Working with the Paths panel in Paint by Zaweba
Save, fill and stroke paths, turn them into selections, masks or shape layers, and export them to SVG from the Paths panel in Paint by Zaweba.
Paths are outlines that live alongside your layers without being part of any of them. They don't print and they aren't pixels, but they can become almost anything: a selection, a mask, a shape layer, a painted line. The Paths panel in Paint by Zaweba, also reached from the Vector menu under Vector > Paths, is where you keep and use them.
The work path and saved paths
When you draw with the Pen tools set to make a path, the result goes into the work path. The work path is temporary: draw another path without saving it and it gets replaced. Save it and it becomes a named path that stays with the document.
The panel lets you create a new path, duplicate, delete or rename one, and save the work path. Get into the habit of saving paths you might need again, such as the outline of a product you cut out, so the outline is always there if the client wants a different background next week.
Filling and stroking
Fill fills the area inside a path on the current layer, with the foreground colour, the background colour, a chosen colour or a pattern. It is handy for crisp-edged shapes painted as pixels.
Stroke traces a path with the current brush. Because it uses the brush engine, the line takes on the brush's tip and character, so a path can become a pencil line, a soft glow or a textured chalk mark. Lettering artists use it to draw smooth, perfect strokes: draw the path with the Pen, set up a brush, stroke the path. It is often easier than painting the curve freehand.
Paths and selections
Make Selection turns a path into a selection, with options for feather, anti-alias and the selection operations, so you can add to, subtract from or intersect with an existing selection. This is the classic route for clean cut-outs: trace the object with the Pen, make a selection, add a mask.
Work Path from Selection goes the other way, turning a selection into a path. Use it to keep a selection as a path for later, or to turn a selection into a shape you can refine with the path tools.
Shapes and masks
New shape layer turns a path into a vector shape layer, which you can fill and stroke and edit later. Vector mask adds the path to a layer as a mask with a crisp edge that you can reshape at any time with the selection tools. Save as custom shape adds the path to your custom shape library, so you can draw it again with the Custom Shape tool whenever you like, which is useful for logos and icons you use often.
Exporting to SVG
Paths to SVG exports paths to an SVG file. That lets you take an outline traced in Paint by Zaweba into a vector design program, a cutting machine or a website. It is a practical way to turn a cut-out product outline into a vector for packaging, or a hand-traced logo into a file a printer can use.
Tips
Name paths sensibly. A document with Path 1 to Path 12 is hard to work with; names such as Bottle outline and Label edge save time.
Use paths rather than saved selections when the edge should be crisp. Paths keep their precision at any zoom and scale; selections are pixel-based.
Combine operations. Draw one path for an outline and a second for a hole, then make a selection that subtracts one from the other, for shapes such as rings and frames.
The Paths panel is easy to overlook, but it connects the vector and pixel sides of the app. Once you start saving paths, you'll find yourself reusing them far more than you expected.
