2 questions. Pen tool, and layers.

Hi all.

I have 2 questions. I'm a newb with photoshop but there are a couple of things bothering me.

1) Is the pen tool for cutting things out? I make all the anchor points but it fills the space I want to cut with colour. I've been told to use the pen tool to cut out faces etc..

2) Dumb question to most, but, what is a layer, why and how do you use them?
I see the word 'layer' used a lot so I figure its quite a common thing to be working with.
Please excuse my newbness.
Steve.

The pen tool is the best way to cleanly cut something out of an image. You need to use the pen in path mode. Select the pen tool and click the path icon in the toolbar. When you have outlined the thing you want to cut out (make sure your path is closed by joining your last anchor point to your first) then open the paths palette. CTRL-click on the icon of the path in the palette to turn your path into a selection. You can then do CTRL-J to copy your selection to a new layer.

Layers is a big subject, but the simplest way of thinking of it is a way of keeping items in your artwork separate. If you keep parts of your image on separate layers, you can apply different effects to each layer without affecting the parts on other layers.

Each new image you open starts out with one background layer. You can add new layers to build up your artwork with new images or text etc. You can have as many or as few layers as you like. You create a new layer by clicking the page icon at bottom of layers palette. Each new layer can obscure the ones underneath or let parts of the image show through, depending on the opacity and the blend mode you set in the layers palette. When it comes time to print, you can flatten your image onto one layer.

Sorry I have had to oversimplify this, I recommend you do a few searches in google, download a few tutorials and experiment.

Hey Wano. I've only ever posted one thread on here before and I remember your post answered my question exactly. Also, I prefer over simplification. Sometimes people reply and you're none the wiser.
Thanks for your explanations. I get the concept of layers now. Thank you for the tips on the pen tool. It was getting annoying not being able to work out how to cut an image out without it filling with colour. Once again, thank you.
Regards,
Steve.

Glad to help, Steve. Sometimes you just need a pointer to head in the right direction, and then you can pick up the rest yourself. Nobody knows everything in Photoshop, least of all me, but if I see a question I can help with, I will try to answer it. There's always a quicker/better/easier way to do just about anything.