Testing a Clipping Path

[michaelb60522121]

After I've completed a clipping path, how do I know if it works?  How can I test it?

[Trevor.Dennis]

What are you using it for?

If to cut out an object, then you can Ctrl click the path to make it a selection, and copy the object's layer to a new layer.

Place a layer beneath the copy and fill with white, and look for edge problems.  Then invert the white layer to black, and check again.

You can use the same trick on the cutout by deleting the selection, and looking for areas that should have been selected.

Or you could just zoom in and pan around the clipping path and make corrections, which is what I suspect most of us do.

[michaelb60522121]

I'm currently using this on an image of a tool so I can put it in a catalog.  I want to try it on a Word file by adding a color in the background. 

[Barb Binder]

Hi Michael:

InDesign will recognize the clipping path, but I really don’t think Word will. Is the catalog being laid out in Word or in InDesign?

~Barb

[michaelb60522121]

Hi, right now its going to be in Word as we don't have InDesign.  The issue I'm having is that the image of the tool in PS has a brown background and I just want to copy the tool and paste it in Word to test and see if the clipping path worked.  Its not letting me take or copy of the image of the tool by itself.

[Trevor.Dennis]

If you have Office 365, then you'll probably have Publisher, which I believe can either make or recognise clipping masks. It might be a matter of exporting the path from Photoshop in a different format, so that Word or Publisher sees it as an AutoShape.   EPS might work, but I'd probably try PDF first.  Make the path into a Shape layer (Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid colour), turn off any other layers including the background, and save to PDF using High Quality Print preset.

It would be MUCH better to save the object from Photoshop as a PNG file with transparency created from the clipping path inside Photoshop.  I think most applications will honour that transparency when inserting the PNG file.

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Its not letting me take or copy of the image of the tool by itself.

Hi Michael:

After you complete the path, double click the words "work path" and give it a name. Then click the dotted line circle at the bottom of the Paths panel to load the path as a (marching ants) selection. Once it is a selection you can copy it, but use Ctrl/Cmd J to jump it to a new layer (it's variation on Edit > Copy).

Once it's on its own layer, Trevor has given you a few ways to test it. For the Word test, I would go with his .png suggestion. Hide the original layer and use File > Export > Export As to save a copy as a.png file.

~Barb