fed up with drawing curves with pen tool

[oilcontrol]

I tried to draw curves with pen tool in photoshop but the curves are always not as smooth as I want it to. I spent hours and hours drawing and redrawing but to no avail. After stroking/filling it.. the edge is always not as smoothed. Was it because of not enough anchor points or is there a trick that I can applied to ensure a smooth stroking? Any blind areas that I've overlooked? Any tips? Thanks! or is there other programs I can use to draw a better smoothed curve?

[simplistik]

yea, the trick to using the pen tool in photoshop is this. click your starting point, then find a good place in the curve to start your next point. If it's a nice full curve then put it at the bottom of the curve. Anyway, once you found your point then click and drag the point until you find a good pull it until the line matches the curve. Now the bezier that will be on your next curve hold ALT and move it to start conforming to the next curve.

It's sorta hard to explain w/o doing a vid tutorial, but I hope that helps.

[senocular]

can you show examples of what you've been doing thus far? Might help us see what you're doing and what you might be able to do to improve it.

[billystar]

i find the pen tool a lot easier to use in illustrator...

my tip would be to draw roughly the curve you want, then scan it in/take a photo of it and use the image as a guide when you are using the pen tool..

then just use the bezier handles until you have what you want...

dont mean to be patronising, but you are using the indirect selection (white arrow) to modify the curve after you have drawn it? you dont need to get it right first time...

for a smooth stroke, try illustrator and just copy and paste the vector back into photoshop...