[Award Winner] Saderan – a tutorial

[niekell]

Ok, I ran into a snag. Can someone explain the rivers with the pen tool? I can't get it to make separate lines, it just keeps adding anchor points. Please and thank you.

I'm newly registered here at CG but I have wondered about that very question previously, so I looked into it (and tried it out in PS CS6).
In Photoshop I think you have at least two options.
1) Use a new Path layer for each river (gives greater control),
2) Put your rivers on one Path layer leaving in the linking lines, then when done with your rivers switch from the Pen tool to the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow located two icons below the Pen tool on the default PS CS6 left icon-type menu), select the line you want to remove (which joins two rivers but isn't a river itself) and press CTRL-X to remove that line. Continue with other "joining" lines until you have a bunch of separate paths for your rivers.
I am not sure how the pressure stroke path will work on multiple separate paths on one layer. It seems to honour the order of laying of the points even when the paths are cut... so be careful to always start your rivers after the "joining" line at the wide end (open to sea or lake) as opposed to the river source (mountain).

Hope that helps.