Can anyone explain why this is happening?

[steves]

When I use a pen tool it automatically colours in the outside of the area I'm drawing. Probably something very obvious - but can't figure it out! Attached a screen grab below.

Cheers.

[Jenny]

If I was to guess I"d say It"s creating a mask.

[Steve]

On the pen tool bar select "Paths", the 2nd from the left.
You have "Shape Layers" selected.

[steves]

Thanks for coming back to me - the thing is I had planned to fill the are abelow with a different colour so I presumed I had to have it on shape layers?

[Ivan Skoro]

No. You can see your active paths in the menu, it should be right beside your layer tab (by default).
From there, you can CTRL - click on a path, to select it.
Now, just make a new layer, and fill it with any color you want.

But, this way you don't get vector shapes, so beware.