Re: Saving a Path as a BMP

I am very confused now. I do NOT have any photos in the PSD format.
All of my photos are either JPG or BMP. What I do is start Photoshop
and right away OPEN one of my photos (the one I am testing with happens
to be a JPG). It comes up squished, so I have to use the image>pixel
aspect ratio>square to fix that (I wonder why Photoshop doesnt assume
square by default?). Next I create a new layer, and reduce the opacity
of layer 0 (which contains my JPG) to 50 %. Then I select Paths (3rd
tab from the left) and then I select the PEN tool, and start tracing
over my photo. I use the ctrl-up-click-ctrl-down method to end one
curved path (set of points) and start another one. These paths (curved
lines) appear as solid black lines about 2 pixels thick (one thing I
would like to do is have an option to make these path lines thicker -
don't know how to do that).

While I am tracing, I can pause, pick Layers again, and toggle the
photo visibilty icon so that the photo disappears and I can see how my
tracing looks all by itsefl (this feature is vital - I couldn't do
without it), and then I toggle the visibility icon again and my photo
reappears in the dimmed (50% opacity) rendering.

I continue making additonal curved lines (paths) using the
ctrl-up-click-ctrl-down method until I am satisfied I have a good
trace, then, I need to save this traced file as a BMP. I need it to
be a BMP because I will use MSPAINT to print it (it gives me the print
preview option and lets me make final adjustments that I don't know how
to do in Photoshop, such as using the box selector to make small
movements to areas that I think need a little tweeking).

I *thought* I needed to right-click on my Path icon and select stroke
path, and select brush, but I learned that my bmp file was all white.
So, now, I read that I need to "select a brush you want, or just the
color you want your path in, prior to Stroking your Path". I don't
know what this means. My path is showing up on my screen in solid
black - that is the color I want.
I used the Pen tool to draw it, so, what is the meaning of using a
brush?

If anyone has followed me to this point, what do I select from which of
the many icons so that my bmp I save will have the path I can see
staring me in the face shows up just as I see here?

I managed to get it out the HARD way - using Screen Print Gold to put a
box around my traced screen (with the layer 0 photo toggled to
invisibility) and printing it to Screen-Print;s temp file, from which I
can then save as a bmp. That sure seems to me to be unnecessarily
complicated - I should be able to get photoshop to save my tracing as a
bmp straight away - no?

I admit that the methodology behind photoshop's interface is very
confusing to me. I don't quite comprehend the theory behind paths as
opposed to layers, and strokes as opposed to lines. There are so many
icons that I am afraid to accidentally click somewhere because as I am
learning that, believe it or not, I have been absolutely flabbergasted
to see something totally wierd happen to my screen and I have no idea
what I just did. But, I am learning to be very careful where I click
and I think I have got the hang now on how to create a line-art tracing
(which is what I mainly want to do), but, I would now like to learn how
to get it saved. It would be nice if I could get photoshop to enlarge
the resulting bmp before saving, but, I suppose that is asking too
much.

I see that the bmp photoshop creates for me (all white, of course), is
exactly the same pixel size as the bmp that would have been created
from my jpg if I had used a conversion program (such as thumbs plus or
picture publisher). But that is another subject I'll tackle later on.

Any help is very much apprectiated. littleberry

.

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