Master the Pen Tool.
The Pen tool holds terrors for many people and that, unfortunately, deprives them of a very useful tool for creating precise paths that can be turned into shapes, selections, and masks. There is only one way to lose the fear and gain confidence: Practice using the tool for 10–15 minutes a day.With a little perseverance, you should be able to produce useable paths within a week, if not the first day.

Briefly, paths are made up of mathematically defined straight lines, curves, corner points, and cusps. Each end of a straight line, also called a segment, ends in an anchor point, and each end of a curve ends in a cusp. When a curved segment is selected, the anchor points display direction lines that end in direction points. Moving the direction points changes the curve’s tangent.

A—Anchor point. B—Curve. C—Direction point. D—Direction line. E—Cusp or Smooth point. F—Corner point.

Curves can end in a smooth point or a corner point. Smooth points are used to conjoin two curves whose arc forms a circular path or traverse in obverse directions; the letters C and S, respectively, are good examples. Corner points are used to conjoin two curves whose arcs form an obtuse angle; the letter B is a good example(picture above). Smooth points can be converted into corner points, and vice versa, using the Convert Point tool (hidden under the Pen tool).

Paths can be open ended or closed. For example, a circular path is a closed path whereas a
straight line is open at either end. To get a feel for drawing paths, start by drawing straight lines. To do so, select the Pen tool (P), make sure that its option is set to Paths in the options bar (hover over the buttons and hold the pointer still to see their functions), click once, lift and move the pointer to another location, and click again. You have just drawn an open-ended path segment. To close a path, click the first anchor point. This is very similar to closing a selection.
If you make a mistake, you can delete the last anchor point by using Undo, or delete any anchor
point by using the very appropriately named Delete Anchor Point tool.

When you draw a new segment, Photoshop creates a work path in the Paths palette behind the
scenes and, as long as the work path is active, all new segments are added to it and become one path. To avoid confusion while practicing, save the work path by double-clicking it. This way, when you draw a new path, Photoshop will create a new work path if none is active. You can activate each work path one at a time to see your progression.

A—Closed path. B—Unselected anchor point. C—Open-ended path. D—Selected anchor point.