I'm a dumb-dumb, What the pen tool?

[laurenclark]

I have Photoshop CS-2, is the pen tool in PS or only in Illustrator or some other program? I want to learn how to make the flourishes that are so neat, but have no clue what the pen tool is. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Eraser Nubbin]

You can use it in Photoshop to make vector shapes and clipping paths, it works similar to the way that it does in Illustrator, the options are a little different though.

[defjoe]

it's the one that looks like a pen

[balou]

I think the flourishes you're talking about would be best made in Illustrator. If you've never used these programs before, you may want to consider taking a class or at least going through the tutorials that came with the program. There are also some online training tutorials like at lynda.com that may be helpful. The pen tool is awkward at best for anyone just starting out. Takes practice.

[laurenclark]

Is the pen tool the pencil tool? There is one that looks like an old fashioned pen, but it is the slice tool or something.

[balou]

The "old fashioned pen" is the pen tool. If you hold your cursor over the tools, the names of the tools come up. Highly recommend the tutorials.

[Ghastly]

The 'Pen' tool (in other apps known as a bezier tool) allows you to create bezier paths (useable in P.Shop as a clipping path, object, or a selection) through the direct manipulation of its tangents, the 'pencil' tool in illustrator on the other hand interpolates your movement of the pointer and creates a curve made up of a much greater number of tangents to match the shape as closely as allowed by the tolerance settings...acting on an existing path you can alter its shape by *sculpting* it with the pencil tool.

In short the pen tool allows you to construct specific lines and shapes with great accuracy, the pencil tool is more freeform.

In slightly more depth...firstly a bezier curve needs at least two points (point A and point B (or start and end if you like)), if you think of bezier curves in physical terms and vectors, the length of a tangent at A is like a force pushing the line AB at A...the longer the tangent the greater this force and consequently its effect. The direction of a tangent is the direction with which this 'force' is applied. At B there may be another tangent of different length and direction, this too exerts a 'force'.

This analagy can be applied to curves made up of any number of segments but if your curve is made up of points A,B,C,D,E in that order then only tangents A and/or B can affect the line AB... tangents B and/or C can affect BC and so on... tangents A and/or E cannot affect DC)

A tangent say at B is made up of 2 parts (and can be of zero length...between any 2 points having this sort of tangent is a straight line)...tangent B1 affects the line AB and tangent B2 (not necessarily the same length as B1) affects BC in the opposite direction. However, a point C may be made up of only 1, or 2 completely different tangents, such that tangent C1 affects the direction of only BC whilst tangent C2 affects the direction of only CD. This results in a cusp node (sharp as opposed to smooth)
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/2527/vector12fr.gif
By manipulating these tangents you can construct a path of any shape.

[Annie Social]

It looks like this... http://anniesocialgraphics.com/images/pen.jpg