How to insert thumbnails of absentees onto a group photo?

[Imager]

I have spent some time looking through help files etc, and suspect this is a very simple procedure, but am unable to find the relative instruction.

I have a photo of a group, and want to add two small insets of absent members. Can someone who has done this please help.

[Rusty]

Hello, and welcome to the Forum.

What you want to do is easy in principal, sometimes difficult in application.

The people to be added are "selected out" from the image where they reside -- you cut them out of that picture. This is what's potentially difficult.

Then, when you merge them into your group picture, you bring them each in on their own layer. That lets you move them around into the proper position and resize them so they fit in scale with the others.

Here is a silly example:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1EABlif1oUESlJ6AZQpBPEqOLt5_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1EABlif1oUESlJ6AZQpBPEqOLt5)

Look in the photo Bin - 2 pictures: the group of 3 and the little skier
Look at Layers in the Palette Bin: "Background" is the group picture, the layer above that is the little skier that I cut out of that picture.

She was much larger in scale than desired but, because she is own her own layer, it was easy to use the Move Tool to resize and then slid her over to looking out the Cable Car window.

Rusty

[Diana]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

You should open each image of the absentees, crop and resize. Then open the group image. With the group image active in the workspace. Drag each absentee image up from the photo bin to the group image. Use the Move tool to position them where you want them. If they are too large, you can resize them by dragging in on one of the corners of the thumbnail.

These instructions are for version 5. If you have an older version you won't be able to drag from the photo bin. Another method: Make each thumbnail active in turn, Ctrl-A to select all, Ctrl-C to copy, then go to the group photo and Ctrl-V to paste.

If these instructions don't make sense to you, let us know.

Diana

[Imager]

Thanks for this -- I will have a try. I am using Elements 4.0 at present.