PS 7

John,

First of all please switch off the Caps Lock. It is very poor ‘Netiquette’ to post in ALL_CAPS. It is considered to be ‘shouting’ and is also difficult to read on-screen.

To stroke a path you first need to have a path (NOT a shape layer) and have that path selected in the Paths palette.

Sorry about the caps-lock, Len. It was not until I had posted that I saw the keyboard light was on.

I started from scratch this morning. Opened a new window, chose a pen tool clicked two anchor points and a line formed between them, which I presume to be a ‘stroke’. Truly a layer showed up but also on the ‘Paths’ palette,there was highlighted ‘Shape 1 vector mask’ which was linked to the layer.
I then selected it with the ‘path selection tool’, chose a brush, chose red as a colour and still got the ‘no entry’ sign over the ‘stroke the path’ button. I repeated it with the path unlocked from the layer but the same ‘no entry’.
Please, what am I doing wrong?

In the options bar at the top you must select the middle icon of the three on the left for a path – you must have had "Shape Layer" on the left selected.

You can now draw a path with the pen.

Thank you John. That did the trick nicely. I can move on to the next lesson now.