Pen Tool

The pen tool is great for precise selections - but somehow whenever I try to use it all my selections gets gradually "painted out". As I work around any object I want to select it fills in the anchor points spaces with the foreground color ( which ever color is active at the time ) . Any suggestions of how to remedy this problem in order to get a workable selection?

Select the pen tool and then look to the options bar. I believe you have "Create shape layer" selected rather than "Create work path".

A shape layer is a fill layer w/ a mask. When you create a shape layer, your actually drawing a path onto the mask which is why your selections are filling up.

Make sure "create work path" is selected and you'll get an empty path avaibale in the path palette.

You can tell the difference because one option is solid, and the other is empty w/ the pen in the middle (or just hover your cursor).


Also anytime a tool doesnt work right, try selecting that tool, clicking its icon in the options bar and "resetting" that tool. Work path is the default setting for the pen.

Yeah...and to add to that, after you have finished your selection you can right click within the selection and choose: make selection, fill path etc. etc.

It's easier to trace objects without the 'create shape layers' function selected, some times you can't follow the curves of the object because the shape layer gets in the way.

thanks for the info........it did the job