Ok. First, you need to know what each of the Pen Tool's tools are.

- The Pen Tool itself, is obviously, a tool that allows you to make free-form shapes with lines.

- The FreeForm Pen Tool allows you to draw with the pen tool as you would with the Paintbrush. Basically, it turns your stroke into editable Pen Tool lines. This is useful for things that may be a bit complcated to do by the normal Pen tool. (Gotta have a steady hand, though, if you do it by mouse.)

- Add Anchor Point basically adds a new dot to a line so you can make a new bend in it.

- Delete Point Tool basically deletes a dot from a line to make it less editable, or more linear

- Convert Point Tool allows you to move lines around, or edit dots without making a new line or dot.

Now, the other tools are located in the 'Paths' whindow. If it's not on, be sure to select 'Show Paths' in Windows. (Second image to left)

- The button with the black circle is the Fill Path tool. That button will fill in the path/shape as it would like a mask.

- The button with the White Circle is the Stroke button tool. This button will draw all of the lines that are currently in teh work path. The stroke will use the last tool you've chosen with its properties. (So, if you've chosen the Paintbrush tool with a 2 pt line before the Pen Tool, the stroked like will be a 2 pt line. Same goes if you choose the Eraser tool, or Airbrush tool.)

- The button with a dotted-line circle is the Path-to-Mask button. This button will make your Pen Tool shape into a mask. This is USEFUL for make smooth, rounded, complicated masks for editing specific parts of images.

- If you have a mask, you can push the next button to convert the Mask back into an editable Path.

-Then, you have the normal New Path/Delete Path buttons.

(These options can also be accessed by right clicking the highlighted path in the Paths window. Hitting the buttons are just easier. However, the Path-to Mask or "Make Selection" option has more choices if you right click and access it. You'll be able to choose feather, add-subtract-inverse options for the path.)

Basics:
Ok, if you follow along with this, make sure that the Grid is turned on. (Located under View > Show > Grid. Or hit atl + ctrl + ' ) And make sure Snap is checked, and Snap to > Grip is checked. This will cause lines/dots you make stick to the grid lines. (Snap and Snap To are also located under View)

All right. As you can probably tell, when you make two dots with the Pen Tool, a line is drawn directly from one dot to the other. The line is straght, because it's the least distance it has to travel to get to the other.

Making a simple curve:
Yeah, now we can add Curves to the line. It's relatively easy to do this. When you have the two dots placed down, you can use the 'Convert Point' to add a curve to the line. When the tool is selected, click on one of the dots and drag straight down. You'll notice that two lines branch off of that one dot.These new lines are not lines that will show up when the path is stroked, filled etc. These new lines tell and the line which way the curve is being pointed toward, and how far. When you dragged down, the line on that side of the dot should have curved in the opposite direction. Meaning there should be a curve going up from the dot. If you drag the other dot down, to the same distance as the first dot, you should have something similar to the image to the left.

(The red areas/arrows in images display what was moved, and in what direction. The green lines display where the line was before the move was made. Note: I added those green lines. They don't show up in Photoshop.)

(I will also refer to those lines branching off of a dot as 'Point-Lines')

Explanation of Point Lines:
Before going any further, I must explain how Point-Lines work.

Now, the new point-line that branches off of any dot when edited looks like that to the left. Both sides to the point-line are always at equal distances. However, each side to the point-line can be edited with the Convert Point Tool.

In the second image here, you can notice that dragging the point at the end of each side of the point-line can cause the curve to change. You can drag each side of the point-line to any distance of direction to make your curve look right.

Editing the Point-Lines are extremely useful, and manditory to make a curve look right. Or else some parts will bulge out from the curve of the previous dot.

In the first image, I'm in the process of making an Anime eye. In the first image, got the top line for the eyelash in by making two points and adding a curve. (You can automatically add a curve to a point when you place it down. Just hold down the mouse button and drag when the dot is placed.) On the line, notice the direction the Point-Line is in.

