Creating outlines, or polylines

[Bob Hawkins]

I have a photograph of a person whose outline I wish to trace using a series of straight lines, then complete as a polygon by finishing at the point I began. The Paintbrush and Pencil tools do not seem appropriate, because I do not see the facility to draw straight lines. I should have thought the Line/Curve tool would have been the one to use but, having drawn a line to a particular point, I cannot see how I continue it in another direction. I feel so silly asking this question because it seems such a standard thing to want to do, yet I have not been able to find the answer myself. I should appreciate someone's help very much.

[Sarkut]

Draw a line, release mouse button, press Enter, draw another line, release mouse button, press Enter, etc.

[Bob Hawkins]

Sarkut

I thank you for your reply. I came across this suggestion earlier and tried it. There are two issues, as far as I am concerned: 1. it is awfully difficult to maintain the mouse in precisely the same position while pressing 'Enter' with the other hand, and 2. the end result does not, in any case, appear to produce a closed polygon, which is what I think I need. I have also tried the polygon plug-in from Simon Brown, but I can't get it to work for me, as in 'The polygon tool is basically a line tool - exept that when you right-click somewhere after drawing a line - it will draw another line from the last drawing postion to the current position.'.

[Sarkut]

I don't know the specifics of what you are doing. (Brush width, image dimension, etc.)

It may help to set the Line / Curve tool to round end-caps

to get a good blend from one line end to the next.

Also, if you put each additional line on its own layer,

you can do some micro- adjusting with the Move Selected Pixels tool

to get things to align.