Drawing Curved Lines
Straight lines can only take you so far; more organic and complex compositions require you to use curved lines to render subjects. You will now complete Path 3.
Position your cursor over the first anchor point in Path 3. Click and, without releasing the mouse, drag your cursor up slightly above the arc to create your first anchor point. As you drag your cursor up, it looks like you are dragging a line away from the point. You are, in fact, creating a direction handle for the anchor point.
Dragging while clicking with the Pen tool allows
you to create direction handles.
What are Direction Handles?
When you select or create a smooth point, you can see the direction handles of that point. Direction handles control the angle and length of curves. Direction handles comprise two parts: direction lines and the direction points at the ends of the lines. An anchor point can have zero, one, or two direction handles, depending on the kind of point it is. Direction handles serve as a kind of road map for the line, controlling how the lines approach and leave each anchor point. If the exiting handle is downward-facing, the line leaves the anchor point and goes down. Similarly, the line faces upwards if the direction handle is pointing upwards.
A. Anchor point. B. Direction Line. C. Direction Handle. D. Line Segment.
Place your cursor over the second anchor point, located at the end of the first curve in Path 3. Click and drag straight down to create the second anchor point. Continue to drag the mouse until you form the curve in the template.
As you drag your cursor down, notice that a curve is being formed between the two anchor points. As long as you do not release the mouse button, you can reshape this line by dragging the mouse in different directions.
Dragging while creating the second anchor
point allows you to curve the path.
If you need to modify any of the previous points, choose Edit > Undo or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + Z (Windows) or Command + Z (Mac OS). Do not worry if the curves do not follow the template perfectly, they can be adjusted in the next step.
Switch to your Direct Selection tool, and click one of the two anchor points that you selected. Notice that the directional lines appear when an anchor point is activated.
Click the end point of the directional line and click and drag ion any direction. Notice that you can adjust these lines, after the anchor point has been placed in order to fine-tune a path.
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