Fill and stroke in the edit menu are always grayed out.

WJ
Posted By
William_J._Hanrahan
Feb 11, 2007
Views
5130
Replies
1
Status
Closed
I’m just learning Photoshop CS2 after a few years of working with desktop publishers and I will probably need to ask a few questions before I reach the point that I have a basic understanding of the software and will be able to self-learn it. My question(s) today is how do you apply a stroke or fill to an object such as a simple shape? The fill and stroke options under the edit menu are grayed out all the time no matter what I’m working with (text, shapes, photos, etc.) Also, how come whenever I make a new object, it goes on its own layer? I would like for all new objects to default to the same layer unless I make a new one. Also, on the tools bar,the two color swatches are for foreground and background. The background color seems to have no effect on anything and I was just curious what this does. Finally, the colors on the tools bar in Illustrator are for stroke and fill instead of background and foreground. Answers to one or more of my questions is extremely appreciated. I have a book that covers Photoshop CS2 but I am glad to have these forums in addition to that as I believe I will be able to learn it better. Thanks again.

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EH
Ed_Hannigan
Feb 11, 2007
Those are for selections. If you don’t have an active selection they will be grayed out. Much better to use the Layer Styles for what you are doing.

You are making Shape Layers. That is why they come out on their own layer with a Vector Mask.

You have to be careful. There are more than a few ways to make a shape, stroke it, fill it, or whatever. It is important to know what tool you are using and how it works. And Illustrator (a vector program) is very different from Photoshop (primarily a raster program) in some important ways.

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