pen tool issues

M
Posted By
mike
Nov 16, 2006
Views
354
Replies
2
Status
Closed
I’ve been using Photoshop CS for a while now and want to advance my skills. I’ve picked up Katrin Eismann’s book "Photoshop Masking & Composition" to do just that. I want to pick subjects out of difficult backgrounds and one way to do this is the pen tool. She uses the pen tool quite a bit for precise selections on certain types of objects. The pen tool has never really been my friend and I’m sure a lot of people can say the same.

Enough background, here’s my question: I’ve zoomed in on an object and using the tool to drop anchor points where ever needed. When I get to the end of the viewing area, I scroll whichever way I need to continue my path. The problem lies that sometimes when I come back to my image and lay down the next anchor point, it starts a new sub path and doesn’t continue with the one I’ve already started. According to the book, I should be able to click on the last anchor point in the path and continue dropping anchor points. This does not happen. It continues to create new sub paths. What am I missing? I’m sure it’s something simple, but I haven’t made the correct "key" combinations for it to work.

Thnx.
Mike
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R
ronviers
Nov 19, 2006
mike wrote:

Enough background, here’s my question: I’ve zoomed in on an object and using the tool to drop anchor points where ever needed. When I get to the end of the viewing area, I scroll whichever way I need to continue my path. The problem lies that sometimes when I come back to my image and lay down the next anchor point, it starts a new sub path and doesn’t continue with the one I’ve already started. According to the book, I should be able to click on the last anchor point in the path and continue dropping anchor points. This does not happen. It continues to create new sub paths. What am I missing? I’m sure it’s something simple, but I haven’t made the correct "key" combinations for it to work.
Thnx.
Mike

Hi Mike,
What do you have your ‘gridline every’ set to? What do you have your ‘subdivisions’ set to? What are ‘units’ (pixels/cm/in) set to. What resolution (pixels high/pixles wide) are you working with? Do you have ‘snap to grid’ on? Do you have ‘snap’ on?
Hang in there, vectors can be exasperating but once everything is configured properly and you perform every step perfectly they are awesome.

Good luck,
Ron
T
Tacit
Dec 9, 2006
In article <ejhob1$t68$>,
mike wrote:

Enough background, here’s my question: I’ve zoomed in on an object and using the tool to drop anchor points where ever needed. When I get to the end of the viewing area, I scroll whichever way I need to continue my path. The problem lies that sometimes when I come back to my image and lay down the next anchor point, it starts a new sub path and doesn’t continue with the one I’ve already started. According to the book, I should be able to click on the last anchor point in the path and continue dropping anchor points.

How are you scrolling? If you scroll by holding down the spacebar on the keyboard and then dragging the image with the mouse, you will not lose your current pen point.

If you do something that deselects the current path, you must re-select it by clicking on it with the arrow (select) tool before you can click on the end point and begin drawing again.

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