Elements 2: Getting Started with Layers

WT
Posted By
wolf_tracks
Dec 25, 2005
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399
Replies
14
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Closed
This seems like it should be easy. I have two images as jpg files. One is b/w and the other color. The b/w is of a skyline, and the other of a plane flying in the sky. I would like to superimpose one on the other so that the night time shot has a visbile skyline. I’ve fooled around with the layer concept, and really have gotten nowhere. For the airplane, I seem to have one layer, at least, one row in the layer palette named background. For the skyline, its palette shows two: layer 1 and a checkered background. How do I glue these two images together? Merge layers doesn’t seem to help. What’s it actually merging? Don’t I have to make something transparent?

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet

"He who laughs, lasts." — Mary Pettibone Poole —

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E
edjh
Dec 25, 2005

W. Watson wrote:
This seems like it should be easy. I have two images as jpg files. One is b/w and the other color. The b/w is of a skyline, and the other of a plane flying in the sky. I would like to superimpose one on the other so that the night time shot has a visbile skyline. I’ve fooled around with the layer concept, and really have gotten nowhere. For the airplane, I seem to have one layer, at least, one row in the layer palette named background. For the skyline, its palette shows two: layer 1 and a checkered background. How do I glue these two images together? Merge layers doesn’t seem to help. What’s it actually merging? Don’t I have to make something transparent?

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet
"He who laughs, lasts." — Mary Pettibone Poole

Merge Layers does not apply here. The fundamental concept you need to grasp is that you have two documents open and need to put the image content of one into the other. There are a few ways to do this…

I’d suggest that you Select All on the B&W doc and Copy, then go to the color doc and Paste. Then you will have the airplane on its own layer and the skyline on its own layer. Now you can close the B&W doc.

Then you will need to use the various tools to make the two visible as one composition.

I’d look for some tutorials on the web to get the basics down and look through the manual or Help files.


Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html
L
LeOpdenbrouw
Dec 26, 2005
edjh wrote:

<snip>
I’d suggest that you Select All on the
B&W doc and Copy, then go to the color
doc and Paste. Then you will have the
airplane on its own layer and the skyline
on its own layer. Now you can close the
B&W doc.
<snip>

When you learn to select better you’ll be able to select only the airplane, then drag it into the other photo. It will automatically have its own layer, and you’ll be able to move it around for better positioning.

BTW, boh pictures (files) should be the same size and resolution or you may have a plane twice the size of Cleveland. Although, if you’ve selected just the plane you can resize it by dragging the corners with the Move tool.

HTH

Cheers Lee O.
WT
wolf_tracks
Dec 26, 2005
edjh wrote:

W. Watson wrote:

This seems like it should be easy. I have two images as jpg files. One is b/w and the other color. The b/w is of a skyline, and the other of a plane flying in the sky. I would like to superimpose one on the other so that the night time shot has a visbile skyline. I’ve fooled around with the layer concept, and really have gotten nowhere. For the airplane, I seem to have one layer, at least, one row in the layer palette named background. For the skyline, its palette shows two: layer 1 and a checkered background. How do I glue these two images together? Merge layers doesn’t seem to help. What’s it actually merging? Don’t I have to make something transparent?
….
Merge Layers does not apply here. The fundamental concept you need to grasp is that you have two documents open and need to put the image content of one into the other. There are a few ways to do this…
I’d suggest that you Select All on the B&W doc and Copy, then go to the color doc and Paste. Then you will have the airplane on its own layer and the skyline on its own layer. Now you can close the B&W doc.
Then you will need to use the various tools to make the two visible as one composition.

I’d look for some tutorials on the web to get the basics down and look through the manual or Help files.
Is ‘doc’ short for something? I do not see any reference to doc in the E2 glossary.
TE
Trace Elliot
Dec 26, 2005

W. Watson wrote:
(SNIP)
Is ‘doc’ short for something? I do not see any reference to doc in the E2 glossary.

Document
WT
wolf_tracks
Dec 26, 2005
Trace Elliot wrote:

W. Watson wrote:
(SNIP)

Is ‘doc’ short for something? I do not see any reference to doc in the E2 glossary.

