Problems with drawing curves

ok Im not a 'pen tool' expert but Ill tell you the little bit that I do know. Then hopefully someone else will be able to help you better.

There are two ways to end a path (which is what youre creating with the pen).

• Clicking on the start point to close the path
  or
• to close an open path, press CTRL and click anywhere away from the path (this is what you want to do)

It looks like you tried to 'fill' it with a colour and thats why its making it look that way. Because it cant 'fill' something that isnt enclosed. So it draws an imaginary line between the starting point and end point so it can 'fill' it.
Try 'stroking' it rather than filling it.
Thats what I did and it worked. I ended up with a 'U' shape and depending on how many pixels you stroke it with, the fatter or thicker it will be.

Thats all I really know, so play around with that a little bit I guess?

Hey, ~*~, thanks for writing me back! I think we're on the right track with this (thank God my question made a little sense!), but I'm not sure what you mean by "stroking" it rather than filling it. How do I do that? How do I set the thickness of the line? I know, stupid questions, but like I said in my first post, I'm new! lol. I understand what you're saying and it makes sense, I'm just not sure how to execute that in the program itself.

You have permission to slap me if I'm being an idiot.

StellarEcho

well Im using PS 5.5 so there might be some differences depending on what version you are using.

ok well in your layers palette click on the one that says 'PATHS'.
If you right click on your work path there should be an option to 'stroke subpath'. Then you can use pencil,paintbrush, etc. I tried pencil, but do it a few times with different things until you get it how you want it.

so once youve stroked it you can then delete that path. Because youve now got an image. You dont need the path anymore.
Go back to the 'layers' section on the palette and now you can move it around and do all the same effects to the curve just like any other image.

just to clarify a bit about stroking...
Lets say you have an image of just a square. If you go to Edit>Stroke you can add a 'border' (a stroke of colour) around that box. There are options like how thick you want it to be (by choosing the # of pixels the stroke should be), and the location of the stroke (centre, inside, outside)
It will automatically stroke something with the foreground colour

Hope this helps, if not just ask and Ill try again lol

You'd think that with the newer version of Photoshop, it would be even easier to find how to "stroke" the path, but noooo, it won't even make it an option. lol. Sigh...

Alright, here's what happens. I make myself one of those lovely semi-circle-ish curves and followed your instructions (which were *awesome*, I might add, thank you SO much)... and... well... after right-clicking the path, I see that the "stroke path" is, in fact, in the menu, but I can't click it. I've enclosed yet another picture to show what's up.

Any idea how to fix this?

StellarEcho

um thats because its already 'filled' with that blue colour
hmm looks like Im gonna have to make some screen shots myself lol

stupid newer versions lol
hopefully this'll work....
Ill be back with screen shots lol.....

ok here we go lol
I made screen shots and made a step by step instruction thingy so hopefully this can help you. Im worried though cause Im using an older version. But hopefully its kind of similar.
I made like 3 huge pictures with the instructions on them so I guess Ill have to do 3 seperate attatchments. If they show up too small on the screen you might wanna save them and view them so you can see them and read them. I dont know what its gonna look like when I post it lol.
And my stupid screen shots wouldnt work when the mouse was pressed so I couldnt show you 'my' stroke subpath menu lol

ok here goes....

ohhh the first one worked! it looks kinda small on my screen but when I zoomed in it looked good! Yeah for me!

how to make curves..PART 2...

OMG if this doesnt help you then I am so sorry lol. Im worried that I missed a step or something but I dont think I did. I dont know what else to do except come over and SHOW you lol So this is the best I could do.

and finally....PART 3

Geez, thanks! I haven't tried it out yet, but damn, you're thorough! lol. I'll go play around with it... thank you for humoring a newbie and doing a step-by-step for me... lol. Hopefully this'll work. I'll post again after I play with it a little.

StellarEcho

I've noticed that your path is a "work path" but mine is a "vector mask". Soooo... long story short, after consulting Help, I figured out how to make a work path and stroke it, so that's a major breakthrough for me! lol. However, when I do that, it is painted directly onto the background, and I can't access the "Stroke" menu itself, where you detail how thick you want it, etc etc etc. (I can find it, but it's the same deal as in Curve help3.jpg -- it's disabled.) My stroke is set on the image and can't be altered. Sounds like a rather simple problem; I can probably figure it out on my own, but if you're inspired to help the simpleton yet again, feel free to reply. lol

Off I go to play some more...

StellarEcho

holy cow these newer versions make everything so complicated!
So you are making your curve on an image? Not on a transparent surface?
Then you might wanna make a new layer first. So that after youve made your path, when you stroke it the curve will be its own layer that you can move and stuff.
If you already have an image and are working on the background with the path, Im pretty sure it will attach it to that image. I dunno though cause i havent tried.
But try working on a seperate layer.

ORRRRR I just thought of this...

Do what I did, just create a new blank document and draw the curve just like I did and then when its done pick it up and move it onto your image and then it will automatically become a new layer on that image. (or copy and paste it, same thing)
Well Im off to work to paint for 123087897932 hours so if you need more help Ill be back on later tonight

GOOD LUCK!

Yeah, that's exactly what I had in mind! Yay, my brain does work! Thanks so much for your help. I shouldn't be having any more problems (fingers crossed); between you and the help files I've gotten this whole thing prettymuch straightened out.

Hope you're having fun at work (hey, it could happen!)... So what exactly do you do during those 123087897932 hours?

Thanks again!

StellarEcho

Well after what? Nine days? youve got it down now? lol
Glad I could help. Thats what this place is for. And it was only 8.5 hrs of painting but bleh, still too many.

~*~