Easily Close Pencil and Brush Paths

Easily Close Pencil and Brush Paths

The Pencil and Brush tools are useful, but sometimes frustrating. I always found the open paths it creates particularly annoying. A simple solution is to press the Option/Alt key when you are ready to close a path. Once pressed, it will join the first and last anchor points with a straight line. Holding down the Option/Alt key and drawing a little past the starting anchor will close the path automatically.

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14 thoughts on “Easily Close Pencil and Brush Paths

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  2. Hola!
    I wanna close the path using ALT like shown here, but it makes a LONG straight line to the left, (making it look like a comment bubble), even tho I make sure I come very close to the begining point. How can i prevent this from happen?..Its driving me crazy! I just want it to close the path in a simpler, less exagerate/pointy way.
    thanks for the help .
    Pamela.

    • Not that I know of. I think Adobe thinks people are use the Pencil and Brush tools more to create paths than closed shapes, but I wish they did have this option. I use the Pencil Brush tools mostly to create closed shapes. Even if you double click on one of the tools in the Tools panel there isn’t an option to automatically close the path.

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