Document
Ok. What is meant by document in terms of E2? Are we talking about files, pictures" How does one "Select Color and B&W"? Does this mean a mouse click or some menu item. My Select menu on the top shows greyed entries.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet

"He who laughs, lasts." — Mary Pettibone Poole —

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>
WT
wolf_tracks
Dec 26, 2005

W. Watson wrote:

Trace Elliot wrote:

W. Watson wrote:
(SNIP)

Is ‘doc’ short for something? I do not see any reference to doc in the E2 glossary.

Ok. What is meant by document in terms of E2? Are we talking about files, pictures" How does one "Select Color and B&W"? Does this mean a mouse click or some menu item. My Select menu on the top shows greyed entries.
Not quite. ‘All’ was not greyed out. Off I go exploring …
WT
wolf_tracks
Dec 26, 2005

W. Watson wrote:

W. Watson wrote:
….
mouse click or some menu item. My Select menu on the top shows greyed entries.

Not quite. ‘All’ was not greyed out. Off I go exploring …
Moving right along …

I made both images b/w and the same size. They were already the same size. Using the layer palette, both were shown as background, so I made background to layer 0 (Layer>New>layer from background) for the skyline (with opacity at 70% for kicks), and the plane layer 1 (Layer>New>. Its palette shows layer 1 and background, but layer 1 is a checkerboard. I can’t change the opacity of the background. Anyway, proceeding… If I copy the plane to the skyline, there is no sky visible.

Looks like I need to do something with the skyline layer. What? It’s background with the layer 1 a checkerboard.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet

"He who laughs, lasts." — Mary Pettibone Poole —

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>
E
edjh
Dec 26, 2005

W. Watson wrote:
W. Watson wrote:

W. Watson wrote:


mouse click or some menu item. My Select menu on the top shows greyed entries.

Not quite. ‘All’ was not greyed out. Off I go exploring …

Moving right along …

I made both images b/w and the same size. They were already the same size. Using the layer palette, both were shown as background, so I made background to layer 0 (Layer>New>layer from background) for the skyline (with opacity at 70% for kicks), and the plane layer 1 (Layer>New>. Its palette shows layer 1 and background, but layer 1 is a checkerboard. I can’t change the opacity of the background. Anyway, proceeding… If I copy the plane to the skyline, there is no sky visible.

Looks like I need to do something with the skyline layer. What? It’s background with the layer 1 a checkerboard.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet
"He who laughs, lasts." — Mary Pettibone Poole

You need to find some tutorials and read the manual. There are many things you can do depending on the image. You can erase or mask out the parts you don’t want for instance.

That checkerboard layer is empty by the way. The checkerboard just indicates transparency.It’s an empty layer that can be trashed.

A Document in any computer program is whatever is open that you can work on; an image or letter or whatever. Photoshop document, Quark document, Word document. You are working on and saving documents.


Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html
WT
wolf_tracks
Dec 26, 2005
edjh wrote:

W. Watson wrote:

W. Watson wrote:

W. Watson wrote:


mouse click or some menu item. My Select menu on the top shows greyed entries.

Not quite. ‘All’ was not greyed out. Off I go exploring …

Moving right along …

I made both images b/w and the same size. They were already the same size. Using the layer palette, both were shown as background, so I made background to layer 0 (Layer>New>layer from background) for the

….
You need to find some tutorials and read the manual. There are many things you can do depending on the image. You can erase or mask out the parts you don’t want for instance.

That checkerboard layer is empty by the way. The checkerboard just indicates transparency.It’s an empty layer that can be trashed.
A Document in any computer program is whatever is open that you can work on; an image or letter or whatever. Photoshop document, Quark document, Word document. You are working on and saving documents.
I found a boatload of tutorials at
<http://www.photoshopsupport.com/elements/tutorials.html>, but my first take on them is they look like they require $ or are very large (30K baud modem constrained–not good for videos), and I might be able to go to the library, today now that it’s open, and find some. I find the E2 manual and help just a little too general for my tastes. It needs a few specific examples, detailed, step by step. It seems to tell one mostly what it can do, or one can do, but not how.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet

