The clipping paths have been completed. The sample sent to the client was approved with high marks. Ahhhhhhh. Now to relax at a gala!

Belinda and I methodically made our way through the 91 compound clipping paths. Now our client will be able to use the file with a white background and their product on a white (shiny) mannequin. They can select the next layer up and have an image of the white mannequin+their product on a transparent background, with an embedded clipping path, or they can go to the next layer up and have an image of their product sitting on a transparent background with no mannequin ---- but with a very nice, attendant clipping path.

It takes more time when the mannequin needs a few little scuff marks retouched, etc.

I made good use of the curvature pen tool and also the "select and refine" option.

I finished the project in enough time to have a late lunch, to pack and to head downtown for a gala at the JW Marriott Hotel for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Austin.

The glamorous life of a photographer....

Tonight I'm packing a dedicated (TTL) Godox flash for Panasonic/Olympus, a GH5 with the 12-100mm lens and a bunch of batteries. Too set in my ways not to bring along a back-up rig so I've also packed a G85, the small and lightweight 12-60mm lens and an extra manual flash. And again, batteries for all.

At least business is brisk.

VSL Reader Help Requested. Clipping paths get more complicated in latest PhotoShop.

This is a measured plea for help. By measured I mean that I am not yet panicky but a bit frustrated. Maybe you can help with a clearer workflow for me.

Stuff I think I know:

There is no substitute for hand drawn paths with bezier curves for documents that will go to print.

There is no way to automate complex selections.

White on white is its own problem.

I know how to use the pen tool and how to create a path. In previous versions of PhotoShop, if you needed compound clipping paths (paths within a path or multiple paths in a file) you could draw one path hit the shift key and begin another path. And another. And another. Then you could click on each path and they would all work in concert to create a clipping path.

Not so anymore. Now I can create a new selection, see it in the work path icon (in the paths palette) but when I go to select the multiple paths I only get the first path or a subsequent path as my selection and not the multiple paths.

A good example would be a product with many holes through which you can see the background. In preparing for printer files each hole would have to be part of the overall clipping path. The primary clipping path would be the whole product (to clip it from the background) but I would need to create smaller clipped areas for each of the holes as part of the working path.

This is where I am stumbling. Not every file has these needs but enough of them do to make me grit my teeth.

My partner is working on an older version of PS and has no issue whatsoever producing as many smaller clipped areas inside the overall clipping path. None at all.

If you understand the clipping path workflow in PS CC 2017 I'd love to have the largess of your greater skill and brainpower.

Help?

P.S. I've searched for tutorials for hours. I can composite a fashion model on a background now but only if the composite doesn't require me to make paths inside of paths..... grrrrrrr. KT

Help us all understand this admittedly specialized part of the new PhotoShop!