Can't use curvature tool in a layer above an image trace

[Glenn26371168cdev]

I placed and image traced an image of line drawings of a ship. I wanted to trace some of the lines and replace some of the originals. I tried to use the curvature tool and saw blue anchor points, but no line appear. A layer was added above and I tried there, no luck. Finally, I traced to the side of the desired line and got it to work, but that's not sustainable for the whole drawing.

Why can't I use the curvature tool to trace a line drawing from an image trace in the layer below?

Thanks!

[Bobby Henderson]

The Curvature tool is best used for drawing out certain kinds of path segments. The Pen tool is far better for drawing out entire shapes; it has several keyboard shortcuts associated with it which allows far more control of the path while you are drawing it. While the Pen tool is active I can go back to anchor points I've just laid down and reposition them or adjust the direction point handles and then continue adding new anchor points to the path. The keyboard shortcuts associated with the Pen tool work in harmony with the keyboard shortcuts for zooming in/out of the work area or hand panning the view across it.

[Doug A Roberts]

Can you show a screenshot of your workspace with the layer structure visible?

[Mike_Gondek]

Can you please post an example. Here are 2 popular ways the curvature  tool is used.

[Glenn26371168cdev]

Here's a quick screenshot. In the cold light of day, I am finding another symptom. On the layers tab, I select the upper layer, set my fill and stroke for the curvature tool, flip back to the layer tab to double check the right layer is highlighted, and the first time I click with the curvature tool, the layer changes to the one below with all the paths created by expand from the image. The tool takes on the properties from layer 1.

Tried the pen tool, figured I would figure it out. When I use, the layer doesn't change which is awesome. But even with carefully reviewing the settings, it doesn't leave a line behind. I can see anchor points go down but no trace. The stroke and fill are right. Something's up.

[Bobby Henderson]

When manually tracing over placed artwork it's usually best to lock the layer containing the placed artwork and then draw new paths on an unlocked layer above the placed artwork. I would go nuts if I couldn't lock certain layers to keep placed artwork isolated.

The issue with the Pen tool not showing any paths drawn, just anchor points, sounds odd. If you switch to Outline View do you see any path connecting those anchor points? For troubleshooting the first thing I would try is re-launching Illustrator. Another step would be creating a new document to see if the Pen tool still behaves the same way there. Check to make sure the drivers in your computer's graphics accelerator are up to date.