Clipping Paths

[jjlphoto]

Say I'm shooting a product on a white backdrop and the client want's it to look like it is surrounded fully by pure white, no drop shadow. In the old days, I'd make a selection around the object, invert the selection, and fill the backdrop with a 255/255/255 tone. Done.

Now the client wants an actual 'clipping path'. So I take the pen tool, click and drag all the way around the object, making full use of the pen tool's bezier curve ability, and make a complete path around the object. Now what? What do I do to make it a clipping path? Do I still fill the backdrop to 255/255/255?

[Jann Lipka]

Then you do nothing.
Clipping path is seen in design application like InDesign .
and the program hides all the surroundings.
The beauty of this is the customer can place your image let say against bright yellow instead of regular white .

you can easily outsource pathmaking if those are time consuming for a cheap fee.

[jjlphoto]

So once the path is made, it gets saved along with the image when I make my .tif, correct? If I understand properly, a design program will allow the actual shape of that product's path to be the image's borders rather than the usual square Photoshop borders.

I do get lots of emails from services in India advertising clipping paths for $2 a file.

[Jann Lipka]

Yes Your understanding is correct.

For a simple project I would make CP myself,
for more time consuming you could take some outsourcing risk .

( Obviously quality can vary a lot but it is not a rocket science  )

US based company should be charging at least 120$ / hour for this
a more complicated  20 min path would cost you 40$ ?

I think most of the people with larger CP needs goeas abroad with this.
 

[jjlphoto]

Thanks Jann