Layers Course Lesson 20 Help

[RWCastro]

I have been doing the Layers course with Elements 5 rather than 4, and up till now haven't run into any problems. That is up till now, but I can no longer say that. In Elements 5, I follow the instructions and do the following. I set up the music sheet as my background layer and then use the Move tool to bring the piano image over into the sheet music image as a new layer (Layer 1). I then create an adjustment layer and position it between the background layer and Layer 1, and group the 2 layers together as instructed. So far, so good, but this is where I run into problems. He says to click on the mask thumbnail in the adjustment layer, and then select the Paint Bucket tool (or use Alt>backspace) with the foreground color black to make the mask completely black, and thus make the layer totally transparent with nothing showing but the sheet music beneath it. When I do this the piano layer (Layer 1) does not completely disappear as it does in the instruction video, but rather remains visible at about a 20% opacity over the background layer, which is not good. I have checked all settings and have been unable to find anything that might cause this. All opacities are set at 100%, and I don't know what else to do to alleviate this problem. The funny thing is, I tried it out on Elements 4 and I don't have any problems at all....it works just like it is supposed to do. I haven't tried it on another Elements 5 setup yet, but I intend to do so to see if this is something inherent with mine, or a common problem with Elements 5. What I'd like to know is whether or not anyone else has run into this situation, and whether or not there is a work around to correct it. Thanks.

[GaryK]

Hi

It should work. Is the layer mask filled with black?

I wonder, if possibly, you don't have the default black and white as your f/g and b/g.

Hope this is it.:)

[RWCastro]

Thanks for your feedback Gary. Yes the mask in the Levels Adjustment Layer is completely filled with black, and I have the default black and white as my foreground and background colors. So far I am still at a loss as to what I'm doing wrong. I have tried this out on a different Elements 5 software application since I posted my original message and it worked just like it's supposed to there, so I can't figure out what's wrong with mine, or what I have configured wrong, if anything. Have you heard of things like this happening where it could possibly be something wrong with the software program? I suppose I could uninstall and reinstall it, but it would be a pain to have to put everything back into the Organizer again. Any other suggestions?

[GaryK]

the only thing I can think of is the CTRL-ALT-SHIFT.
This resets some things in the program and ususally fixes weird behaviour.

What you do is right after you start the editor (either by clicking the icon or by picking edit form the splash screen) hold down those three keys

CTRL-ALT-SHIFT..

keep holding until you get a a popup asking if you want to delete the preferences. Pick yes.

If you don't get the popup then you didn't hit the buttons quick enough.:)

Hope that sorts it out.

[RWCastro]

I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, and boy do I feel stupid. After clicking on the f/g color box and having the color picker come up, I noticed that my f/g color was not black, but rather a dark gray instead. It appeared to be black, and I just assumed that it was, but once I hit D to reset my f/g and b/g colors to their default black and white, I had no further problems. I guess you learn from your mistakes, so hopefully I learned something from this one. Thanks for your help and all your input. It is greatly appreciated.

[GaryK]

Glad you got it.

I should have suggested that (hitting D) sorry.:o