between each anchor point when you drag and keep lining them up with the edge of your circle.

Play around a bit and notice how the line reacts. If you get something you don’t like, hit delete and click your last anchor point to pick up the path again. Notice it’s a lot quicker to trace the circle when you can drag out the handles.

When you’re finished, try to trace around the edge with fewer and fewer anchor points. Just for fun, see if you can eventually do it with only 4 anchor points (Fig D) or even two!

Photoshop Pen Tool Exercise