Flash Drawing Course - The Pencil Tool

The Pencil Tool functions similar to an ordinary pencil. However, the makers of Flash realized the difficulty some users might face when using the mouse as a pencil. So they added some features to this tool that make it easy for non-experts to create splendid drawings.

When the pencil tool is selected, its modifiers are displayed below the toolbar as:

The first is the Pencil Mode Selection icon (discussed below). The color icon, when clicked, brings up the color palette helping you choose from the preset colors. The Line Thickness Drop Down menu lets you specify the thickness of the line and the last modifier is the Line Style Drop Down menu.

The Pencil Mode determines how the lines drawn with the pencil tool are processed by Flash. In Straighten mode, lines that are approximate straight are straightened, highly irregular curves are smoothed and separate lines are connected together. Shape recognition is enabled in this mode. This means that if you draw an approximate rectangle or circle, Flash will process your drawing and convert it to a shape! Don't trust me? Try it out.
With the Smooth option, irregular lines are converted to smooth curves, however, shape recognition and line straightening are not possible.
No processing takes place in the Ink Mode, thus, you are left with what you had drawn.

Smooth and Straighten modifiers of the Arrow tool

In a previous session, when discussing the modifiers of the Arrow tool , I had purposely left out two of its modifiers. Discussing them at that time would've be premature since these two modifiers, Straighten and Smooth, are most commonly used on lines drawn with the pencil tool.

The two modifiers act like buttons and they smoothen or straighten a line when clicked. For example, repeated clicking of the straighten button will make the selected line less curved.