I am trying very hard not to lose my mind.

[Crissyc]

I am working on day 7 in the layers course.I press control and the new layers symbol in the layer palette. I am supposed to get a new layer BELOW the background but mine appears above the background and I cant move it. Also when I press enter after I cut it out. it acts like it going to work but nothing happens. I have the crop box checked. HELP!!!

[Wendy]

Hi ...

Ok then lets just take it one step at a time :)

To get the layer below you hold down control and press the new layer symbol ... yes that is what should happen. Well most of the time it does but if your image has a background layer then it will put it above that layer ... the background layer need to be renamed before you can put anything below it.

To rename it just go into the layers palette double click on the background layer ... then when the box come up to rename it just click on OK.

Just check that works OK and let me know :)

Now I don't really understand what you mean when you say "I press enter after I cut it out. it acts like it going to work but nothing happens" ... bit I'll just go and look at the Video and see if I can work it out ...

Wendy

[Crissyc]

Thanks Wendy that worked. I was able to do it. I was on the wrong layer. I had to turn off the background in order to see my selection. I know there are many ways to do things in Elements but if I do exectly what Matt does shouldnt I get the same results?

While I have your attention, I had a photo where I made a selection of part of the photc, inversed the selection, and desaturated the background. My problem is I want to make the selection around part of the photo look like a picture frame. I used stroke around the selection, but am unable to add a drop shadow. When I add a new layer I lose the selection.

[Wendy]

Hi ...

I have just taken a look at the Video ...

First thing is that you don't need the crop box checked that does something else (it crops off any excess of the transparent layer and we donlt want to do that)

Next thing is are you sure that you are using the tool on a layer that actually has an image in it ... just wondered if it was a blank layer.

Check that out and do let us know if it solves the problem :)

Wendy