The “Pen” tool

The “Pen” tool is used to draw both straight lines and curved lines.

Actually, we call this “Line” and not a “path”.

To draw a straight “Line” with the “Pen” tool obviously, first select the tool in the tool bar.

Then choose a color, determine the thickness of the “Line” in the “Zone”, and choose a “Style”. All this is done in the “Properties window”.

Do not panic, you can change these settings at any time.

Now, with the “Pen” tool selected, click in the work area. This determines the first anchor point of the “Line”.

Click a second time in the area where you want to sign this “Line”, or rather to end this “Line”.

This is the second anchor point.

To close the “Line”, click a third time, which reverts back to the first anchor point.

When you move the mouse pointer on this, you will see a small black circle appear indicating that your mouse pointer is over the first anchor point.

What we have now drawn is a triangle.

If you wish to exit a “Line” without closing the form, click another tool in the tool bar.

This is not so important, but certainly not least.

When you draw with the “Pen” tool, you also have the possibility of drawing as an “Object drawing”, or “Aggregate form”.

For those who do not know what the hell I’m talking about, they need to read Lesson 7 yet again.

To draw a curved “Line”, click the first time in the drawing area to determine the first anchor point and click and drag the second anchor point to draw a curved “Line”.  As you will see, each anchor point has two handles.

One lever determines the shape of the drawn “Line”, another lever determines the direction of the next “Line”.

In order to determine the direction of the second “Line”, hold the “Alt” key on your keyboard pressed and drag the handle in the right direction.

Click and drag on the the third anchor point.

Once the proper form for the “Line” is reached, release the mouse button.

Determine the direction of the third “Line” (Alt-key pressed) with the lever.

Click the first anchor point.

We have signed a shark fin, the shark now.

As everyone will have noticed, there are a number sub buttons under the “Pen” tool.

The first is “Add Anchor Point”

With this button, we can add anchor points. What did you think?

If you want to add an anchor point, you can select the “Line” and the “Pen” tool so that it is not over an existing anchor point.

The second is “Delete Anchor Point”.

What this button does, you know for sure. Exactly! it removes the anchor point where you click it.

The current “Line” is redrawn on the basis of the deleted anchor point.

The third is “Convert point”.

That will give you handles on a corner without handles.

For example, you have a three cake signed with the “Line” tool and you want to add handles to a corner to manipulate the lines, then this angle can be given with the “Convert point” tool.

A second example: You have a round corner, or rather an arc where the arc is an anchor point, and you click the anchor point, then this arc will be converted to a corner.

Those who want to improve their work with the “Pen” tool, can view the movie in Lesson 62 of Photoshop CS3 course. Whether you are currently using this tool in “Flash”, “Photoshop”, “Illustrator”, or any software program I may not know but, this remains the same.

 

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