Howdy!
Creating paths from selections has suddenly gone strange: I often convert paths into layer masks, and back again, as part of my workflow. I'm usually very happy with how a selection/layer mask converts into a path, because often I've actually created the selection with the pen tool anyway, so the selection is very minimal and clear.
Suddenly - and I don't know why - now when I create paths it makes a very sloppy path that has warps and bumps that I don't understand. It's worse when I put the tolerance at 10 pixels, but even at 0.5 pixels it is sloppy.
If you look closely here, the first is the path I made manually with the pen tool. The second is after I've converted my path to a layer mask, then converted it back into a path. Look closely and you'll see unnecessary anchor points and the path going off in odd directions. And bekow that is an example of setting the tolerance to 10, which makes things even worse.
Explore related tutorials & articles
7
Replies
Hi
From your description, you seem to be converting a path to a selection , the selection to a rasterized mask then the mask back to a path a path. This will always introduce some error.
A better workflow would be create the path and from it use a vector mask. This retains the original path for editing.
To make a vector mask, just click twice on the mask symbol in the paths panel.
Dave
I am fairly certain that there was no essential change in the »Make Work Path« functionality in a while.
If the results at the same Tolerance settings were more to your liking in the past then you may have just been lucky so far.
CS6 is the oldest Photoshop I still have installed at work but a quick test reveals no difference to CC 2018 in that regard.
As davescm has pointed at converting a Path to a Selection and back to a Path seems needlessly detrimental and you should look into the efficient use of Vector Masks.
I don't know if Vector mask would be as efficient since then I can't make automatic selections eg quick selection, magic wand etc?
You can create and use Layer Masks however you like but why try to create Paths from them afterwards?
Edit: Screenshots of the same Selection converted to a Path with Tolerance 1 in Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CC 2018:
Answering your question directly, something that has occurred to me.
The two paths below were both created from a selection about 400 pixels wide after dragging out the elliptical marquee tool with Alt and Shift held down. The inner path is noticeably better. Check the second screen shot to see what made the difference.
I generally work with this option turned on, but your question made me think that it would lead to erratic curves. So I turned it off for the second path and it did indeed make for a smoother path curve. I think I might work with it turned off in future, so thanks for making me think about this. 
Whether I have that option checked or unchecked in Preferences, when I use a selection to create a path, a selection that was from a perfect circle, the path is horrible. I tried to type out a set of dashes around the path to show how bad it is:
The path creation from selection was NEVER this bad before. Something is wrong.
Uncheck "anti-alias" at the top-left of the program window.
AdChoices