In the world of graphics designing and photo editing, clipping path is the process of creating an outline around a center object while the rest of the image is being made transparent. One good example of a clip-path image is the picture of the Statue of Liberty in New York. A photo of the Statue taken in broad daylight will of course include the sky, the sea and the cityscape on the background. In order to retain the image of the Statue while the rest of picture is taken out, a special tool in a photo editing software is used. As analogy, clipping path is basically just like a cookie cutter. The raw image or photo is the dough itself while the cookie cutter is the clipping path. In order for a cookie to be taken out from the dough, the cookie cutter must be pressed into the dough leaving the excess dough behind. The same works with clipping path.
Clipping path is very much useful especially in graphic design projects that require huge images. There are definitely other ways to take out the background of the image, but using the Eraser tool of the photo editing software will take time and effort. Add to that the fact that when taking background from large images can be very draggy when used with the Eraser tool. Complex images can also be very difficult to take out like hairs, feathers, sand and leaves. This is where clipping path comes in.
A very common editing tool used in clipping a path is actually the simple Pen tool in Photoshop. This is used to trace the outline of a center object without having to modify or erase even a single pixel of the raw image. This then creates two objects, the path and the image. The path itself is a vector image, which means that the central object can be resized to any desired dimension without pixelation. The image refers to the bitmap. Once clipping path is done, these two objects are done saved into a single file called EPS. This EPS file can be used and reused a number of times, again without touching the original image. The path can be used and be integrated with other editing softwares like Flash, PageMaker or Illustrator.
There are three different kinds of path: the inclusive path, exclusive path and the compound path. If you would like to make your own path, you can visit various Photoshop tutorial sites on the internet about clipping path. However, if you have lots of images you want clipped, or you routinely clip a lot of images, you might prefer other people to clip a path for you, you can visit http://www.clip-a-path.com. Websites like Clip-A-Path will help you with your clipping path needs, a very helpful option especially for those tight scheduled graphic design projects.
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