help with curves

I’m trying to be a Photoshop convert–moving from Paint Shop Pro where

been a registered user since their version 5. I do graphics of military aircraft. In Paint Shop Pro I’d scan in a line drawing and create a new layer over it and then "trace" the drawing using a 1-pixel wide line tool. In that program, I would click at a start point and drag to the end point. It would draw a straight line, but with the end point still highlighted, I could right click and choose the "curve before" context sensitive menu

which would put a "handle" out there that could be dragged around to

perfectly match the curve on the underlying drawing as long as it was not

complex curve. Using that technique I could easily run several lines together to quickly trace complex curves.

I am really struggling with the concept of the pen tool with Photoshop.

appears that I have to use the pen tool and click at the midpoint of the curve and drag to create the direction points that are tangent to the

then figure out where to click for the next direction point…but I’m just not getting it. In the PSP community I could find tutorials, etc, and a newsgroup there was a source for help.

Can somebody clue me in here, or point me to some community websites where

can view tutorials or such?

Thanks in advance.

I’m trying to be a Photoshop convert–moving from Paint Shop Pro where I’ve been a registered user since their version 5. I do graphics of military aircraft. In Paint Shop Pro I’d scan in a line drawing and create a new layer over it and then "trace" the drawing using a 1-pixel wide line tool. In that program, I would click at a start point and drag to the end point. It would draw a straight line, but with the end point still highlighted, I could right click and choose the "curve before" context sensitive menu item, which would put a "handle" out there that could be dragged around to almost perfectly match the curve on the underlying drawing as long as it was not a complex curve. Using that technique I could easily run several lines together to quickly trace complex curves.

I am really struggling with the concept of the pen tool with Photoshop. It appears that I have to use the pen tool and click at the midpoint of the curve and drag to create the direction points that are tangent to the curve, then figure out where to click for the next direction point…but I’m just not getting it. In the PSP community I could find tutorials, etc, and a newsgroup there was a source for help.

Can somebody clue me in here, or point me to some community websites where I can view tutorials or such?

Thanks in advance.

Rock Roszak