The Pen Tool

OK, I just upgraded to Photoshop CS from PS7. I decided it was time I start learning the pen tool. Here is my problem. (if you could call it that) Whenever I use the pen tool, and start making my selection, the area inside of the selection (whether it is closed off yet or not) will start to fill in with the foreground color. The window in the Layers palette, it shows a mask and titles the layer shape 1. How do I turn that crap off? Is there a way? I know I've seen the pen tool be used by others as a selection tool or what not and it didn't do any of that color fill in or mask crap. This is annoying the piss out of me. Here are pics of what I'm talking about:

In the context sensitve toolbar change the pen to the Path icon (there are 3 icons on the left at the top left). It seems to be that you have it on Shape Layer, there is also an icon for fill pixels but ignore that.

[QUOTE=thehermit]In the context sensitve toolbar change the pen to the Path icon (there are 3 icons on the left at the top left). It seems to be that you have it on Shape Layer, there is also an icon for fill pixels but ignore that.[/QUOTE]


That was it. Thanks you sir. (or is it maam)

Depends on the situation. :rolleyes:

If I want it to be on shape layer, as I sometimes do, then to avoid this issue I just turn the opacity of my shape layer down to like 3 - 5% so I can just barely see a tint over what's in the shape without obscuring my view.

But usually I just make paths then make them into shape layers, if needbe, afterwards.