How do I "lasso" with a pen or put controls on the lasso

Hi,

I just spent all day trying to use the pen to make a controllable lasso like the lasso does as a rough sketch with the mouse.

I tried selecting the layer, copying to a new named layer, extract and etc.....

Seems like a few control points on the lasso should be possible under some tool name I haven't found yet?

I read the manual many times so I'm surly slow,

How the heck do I make a controllable lasso, activate what's inside it and copy it with command c?

Thanks,

Garrett

Either draw your Path with the Pen, if you know how to do Beziers, or use the FreeForm Pen (underneath the regular Pen, click the little black triangle) then make it into a selection from the Paths palette....

Or, with the Path active, hit Cammand-Enter.

The suggestion above does not work for me, though it seems like it should. I cannot activate anything inside a pen drawn area of a named and selected layer because it is said to be "Uneditable."

It is difficult for me to comprehend why the imprecise lasso works so perfectly while controllable pens cannot make a selection because after converting the path to a selection what is inside the selected area is uneditable.

I must be missing a step.

Any other suggestions?

Garrett

PS > Command return has no effect at all, for me. OS 10.4.11 & PS 7.01

after you have made your path.

with the path selected in the path pallet

go to the flyout and choose make selection.

Perhaps you have the wrong icon clicked on the Options Bar with the Paths and are selecti0ng outside the path instead of inside.

Okay,

I do all that and get a "shape 1 vector mask?"

Click inside it and, "warning no pixels are maore than 50% selected selection edges will not be visible."

The options I get only include a choice of icon size, I'm still looking for where to choose inside or outside th selection once I selected "make selection."

Thanks for the extreme patience with this very dumb and old brain, I'm trying hard to do something which I've done for years using the lasso but never needed illustrator type precision with pens.

Garrett

You need to make a Path, not a Shape Layer. Look at the Options on the Options Bar (on the left) while using the Pen tool.

< http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/10.0/help.html?con tent=WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-739f.html>

Thank you Ed,

I did not see that little box in the upper left and some how missed it in the manual.

Thank you also for sending the link which explains use of the pen tool and overlaps etc.

I knew the underlying computer work had to be similar to the lasso.

Thanks again,

Garrett