When I add the next line... Oh, now that isnt right. Notice how that line is bulging out? That happens because the point-line of the previous dot is affection this line. (It affects the line because the line is attached to the previous dot.) Well, I can fix that bulge by using the Convert Point tool and dragging that Point-Line extending from the previous dot.

The main problem was that the point-line from the dot was too far extended. So, I just shorten that side of the point line to put the curve into the right place. After, I add two more lines to the Eyelash to make it complete, using the Convert Point Tool if necissary to fix any bad curves.

Make two curves in one line:
Now, here I'll show what happens when you make the Point-lines of both dots point in oposite directions, now that you know how to move Point-lines. When you drag one Point-Line in opposite from the other dot, the curve will still try to follow the direction that both point-lines are facing. The poin-line facing up give thes curve hight, and the point-line facing down makes the curve drop at the other end. This gives the line an S shape. Also, notice inthe image how the curve corsses on the exact middle on the grid.

Adding Points:
Still using the same line, I'll add a new dot in the center of the line with the Add Anchor Point Tool. Adding this dot made the line now become 2 lines. The Point-Lines on this new dot are already facing the correct direction to make the curve retain its shape.

For this new dot, you can change its Point-Lines as well. If you make the point-lines aim upward and downward at the same distance as the point-lines of the other dots, you'll get something like second image here. See how much the curve changed?

Now if you were to move the point-lines of the new dot similarly to the third image here, the curve would correspond to the point-lines direction and distance, changing the curve to a more defined S.

Path-to-mask and Stroke options:
All right. Here's a box I drew with the pen tool. (Box's are very easy, no curnes needed.) You can use whatever shape you wanna make to experiment with this. (I suggest its an enclosed chape.)

In the second image, that is what happens with you use the 'Stroke Path' button. (Remember, the Stroke Path button is located on the Paths window, and it is a button of a black outlined-circle. I also removed the grid for that image.) The Paintbrush was used for that stroke, 2pt width and red.

In the third image, (yes, this is a new shape,) you can convert a pen tool shape into a mask. Normally, you would'nt be able to make a mask that shape with perfect curves. Its very useful. This option is VERY USEFUL for Coloring Cell Style in Photoshop. I'll be making a tutorial on that later.

Finishing that Anime eye...
Remember that Eye in the 'Explaining Point-Line' part? Well, I'm going to finish it to show a few more things.
Before going on, select the Elipse tool. (Shown to left.) This tool will create the iris and pupilof the eye.

Located in the top options bar, select the 'Create New Work Path' option for the Elipse tool. This will cause the oval you make for they eye to be drawn as a line for the Line Tool.

When I stroke the oval, I put the stroke on a layer beneath the eyelash. (I filled the eyelash on a transparent layer above the white bg layer.) Notice how the iris outline is visible above the eyelash (in the first image)? I put the iris outline on a lower layer for this reason.

See, I was able to erase the visible part with out damaging the eyelash.

In the third image, I added another oval for the pupil and I'm getting ready to make a mask for some detailing. On a new layer below the iris outline, I start to make a series or dots with the pen tool and follow the outline. This will be the edge to the shading-detailing mask.

In the forth image, you can see the completed shape for the shaded area of the eye. (I'm doing this in Greyscale. Add any colors you want.) Then I convert that line-shape to a mask, and make it grey with a black-to-transparent gradient for the shading.

Basically, thats about it. You can add a shine to the eye by just drawing an area of white. You can make another shape for some other shading, (i.e. that dark circle in the bottom of the iris.) You can also make small pointy shapes to the eye and fill them with white for the small detailing reflections/shines in the eye. If the background color of the eye is still white, you can make a new layer on the bottom and color it to make it look like the image to the left.

No, 'course thats not all. This is just the first tutorial. This was your basic tutorial to let you learn a bit about the Pen Tool.

If anyone wants to know more about this thing, tell me and I'll make a tutorial about it. (Afterall, I don't know entirely what you people need help with.)