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I'd clip it using the elliptical marque tool for starters, then tweak it with the lasso tool. Once selected convert the selection to a path. Path points are not that big an issue as they were in the past, with these new rips, larger hard drives and faster CPU's we now have. Although if you use InDesign to place these images, no paths are needed. Just make a transparent background and save as a psd.

btyo462 wrote:

Hi all.  I consider myself advanced when using the pen tool in PS or Illustrator.  I often am doing clipping paths for clients, and rarely have trouble doing them; however, any time there is a shape that resembles an eye, I run into problems.  I try to keep them as simple as possible, using as few anchor points as I can, but I'm becoming convinced that making this shape with 4 points isn't possible.  I was hoping someone who is skilled with the pen tool could look at the linked file and respond with some input as to how to position the bezier arms.  The shape in question is the hole in the metal piece.  Thanks in advance.

The trick here, and with any circular shape, is to click AND DRAG on the... thingies (!?!?). They've got a name but it escapes me at the moment. Anyway, let's imagine it's a compass... so the North, South, East and West extremes.

With practice you should be able to draw a perfect circle just by using four points and having the bezier control arms at equal length.

For a non-perfect circular shape it's best to click and drag on the aforementioned anchor points loosely and then go back in and tweak it to perfection using the control arms.

Your shape is a bit odd with that "pinch" at the East and West anchor points so those control arms are very much shorter. Most importantly each anchor point must have TWO control arms.

I hope that's clear but here's what they should look like on that shape. I've colorized it for clarity. Oh, and I did it quickly, it could do with some more tweaking.

Pottymouth beat me to it, I was going to say you can make a perfect circle using only 2 points - so that should work for this too.

I haven't done it, but I have seen it done.

Wow.
I do some PS work, but on that level.

If you wanted to remove the area in the hole from the picture, why not just magic wand it, set your tolerance and move on?

I take pics of auto parts to be listed on ebay. I primarily use the magic wand to extract the part from the background.

I know it's noobish and most of you are laughing at me, so edumacate me.

If I use the OP image as a starting point, what steps are needed to extract the 'hole'?

Thanks in advance.

Temetka wrote:

I know it's noobish and most of you are laughing at me, so edumacate me.

The best reasons to have a path around a cut-out image, as opposed to just deleting the pixels you don't want, are control, ease of selection and when you drop it into a page layout program it truly is transparent - it can sit on any background. You don't even have to specify it as a true Clipping Path anymore with more modern programs.

Temetka wrote:

If I use the OP image as a starting point, what steps are needed to extract the 'hole'?

I thought that was covered above. You'll have to be more specific, please.

mahakali wrote:

Addendum: magic wand is great but if you have a pic on a noisy background, it's easier to use the pen or lasso.?

Although I'm a strict proponent of the Pen Tool in recent times I've been known to dabble with the Quick Selection Tool in PS CS3. Now that truly is remarkable.