How to use the Pen Tool for cutting out a section

[Djard007]

Neither "Edge Seeker" nor "Smart Edge" follows a smooth contour, so I viewed the video tutorial for using the Pen Tool for such a task. But the tutorial skips important steps. I managed to make a note of what I think the presenter was doing. Evidently I am still overlooking something. Can someone correct the following steps?

1. Pen Tool -> click at start point -> set the parameters in the toolbar:

~ Mode: Draw Point to Point-Bezier Curves
~ Connect Segments: Check
~ Create On Vector: Uncheck
~ Line Style: straight line
~ Show Nodes: Yes
~ Duplication X: 10
~ Duplication Y: 10
~ Width: 1.00
~ Join: (Default or 1st of the three)
~ Mite: 15

3. Set "Fill" swatch to "Transparent" in the Materials palette (bottom right corner of "Foreground & Stoke Properties" box).

4. Trace around the area you want to cut out, applying Bezier curves for round sections, To continue tracing in a straight line, select "Draw Lines & Polylines" then switch back for the next curve. <-- Fails!!

5. Double click on start point to to complete the tracing. <-- Fails!

6. Uncheck "Transparency" box in Materials palette. The section to remove will appear opaque.

7. Selections (upper text menu) -> From Vector Object. <-- Grayed !!!

8. Selections -> point to "Modify" -> Feather -> optionally add feathering to smoothen edges -> OK.

9. Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V to copy & paste the traced section into a new layer.

[LeviFiction]

Might help if we could also see the video.

1 - Leave "Create on vector" checked. Because if you don't the vector will either become a raster layer or it'll merge into the currently selected raster layer. Leaving Create on Vector checked will make it a vector object so you can continue editing it. And you can create selections off of the shape forever.

4 - How does it "fail"? Keep in mind when you drag out a bezier curve the curve curves out both sides of the node. So if you drag out a curved node and then grab the straight line it won't convert the node to be "line out" automatically and it'll still curve. Also, you don't need to switch between bezier and straight line. When you have bezier line mode selected you click and drag to drag out the curve, but if you want a node to be a cusp (sharp line) you just click without dragging.

Even better, or more annoying depending on your point of view, if you right-click on a node you can explicitly decide how the node treats the curve of the line going through it. Symmetric means it's always going to go the same direction and steepness of the curve on both ends of the node. Asymmetric will keep the angle but will let you change the steepness. Cusp means it's a sharp corner, you can curve both ends of the line independently but the node itself allows for sharp turns. Line in and Line out ensures that the line has zero curve coming into the node. Other programs let you control this while holding the modifier keys (ctrl or alt) but PSP does not.

5 - I don't know about double clicking the start point, but if you drag the end node over the start node it'll change to a "join" icon and will close the vector that way. Or just click the "close contour" button on the tool options palette.

6 - I don't know what you mean, but it's important to note that you can only make the background or foreground swatch transparent at one time you cannot do it to both. So what you want to do is set the transparency of the fill (background color) to transparent, and the stroke you simply set the width to zero to hide it.

7 - It's grayed out because once you're done working with your shape if you have "create on vector" unchecked it's a raster now, not a vector so you have nothing to make the selection from.

9 - If you right-click the layer and select "promote selection to layer" it'll just create a new layer from the selection with the area in place, using paste centers it on the layer. You can also just grab the pick tool and click inside the selection it'll do the same thing.

[Djard007]

The video tutorial I watched but did not find helpful is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5Mpt4GA-o

4. After drawing a curve, it was not possible to continue in a straight line. PSP imposed an uncontrolled curve. So I right-clicked on a node and chose "Edit Mode. That allowed me to draw both curves and straight lines as you mentioned was possible. Maybe version X8 has a bug. But I have it working now.

9. Right-clicking on the Vector layer in the Layers Palette to select "Promote Selection to Layer" is not possible for me as it grayed. But if I choose "From Vector Object" in the Selections menu then "Promote Selection to Layer" is no longer grayed.

Well, now that I have traced my subject, can you tell me how I can paste it into another image? Thanks for your patience.