Photoshop Creative

hi
hoping somone might be able to help me as im a beginner at photoshop elements using pse 7 . im just simple using the pencil tool to draw with but for some annoying reason every time i take the pen off and back on again it swaps to the background colour. im sure there is a simple reason for this, but how do i keep it to just use the foreground colour.
it was fine when i first bought the software but has been doing this for the last few months as i dont know how to change it, ( i have plenty of reference books but cant find it in them either !)

kind regards
diane

Hi Diane and welcome to the forum. It has been a while since I have used Elements so I can't open it and confirm this as an option but my first thought is to check the preferences and see there is an option there for it he pen tool. Or maybe just reset your preferences. To do that I think it is to press Ctrl Alt as soon as you click the icon to open Elements. Again, it has been awhile since I have used Elements so I am not sure on this. I am sure someone else will be along soon that will have better answers for you.

Again, welcome

Diane,

It is the ctrl+alt+shift key, pressed immeditaly after you launch the Editor. If you do it from the Welcome screem, click on the Edit and Enhance icon, then immediatly press the 3 keys. I used to position my fingers over the keys, click on Edit and Enhance icon, then quickly press - there is a time limit.

You should get a message like this:



Click Yes and everything gets reset. If you have followed some of the recommendations re changing default settings, you will have to re-do them, so it may be worthwhile taking a look and recording the settings before initiating the reset. The most important one if probably the default settings for the eyedropper tool which defaults to one pixel instead of the preferred 3 or 5 pixels.

If you are on a pc , to reset the preferences, click ctrl, alt, shift at the same time while opening the editor. it will as if you want to reset prefereces say yes.

Hi diane. Welcome to the forum. I hardly ever use the pencil tool, but I took a peek at the option on the menu bar when pencil is selected (I'm using PSE6) and the likely culprit is the Mode option. (Blend mode) Be sure it is set to normal.

Good luck,

Courtney

hi everyone
thankyou so much for all your help, i didnt expect to get so many replys on my first visit to the forum ! i will try all your solutions when my little one is in bed soon ...as im sure one of them will fix it and ill let you know
kindest regards
diane

hi thanks so much for everyones help
managed to solve the problem, but not with any ways you suggested as they didnt seem to work, but helped me look carefully at what i was doing wrong ... i realised using the pencil the auto erase was clicked on and unticking this has solved the problem .
thankyou all ... it certainly helped steer me in the right direction !
thanks so much diane

Diane,

It is funny ... often a suggested solution may not be the answer, but it points you in a direction where you stumble onto what you want. I can't remember how many times i have been bit by some obscure option being checked on that toolbar. Where I usually screw up is setting a feather on one of the tools and then forgetting to take it back to zero when finished.

At any rate, you got what you wanted. Life is good.

We hope to see more of you here. This is a friendly bunch and you can have a lot of fun.

Rusty