Adobe Fireworks CS4 Trace/Marquee With Pen Tool

This tutorial will show the user how to trace selected portions of a bitmap image while using the pen tool with the purpose of creating a marquee. The pen tool is a very handy and powerful tool that comes as a standard in quite a few Adobe Software products. It typically is over looked because upon first investigation by new users it can seem impossible to use. Personally, the pen tool has saved me many hours of extra work when doing basic raster image manipulation. Most of the tutorials you will see online that involve the pen tool will be vector graphic topics so hopefully this will throw a little spin on things.

Step 1
First, open up a new project in Adobe Fireworks. It doesn't matter what size the canvas is at this point. Go to file/import and locate the image that is offered in the attachment at the bottom of this tutorial. After you choose the file to be imported, place it on the stage by clicking anywhere with your mouse or mouse pad. Now, click anywhere outside of the stage to de-select the object and press FIT CANVAS. This will trim the canvas to fit the objects dimensions. If you cannot find the FIT CANVAS  option then your properties panel is not visible. Go to Window/properties to make it appear.



Now we are ready to break out the pen tool and get to work.

Step 2

If your tools are not already visible, go to Window/tools and make them appear. Now click on the pen tool.



It is important to note that if you were only using the pen tool to trace the object then you would lock the layer that the object is on and create another layer on top of that.

We actually will be cutting into the object with a marquee so there is no need to create that extra layer. After you select the pen tool you then want to choose a stroke color, preferably a color that will be easy to see on the current background layer. I will be choosing red because it shows up well on the white background, in turn making it easier to see what I am doing. Next, click on the fill color chooser and choose TRANSPARENT. We will not be using the fill only the stroke.



Step 3

This tutorial is not on how to use the pen tool, however I will go over the basics. It helps if you have a little working knowledge on its basic functions.  It's now time to start tracing out our marquee. The image that is used in this tutorial was intentionally chosen because it has very little twists and turns but at the same time has round parts as well as square parts. It will force you to have to use the pen tool for more than just point click object drawing/tracing.

 It may help you to zoom your canvas in to 200%. This is so  you can hug the border of the object closer, thus getting a more accurate cut. Don't go larger than 200% because the pix elation will make for a difficult trace. It's up to you. You may work better at 100% zoom.
The zoom can be found at the bottom right corner of the canvas. If it is not visible, go to View/zoom in.



Step 3

Always make your starting point an intuitive place. You never want to start a pen trace on a location that will either makes the upcoming destination difficult to reach, or will make you have to break the trace on a curve where starting the trace on the curve will create a KINK in the line.