Using work path exported from photoshop in illustrator

[rswt97]

Hello

I've encountered an issue using a work path from photoshop in illustrator.

The situation involves large graphics for a wall. These are to be cut around the edge. As such the designer has provided a red cut line on a layer of its own on the PSD files they provided. Unfortunately I am going to need a vector line in place of this in order for the vinyl cutter to cut this. I have asked the designer to provide this and they will not.

So as a workaround I am selecting the pixels as you can see below and creating a work path. All good so far.

Then I export the work path to illustrator and open it. Naturally it comes in as two lines and a compound path, as the path takes either side of the pixel line in illustrator. This is where the issues begin. I thought that releasing the compound path would mean that i could delete one of the two lines and leave the other behind. This is not the case. You can see from the snap below - here I have released the compound path and selected the inner line with the direct selection tool. Weirdly, there is a line on the bottom left that seems to be vanishing away to nothing. There are no anchor points where the line ends and i can't select it.

I could go round and individually delete all the anchor points but it is time consuming and there are quite a few of these files.

Appreciate any help you can give. If you would like more detail then please just ask.

PS - I think another way would be to select the extents of the layer in photoshop and create a path from that? Would that give only a single path? I'm not sure if this is possible.

Thank you.

[Monika Gause]

It would be helpful if you could show the complete path that has been generated and not only this small clipping.

[Mike_Gondek]

Are you familiar with using the bezier pen tool? You can draw a single line path with a few clicks, will take under a minute.

Now if you do not know how to use the bezier tool, in illustrator select the hollow arrow tool and make one point solid then delete.

Repeat on opposite end. Then sect remming middle part you do not need and delete key twice.

[Theresa J · Accepted solution]

Select everything inside of the red line so that you have one big shape. Then convert that selection to a path. It will be a single line that you can use for the for the vinyl cutter. It will probably have a ton of anchor points but you can simplify the path to clean those up.

[rswt97]

Hi Teresa

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for... had a bit of a blank and couldn't figure out how to do it but it suddenly came to me after reading your post.

Thanks a lot.

[Theresa J]

Thanks for letting us know.