How Do You Make A Nice Smooth Curve In PS?

[rnbluvva]

Hi!

I have wanted to know how to make a nice, smooth, thick curve in PS for a long time. I thought it would just be a matter of creating a path with the pen tool and then stroking it, but my results come out with jagged/bumpy edges. I checked the brush settings to make sure there was nothing in there to give it a bumpy edge, but I don't see what could be causing the issue.

Does anyone know a tutorial that teaches how to do these nice curves? Please see the attached photos for a better idea of what I am after. I also attached the photos of what is happening when I stroke a path.

Thanks for any pointers or links to tutorials you can give.

[joey florio]

Make the brush, say 2px and 100% hard before you stroke the path with the brush.
Deselect the path and there shouldn't be any jaggies.

[rnbluvva]

Joey,

I made the brush 100% hard, but selected 50 px.

I want the curve to be very thick like in the images I posted for an example.

Maybe these curves were done in a different program? I am not sure how they do them. Maybe Illustrator and then bring them into Photoshop?

Thank you for your reply!

[Jiger]

Hi rnbluvva !

About your own lines:
It's a bit hard to tell what brush you have used and I don't know the settings for Shape Dynamics, but for not getting bumpy edges I'd try with checking off all the dynamics and then set your Brush Spacing to a lower value than the default 25% (so the brush doesn't "dapple" your line). Set it down to 1% and see what difference that makes to start with.

As for the other lines and strokes - those are most certainly made with layers (same shape repeted and offset). Except for the "Coffee House" - that's two stroked lines in different shades and a slight offset.
"There are many ways to skin a cat... "

Tutorials - well, you made it over here and that's as good a place to start with as any.

-- Jiger --

[joey florio]

Or you could try instead of a 50 px stroke, make a 50px shape with the pen.

[KR1156]

i like to make objects like that in adobe illustrator, this way i can copy and paste it into photoshop as a shape layer...so when i output the file, it will retain its vector information and print sharp.