Overlay photo w/ Excel Spreadsheet?

JC
Posted By
John Cater
Sep 5, 2003
Views
2083
Replies
11
Status
Closed
Hi, I’m a newbie to Photoshop 6. I have a photo that I have Image Sized to 8.5 x 11. I want to overlay it with a new layer I’ve created with the exact same dimensions. I know how to change the opacity of the Excel layer so I can see my background through it. I can’t figure out how to make the Excel layer 8.5 x 11. I’m doing a copy from Excel and pasting onto the background layer. Should I be doing this some other way? Thanks for your help. John C.

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DM
Don McCahill
Sep 5, 2003
You might want to do a "print Screen" of the excel screen, and then place it in a layer of its own. As long as it is not the background layer, you can set the opacity of the layer in the Layers Palette.
JC
John Cater
Sep 5, 2003
In Excel, I did an Alt-Print Screen. I went to PS, created a new layer, then did an Edit | Paste. That still puts a small image of my spreadsheet onto my background. I need my Excel image to be 8.5 x 11. I do not know how to resize my Excel spreadsheet image layer so that it completely covers my background. I’m trying to make a spreadsheet with my photo as a subtle background. Remember to be elementary with me. I’m very new to PS. Thanks.
MS
Mike Saxon
Sep 5, 2003
John: you may not need to use Photoshop at all, but can do it all within MS Excel. Here’s how:

1. Open your Excel file.
2. Go to File menu>Page setup>Header/Footer.
3. Choose Custom Header>Centre Section.
4. Click on Insert Picture button (2nd from right) and select your image (jpg, tif, bmp, etc) from the dialog box>OK
5. Click on Format picture button (righthand side), and adjust the size, position, crop dimensions, transparency, brightness and contrast of your picture. Also click on Compress to reduce the file size of your spreadsheet with your image.
6. Back out of all your boxes(OK>OK>etc) and click on Print preview to see what it looks like. Adjust to taste.

"Sometimes when you cannot bring Mohammad to the mountain, you must take the mountain to Mohammad."

Mike

P.S. This technique also works in MS Word documents, and can insert an image as a watermarked background, using the Header/Footer insert option.
L
LenHewitt
Sep 5, 2003
John,

I’m guessing that your Photoshop document is at some resolution other than 72ppi. To retain sizes the same both the screen shot and the original doc need to be at the same image rez.

You can then re-size the screen shot using transform, but screen-shots do not re-size well!

Better would be to get your screen shot into a new document than re-size using ‘Nearest Neighbour’ interpolation rather than bi-cubic
JC
John Cater
Sep 5, 2003
Mike,

OK. I’ll give this a shot and let you know what happens. Thanks.
JC
John Cater
Sep 5, 2003
Mike,

I didn’t have an Insert Picture button in my customer header section that I could find. I’m using Office 2000. Are you using Office XP? Maybe it is a "add-in"? I could insert the photo into Excel by clicking on Insert | Picture | From File. I could not adjust opacity once I got it there, nor could I put a spreadsheet on top of it. Do you know if this can even be done in Excel 2000? Thanks again for your help.

John
DP
Daryl Pritchard
Sep 5, 2003
John,

My first question is one of what are you attempting to do? This may seem a dumb to ask, but I assume you are trying to illustrate something about Excel as opposed to actually trying to use the spreadsheet functionality? If illustration is the objective, then there’s no problem combining a screen capture of Excel with an image in Photoshop other than the sizing issues you have already seen. However, if you’re attempting to retain a functional spreadsheet but provide an image underlay, then you’d have to follow something akin to Mike’s advice.

Between 2 PCs, I have both Office XP and 2000, and indeed Office 2000 lacks the insert picture capability for the header/footer format that Office XP provides. Again, depending upon your objective, you may find it suitable to use the Excel Format > Sheet > Background option to apply your image as a background. The potential drawback here is that the Excel Help states background patterns will not print, nor will they be saved in worksheets saved in HTML format. To retain the background in the saved file, the file must be published as a workbook. If you play with this, you may be able to obtain what you’re after, but you’ll also likely need to adjust the size of your background image so that it tiles onto the worksheet background to your liking.

If you should stick with the Photoshop approach of combining a screen capture of Excel with your image, keep in mind that you can maximize the size (pixel dimensions) of the screen capture by first setting your display resolution to the highest level supported by your video card and/or monitor, and then do the screen capture. If going to a larger display resolution gives you a distorted display that you’d need to adjust your monitor controls for, don’t bother…the screen capture will not be distorted and you can quickly revert back to the original display resolution you were using.

Hope that helps,

Daryl
EW
eli whittington
Sep 8, 2003
Daryl,
I saw your response to the above question. Your help would be greatly appreciated. I am working on a document where I am doing screen captures of a UNIX environment on Windows XP. The screen captures are okay in Photoshop, but lose resolution when imported/placed to Pagemaker. I have tried various file formats (.gif , .tiff, .jpg etcetera). Any suggestions? thanks…

Eli
DP
Daryl Pritchard
Sep 9, 2003
Hi Eli,

Unfortunately, I’ve never used Pagemaker so I’m at a loss as what to suggest. Generally, I’d expect any screen capture image placed into a document to be of a relatively low printed quality unless the image is sized to yield something on the order of 200-300 ppi. I don’t know if you’re referring to a loss of resolution onscreen or when printed, but I’d not expect an onscreen image to degrade too much since the display resolution should be the same as the screen capture if scaled to 100%. Hopefully someone else can offer some suggestions or you might try the Pagemaker forum if you haven’t already done so.

Regards,

Daryl
JC
John Cater
Sep 9, 2003
Mike,

I think that the watermark thing is going to work. Thanks for your help. Thanks to Daryl and others who tried to lend a hand also.

John
MS
Mike Saxon
Sep 10, 2003
You’re welcome, John.

Another possible option as a workaround IF you use an Epson printer: the recent models (I use an old 1270) can underlay a watermark behind the main text or spreadsheet. Go to the layout tab in the Epson printer driver, and choose Watermark>Add/Del.. Unfortunately only BMP image files are supported, but you could always convert to this in Photoshop. (Maybe other printers could do the same; I don’t know)

In the Epson print preview window, you can resize, rotate, alter density, etc to taste.

Just another thought if you don’t have the XP version of Excel, as Daryl discovered.

Mike

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