Need Clipping Path Pointers and /or Tricks please?

[MustangManny]

Hello,

I can make a clipping path in Photoshop and make it into an eps to bring into Quark or what have you. But since the tolerance setting in Photoshop only goes to .5 for accuracy it leaves much to be desired. I would have to painstakingly bring it into Illustrator and smooth out the kinks and curves. Is there an easier, efficacious approach to this?

Brining in "floating logos, text or graphic alike" into Quark can be a tricky deal because of it. But nevertheless my question stays steadfast towards creating more efficient, professional clipping paths.

Much Obliged! : )

Manny

 

[mothman]

I know what ya mean.......

I get happy results by getting rid of and backgound color before I put the clipping path on it....
for really hairy situations I use the ADD A MASK option from the LAYERS PALLET( 6.0)....this lets me paint the mask in and out untill I have the little areas cleaned up....then I SELECT nothing with the WAND ( adjust tolerance to yer liking) and then i SELECT INVERSE......after that just run throught the clipping path steps.

I hope this made sense?!!

MM

 

[artdirectoreric]

My best results come from using the pen tool and making the clipping path the hard way. I don't worry about making curves on the first pass - I just click-click-click a straight-line path around the whole item, ignoring any rounded areas. Then I'll go in and add a point to a line segment that needs to be a cruve, hold down the Ctrl key and move the point until the curve closely matches up. I'll adjust the handles if necessary, but it usually isn't. This might sound time-consuming, but I find it more of a waste of time to try to clean up something photoshop creates for me, or even the various plug-ins I've tried.

Some more advice - choke in on the image a pixel or two. In those instances I'm putting a clipping path on a logo or other flat-color area I'll paint a little extra "bleed" past the clipping path to make sure no background pixels make it through.

I know you want an easier way to do it, but I've tried several and I don't recommend them.

 

[MustangManny]

Thank you both.
It surely has added insight to my approach, particularly artdirectoreric's "bleed" trick. I suppose if it were easy, the satisfaction of a good job would be inversely proportionate.

Regards,

Manny