Drawing the path exactly on the visible edge rather than a fraction inside it, which leaves a rim of background around the whole subject.
Editing and retouching
Clipping path
Also called deep etch, pen tool path or vector path cutout. Here is what it means, when it changes what you export, and what people get wrong.
Editing and retouchingRuns on your deviceUpdated 10 August 2026
The short answer
A clipping path is a vector outline drawn around a subject so that everything outside the line is hidden. Because it is built from Bezier curves rather than pixels, it stays crisp at any output size and can be reopened and adjusted later without touching the photograph.
Updated
The short version
Clipping path at a glance
| Quick fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Built from | Bezier curves: anchor points and handles |
| Also called | Deep etch |
| Edge type | Hard and binary, no partial opacity |
| Resolution independent | Yes, it rescales without softening |
| Carried by | PSD, TIFF, EPS and PDF files |
| Poor fit for | Hair, fur, glass and motion blur |
Slide the table sideways to see every column.
Why do studios and printers still ask for a clipping path?
A path is a set of anchor points and curve handles, not a grid of pixels. Scale the image up for a poster and the outline is recalculated at the new size rather than enlarged, so it never softens or stair-steps. That single property is why the technique has outlived most of its contemporaries in print and catalogue production.
The rest is workflow. A path travels inside the file itself in formats such as PSD, TIFF, EPS and PDF, so a layout artist can place the image in a page and have the background drop out automatically. It costs almost nothing in file size, it is unambiguous, and a retoucher can reopen it in a year and shift two points rather than redo the whole job. Studios call the tightly drawn version of this a deep etch.
Where does a clipping path fall down?
A path is binary. Every pixel is inside the outline or outside it, with nothing in between. That is exactly right for a bottle, a box, a shoe or a chair, and exactly wrong for anything whose edge is a gradual mixture.
Hair, fur, feathers, sheer fabric, netting, smoke, motion blur and the soft transitions through glass all need partial opacity to look real. Draw a path around a model's hair and you get either a helmet or a fringe of leftover background. The usual answer is a hybrid: a path for the clean body of the subject, a pixel matte for the difficult region, combined into one mask.
The other cost is time. A good path is drawn by hand, point by point, and a complicated product with internal holes needs several sub-paths to knock out the gaps.
How is a clipping path different from a layer mask?
They do the same job with different material. A clipping path is vector, hard-edged and resolution independent, stored as a path object. A layer mask is raster, made of greyscale pixels at the image's own resolution, and it can hold partial opacity anywhere you want it.
Choose the path when the edge is a genuine hard boundary and the file may be output at several sizes, particularly for print. Choose the mask when the edge has softness in it, or when the cut is going to be delivered as a transparent PNG for the web. Converting a path into a selection and then into a mask is routine, and a small feather at that point stops the result looking cut with scissors.
What people get wrong about clipping path
Each one is a real failure mode, not a style preference.
Using far more anchor points than the shape needs, which produces a lumpy outline that is painful to adjust later.
Forgetting sub-paths for internal holes, so the gap in a handle or a chair back stays filled with background.
Exporting to JPEG or PNG and assuming the path came too, when only formats such as PSD, TIFF and EPS carry it.
Questions people ask
Clipping path, answered
The follow-up questions people search for once they have the definition.
Does a clipping path actually delete the background?
No. The pixels are still in the file, the path simply tells whatever places the image not to draw anything outside the outline. That is why a path can be reopened and edited, and why the background reappears if you open the file in software that ignores paths.
Can a clipping path be saved in a PNG?
Not as a path. PNG stores transparency in an alpha channel, so the path has to be converted to a selection and applied to the pixels before export. The vector outline itself only survives in formats such as PSD, TIFF, EPS and PDF.
Is a clipping path better than automatic background removal?
For hard-edged products at print sizes, a hand-drawn path is still cleaner and remains editable. For hair, fur or anything with a soft edge, a pixel matte from an automatic tool is better, because a path cannot represent partial transparency at all.
How long does a clipping path take to draw?
A simple bottle or box takes a few minutes. A garment with straps, a bicycle, or jewellery with many internal gaps can take an hour or more, because every hole needs its own sub-path drawn accurately.
Same cluster
More from the glossary
Neighbouring entries, so every term in the set is one hop from every other.
CMYK
CMYK is the four-ink colour model used in printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black).
Chromatic aberration
Chromatic aberration is a lens fault where different wavelengths of light do not come to focus in the same place, leaving coloured outlines along high-contrast edges.
Colour gamut
A colour gamut is the range of colours a particular space, screen or printer can actually reproduce.
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