"He who laughs, lasts." — Mary Pettibone Poole —

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>
E
edjh
Dec 26, 2005

W. Watson wrote:

/snip/
s
I found a boatload of tutorials at
<http://www.photoshopsupport.com/elements/tutorials.html>, but my first take on them is they look like they require $ or are very large (30K baud modem constrained–not good for videos), and I might be able to go to the library, today now that it’s open, and find some. I find the E2 manual and help just a little too general for my tastes. It needs a few specific examples, detailed, step by step. It seems to tell one mostly what it can do, or one can do, but not how.
Try http://www.myjanee.com/jnetuts.htm

Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html
WT
wolf_tracks
Dec 26, 2005
edjh wrote:

W. Watson wrote:

/snip/
s

I found a boatload of tutorials at
<http://www.photoshopsupport.com/elements/tutorials.html>, but my first take on them is they look like they require $ or are very large (30K baud modem constrained–not good for videos), and I might be able to go to the library, today now that it’s open, and find some. I find the E2 manual and help just a little too general for my tastes. It needs a few specific examples, detailed, step by step. It seems to tell one mostly what it can do, or one can do, but not how.

Try http://www.myjanee.com/jnetuts.htm

Thanks. I’ll take a look. However, in the meantime, the following works, and the key is to create a new document to place the other two into. Here are the important or basic steps (forgetting color, masking, enchancing, or whatever).

1. File>New, fill out the form as necessary for size considerations, etc
2. Open the two files, say, airplane and skyline
3. Use the layer palette on each image (doc) to set their opacity.
4. Use Edit>Copy and Paste to place the two images into the new image (doc)

Simple as 1, 2, 3 … er, 4. 🙂

That’s it. The rest is left to the imagination of the interested.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet —
"I often quote myself – it adds spice to
my conversation." – George Bernard Shaw

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>
T
Tacit
Dec 26, 2005
In article <vLYrf.3136$>,
"W. Watson" wrote:

1. File>New, fill out the form as necessary for size considerations, etc
2. Open the two files, say, airplane and skyline
3. Use the layer palette on each image (doc) to set their opacity.
4. Use Edit>Copy and Paste to place the two images into the new image (doc)

Generally speaking, you should not use Copy-Paste to move layers from one Photoshop document to another; it wastes memory. It’s far easier and faster to use the Move tool to drag the layer from one document to the other. Photoshop allows you to drag a layer or a selection from one window to another window; try it, it’s easy!


Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
E
edjh
Dec 26, 2005

W. Watson wrote:

Thanks. I’ll take a look. However, in the meantime, the following works, and the key is to create a new document to place the other two into. Here are the important or basic steps (forgetting color, masking, enchancing, or whatever).

1. File>New, fill out the form as necessary for size considerations, etc
2. Open the two files, say, airplane and skyline
3. Use the layer palette on each image (doc) to set their opacity.
4. Use Edit>Copy and Paste to place the two images into the new image (doc)

Simple as 1, 2, 3 … er, 4. 🙂

That’s it. The rest is left to the imagination of the interested.
That’s too complicated. Just paste the content of one doc into the other. Save it under a new name. No need to make a new doc. —
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Comics art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html
WT
wolf_tracks
Dec 27, 2005
tacit wrote:

In article <vLYrf.3136$>,
"W. Watson" wrote:

1. File>New, fill out the form as necessary for size considerations, etc
2. Open the two files, say, airplane and skyline
3. Use the layer palette on each image (doc) to set their opacity.
4. Use Edit>Copy and Paste to place the two images into the new image (doc)

Generally speaking, you should not use Copy-Paste to move layers from one Photoshop document to another; it wastes memory. It’s far easier and faster to use the Move tool to drag the layer from one document to the other. Photoshop allows you to drag a layer or a selection from one window to another window; try it, it’s easy!
Good. Got it. The first time I tried that it didn’t work, so going to a new doc worked.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA) (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15′ 7" N, 121° 2′ 32" W, 2700 feet —
"I often quote myself – it adds spice to
my conversation." – George Bernard Shaw

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

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